FlyTheNest

Hello!

Good morfternoon.

Hello all, I see quite a few were otherwise engaged yesterday.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -ecodesign

‘Eco’ wood stoves emit 750 times more pollution than an HGV, study shows

We almost succumbed to the wood burning stove fad a few years back but eventually decided on the slightly less middle class choice of blocking off the fireplace altogether in order to install a 50" telly. Better for watching Netflix and better for the environment, a win-win!!

Talking of the environment, with the UK hosting Cop26 in November, shouldn't Tory MPs be just a little bit more on message?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -urge.html

Britain should reconsider its ban on fracking and exploit North Sea oil to help end reliance on foreign energy imports, MPs urge

(Apologies for the Mail link, but there's a good run down of the Tory MPs shackled to the fossil fuel industry in this article. Utterly depressing)

RIP Yoffy.



I'd completely forgotten that there was a scampi in Fingerbobs.

Willow904 wrote: ↑Sat 09 Oct, 2021 12:45 pm We almost succumbed to the wood burning stove fad a few years back but eventually decided on the slightly less middle class choice of blocking off the fireplace altogether in order to install a 50" telly. Better for watching Netflix and better for the environment, a win-win!!

My tree hugging, eco-friendly, save the enviroment brother has one which provides me with a nice big pointy stick to prod him with whenever he gets on his high horse about other people polluting the planet. Now I'll just have to point at lorries to wind him up.

Biology. Work. Environment. Procreation. Society. Species.
etc
Discuss.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -our-heads

So - is it just that some expats evetually go home - or is Australia really better than the UK in terms of long-term political outlook for half decent human beings?

Good morfternoon.

‘Send us home,’ beg Afghan refugees stuck in UK hotels

One council leader described the government’s programme as a “shocking failure”. Councillor Danny Thorpe of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, south-east London, said the lack of organised government support when 700 Afghans arrived in the borough in August was “unforgivable”. “This was one of the most shocking failures of government that I ever encountered,” he said.

He said: “There was a huge mismatch between the rhetoric of senior government politicians and their actions to support those people.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... rm-welcome

Edited to add link

Australia has an awful lot wrong with it, not least a Johnsonite right wing government.

If anyone thought brexiters would ever concede that their idiocy has consequences take a look at the most popular comments under this (for once truthful) article in the Mail.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -food.html

When I went to Tesco today there were massive gaps in the shelves, most noticeably when it came to fresh meat and pasta. There were also no free range eggs at all and just to really piss me off they had no brown sauce apart from the economy stuff that's like vinegary diarrhrea.

Now if I noticed this I'm pretty confident everyone else did and no amount of sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming fake news online is going to help bleating brexiters persuade people that the reality they're seeing in the shops is in fact a mass hallucination.

EU must be ready to send aid to Brexit Britain, says former PM of Finland.

Brussels should offer basic goods to help as Brexit bites, even though it is all Britain's fault.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... m-finland/

Mr Stubb, who led Finland for 11 months and was the country’s finance minister, predicted the only way to save Britain would be for it to renew closer ties with the EU.

The former MEP and vice-president of the European Investment Bank suggested that the offer of help could tempt the UK back into the fold.

He rejected Boris Johnson’s insistence that the disruption to petrol and other supplies were part of the growing pains as the UK transitioned to a high wage economy after Brexit.

Mr Stubb said, “This is not a period of adaptation, it is a rather permanent reality and fact linked to voluntary isolation and myths of sovereignty in an interdependent world.”

"The only way out of this mess is the gradual return to cooperation with eventual discussions on new arrangements,” he added.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has gone to Marbella on holiday.

Morning.

Good morefternoon, even.

It's a gift.

I hardly dare ask.......but what is?

tinyclanger2 wrote: ↑Sun 10 Oct, 2021 4:55 pm It's a gift.

...is a great film starring W.C.Fields.

Some of the funniest sequences you'll ever likely to see on film including when he's trying to sleep on the verandah, and when Mr Muckle the blind man comes over to Fields' shop.

In other news...this is just depressing.

UK’s ‘strictest’ headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh made social mobility chief

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... lity-chief

Boris Johnson’s senior advisers, the husband-and-wife team Dougie Smith and Munira Mirza, who are leading the Downing Street culture wars, have been reported to be fans of Birbalsingh, who describes herself as holding “small ‘c’ conservative values”.

Look out for wide sweeping generalizations about all other schools, and that the only way is hers.

She is astonishingly ignorant about primary schools - she tweeted the other day about primary tests and was utterly clueless about what went on in primary schools.

Didn't right wingers always criticise teachers for the lack of business experience? Well that's not going to happen with her...as far as I know she's only been a teacher but the right will hang on her every word, no matter how bizarre.

AnatolyKasparov wrote: ↑Sun 10 Oct, 2021 5:18 pm I hardly dare ask.......but what is?

My stimulating contributions.
(think Clanger, think tumbleweed)

I do wonder how we can get democracy to work a bit better.
The main problem appears to be the progressive normalisation of strange and unsupported (by evidence) views on stuff.

Such that charlatans can get away with almost anything.

For example:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... left-power

Meanwhile this unvaccinated political contender, hospitalised for covid and treated with monoclonal antibodies says:

I can attest that, after this experience, I am even more dedicated to fighting against vaccine mandates. Instead of enriching the pockets of Big Pharma and corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, we should be advocating the monoclonal antibody infusion therapy,” he argued.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 35727.html

Am curious to know who this guy thinks is developing covid treatments.
Am also curious to know why people who are afraid of corrupt politicians appear to be more likely to vote for them.

(or even be them)

Travelling through Bradford...continued.

I'm pleased to say the travelling part went without a hitch this evening, buses and train on time and all went well as I made my escape.

Apart from a gaggle of about 10 kids on the other side of the fence at Bradford Interchange shouting abuse and throwing stones at passengers on the platforms and the trains. I suppose it could have been worse, it could have been fireworks, but thanks to supply chain and import problems apparently they're much harder to come by this year so it was only small rocks. I did ask the bored looking guy at the ticket barrier if he'd called the police but he just looked at me like I was stupid and said, "What's the point?"

Myself and another gentleman did shout back at them and goad them into seeing if they could hit us but their aim was laughably bad, which is just as well because I remember doing something similar with some Geordie kids once who were throwing stones and one of them got me right in the balls.

tinyclanger2 wrote: ↑Sun 10 Oct, 2021 9:07 pm I do wonder how we can get democracy to work a bit better.
The main problem appears to be the progressive normalisation of strange and unsupported (by evidence) views on stuff.

That's always been true though, the ancient Athenians voted for all sorts of mad shit, it's not like humans are getting dumber, we've always had a surfeit of idiots prepared to believe absolute bollocks.

That's the main problem with democracy and there's nothing we can do about it besides a mass cull or genetic engineering.

Some advocate a more liberal stance involving improved education and increased access to the arts and culture, a Reithian approach if you will, and I do have some sympathy with such arguments, but after decades of the BBC attempting such an experiment ironically it's their own vox pops interviews with random people in local markets that makes me want to take a fucking flamethrower and burn them all.

This is probably why I don't have a lot of friends.

May I enquire why a certain diminutive Clanger has taken up the reins?

I sense the surfeit is larger - or at least more collated.

The BBC pulled off the experiment in its early collaboration with the Open University, and the likes of the World Service. But then they launched Breakfast and started making children's programmes that require prescription drugs to avoid massive over-stimulation.

tinyclanger2 wrote: ↑Mon 11 Oct, 2021 12:01 am I sense the surfeit is larger - or at least more collated.

I really don't. Despite it's reputation ancient Athens is a fascinating case study in fuckwittery, our polis might be bigger these days but we make exactly the same mistakes.

The consequences for us however are thankfully somewhat less severe.

The BBC pulled off the experiment in its early collaboration with the Open University, and the likes of the World Service. But then they launched Breakfast and started making children's programmes that require prescription drugs to avoid massive over-stimulation.

I have never been up early enough to see BBC Breakfast in my life.

The brief glimpse I saw of BBC Breakfast showed people seated on some sort of upholstered bench. I'd hesitate to call it a couch\sofa\settee. It looked like one of those things designed to discourage lingering and lounging that you sometimes saw (or perhaps they still have them) in 'bus shelters.

The flamethrower's in the post.

See that's the problem, I've done everything I can do to make lingering and lounging on my couch/sofa/settee a luxurious experience. Even far from home I can hear its siren song calling me to its velourious bosom. Now and again even the fluffy cushions join the chorus. I'm lying on it right now enjoying its warm fuzzy embrace. It's not healthy for a man to be in love with his couch/sofa/settee but it's just so comfy and at times I'm less than suitably enraged by current events because of it.

Night night.

It could be we had gotten a bit better, sociologically speaking, and are now reverting rapidly to Ancient Athenian standards (before science albeit not before natural philosphy).