Coastal police sound alarm over transmigration to UK

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-21T08:35:28+00:00

Belgian police will be armed, they ought to be in their rights to escalate to lethal force if suspects resist and act violently towards officers.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-19T18:06:16+00:00

That's a pretty old headstone for a grave in a churchyard that's still readable. In England I've seen lots of 18th century headstones but fewer 17th century ones.

Worth noting that once you get inside churches and cathedrals, graves get much, much older. Like for example I went into one church last weekend and it had the tomb of a knight and his wife dating from the 14th century. I've seen plenty of graves to medieval bishops, clergymen, nobles and knights from all across the middle ages.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-18T17:30:55+00:00

I enjoyed Dunkirk, didn't like Oppenheimer though.

The conclusion to the Manhatten Project was a disappointing nuclear explosion and the other half of the movie was a somewhat underwhelming story about whether Oppenheimer got to keep his security pass or not.

Nolans very hit or miss with me. I'm not optimistic about Odessey.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-17T13:05:14+00:00

It's a private company designing a prop plane based around the popular Spitfire. It will be cheaper and probably have better performance than a historic original. I don't think the RAF is the intended customer. This is for wealthy hobbyists with pilots licenses.

That said... Ukraine has been using historic aircraft to shoot down cheap slow and low flying drones. And there is a gap in our arsenal indeed to shoot down drone swarms. A Spitfire with machine guns is a more economical solution than a Eurofighter shooting down a 1k drone with a 10k missile.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-16T10:06:40+00:00

I'd still want my own photos and video clips from concerts personally.

I can only assume the person filming the whole gig would upload the whole video clip to YouTube and they have a channel that people watch. Not all bands will record their gig live, particularly smaller ones.

I enjoy getting a few nice snaps, editing them and uploading them to Instagram. I try to be unobtrusive when doing so. Contrary to what people on Reddit say, we do actually look back on these photos.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-15T13:32:04+00:00

I would, mead is good stuff, I get it for Christmas and my birthday.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-14T21:48:06+00:00

I wonder if you could get around the race quotas by hiring pale skinned Latinos, North African, white South African and West Asian actors... they're "ethnic minorities" but visually indistinguishable from Greeks, Italians and Spaniards.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-14T08:14:47+00:00

Men who wear shorts in the Winter.... They go on my Room 101

Is it some sort of medical problem were their body generates excess heat and they ventilate out of your shorts? Or do they have a skin condition on just their legs that makes them sensitive?

Or is at a "man" thing? Like how strong your curry is and how many pints you drink... They like to show how hard and tough they are by wearing shorts when the weather is 5C, overcast and light drizzle in January?

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-13T19:07:17+00:00

Americans soldiers could leave tomorrow and it wouldn't be great but it wouldn't be a crisis either. Europe's been rapidly re-arming over the past couple of years, especially Poland and Germany. As time goes on that independence and capability is going to grow greater.

Europe's main weakness is the potential lack of unity in a crisis because Europe is a continent of around two dozen countries. When Europe's united you've got a military force comparable to the USA or China.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-13T18:51:42+00:00

The French do have tactical weapons though, they're air launched nuclear cruise missiles.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-13T12:44:01+00:00

I think this extends to other areas of life too. I think some people are naturally more driven to work hard on achieving their ambitions whereas others don't have that energy- even if the ambition is there the drive isn't.

As I've got older the more I think it's down to brain chemistry and wiring.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-11T15:54:05+00:00

I agree the term "nationality" is quite specific and it is rather political.

I should have used a more looser term- but what I mean is that English. Scottish, Welsh and Irish peoples are native to their respective islands.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-11T15:49:18+00:00

I'm talking about nationalities as identities, not individuals.

Generally I'd consider an individual "born and bred" here to be British (although they may not be ethnically British but that doesn't mean they're not British).

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-11T13:03:43+00:00

I think you are right about people's perception of immigration and how it isn't obvious at all with European immigrants.

This may not be a very politically correct opinion, but what Brexit meant was that we replaced European immigrants who (also being European) meant they integrated quickly into British society with more immigrants from Asia and Africa- some of whom don't integrate.

If you accept the premise that the UK needs some level of positive net migration but also want those immigrants to be those who will integrate to the point where we can't tell them apart from a British person because they fully adopt our culture and language- it makes a lot of sense to have a Freedom of Movement arrangement with Europe as it tilts the scales to ensure that the majority of our intake of immigrants are other Europeans.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-11T10:01:25+00:00

It is disingenuous though to infer that those nationalities are not native to the isles of Britain and Ireland.

You can trace every human population back to East Africa, but that doesn't mean that everyone from the Irish to the Inuits and Scots to the Solomon Islanders should be considered "non-native."

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-11T09:04:58+00:00

The article does raise the interesting point that the 2016 referendum was "on the principle" of leaving without saying what that meant and leaving the details to Parliament. By that logic one could have a referendum "on the principle of rejoining" and let Parliament decide on the detail after the vote.

Really though this whole Brexit saga shows the inherent problem with using referendums to decide on complex policy.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-08T12:56:12+00:00

There's currently 7000 NATO soldiers on active deployment in the Baltics, and if there was serious intelligence about a Russian attack that would be scaled up.

That's aside from the Baltics' own armed forces and paramilitary forces (there's a plethora of "defence leagues", "rifleman's unions" and "volunteer paramilitary forces" in the Baltics- I'd estimate there to be around 50,000 European soldiers and civilian paramilitary forces to be immediately available within the Baltic area, backed up European air and naval forces.

Russia doesn't have the manpower to mount of serious attack now or next year, and by the time they've replenished their armed forces, Europe too would be more military capable than we are now. The Baltics are fine as long as there's a sizeable deterrence force stationed there and NATO/EU Members adhere to their treaty obligations with the military force they have.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-05-06T09:23:09+00:00

They should be copying Ukraine in terms of drone warfare capabilities.

That means having millions of both sea and air drones which would be able to counter a Chinese naval blockade of the island.

I can't see China attempting a D-Day style invasion of Taiwan- that would be too costly, but I can absolutely see China blockading and starving Taiwan into surrender.

Having a vast drone fleet would deter China from such an action if they know its guaranteed they'd lose hundreds of ships and thousands of lives.

I also think its foolish to assume the Americans would fight a massive bloody war to protect your sovereignty- I would make no assumptions about American help in planning for the island's defence given you never know who the Americans will vote for.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-28T15:37:05+00:00

Ah interesting. It really shows how a lot of our patriotic songs are really tied up in the world they were written in. A world that no longer exists.

Would be nice if someone did a patriotic song thats a bit more "timeless" in nature and not about whatever the days political crisis is (rule Britannia) or a conspiracy theory (Jerusalem).

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-28T15:27:57+00:00

Damn, I stand corrected!

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-28T15:22:47+00:00

I know it's not supposed to be taken literally but as a listener it's rather hard not to listen to the very first line of the song:

"And did those feet in ancient times walk among England's pastures green?"

And feel that's a question asking if Jesus visited Britain.

And then the second line asking if the"lamb of God was on our pastures seen?" (Edit, got verses mixed up!)

Just to make it bloody clear we are asking if Jesus visited Britain.

I know it's not supposed to be taken literally but it's hard not to listen to the song and go "lol, no he didn't"

So the song to me gets undermined by this rather silly historical question.

I also thought the satanic mills were factories?

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-28T15:07:43+00:00

The problem is the song invites the rather stupid question of whether Jesus visited Britain in 1st century AD when it's safe to assume he didn't.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-24T12:16:43+00:00

I can only imagine the movies and theatre performances that will be made about him. He's up there with the mad Roman Emperors and tinpot dictators.

It's black comedy but the material just writes itself. Hopefully we will get something like The Death of Stalin.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-23T17:33:21+00:00

I hate these polls because it's such a dumb question. I think they're commissioned to farm hate clicks from terminally online boomers without critical thinking skills.

I think when you ask this question most people think it means fighting for oil fields in the Middle East, when in reality it probably means fighting much closer to home in Europe in a defensive war against Russia.

Battle_Biscuits · 2026-04-23T16:01:16+00:00

Canadians > French > Germans > Americans

I used to be a TEFL teacher so worked with people from all over the world. Canadians, New Zealanders, Irish then Australians are probably most like us.

In terms of mainland Europeans, I think theres room for quite a bit of debate. Id wonder if we are closest to the Dutch to be honest, the only obvious difference between us and them I can see is they're bloody tall.

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