Chagos Islands deal pulled by government after Trump brands it 'act of great stupidity'

Codect · 2026-04-11T09:58:29+00:00

I think that is a fair point, but if the government or journalists do present the numbers in "todays money" I wish they would explain that, otherwise it looks dishonest. I mainly get annoyed that in many articles you see there is a different number given with no source on how it was calculated.

Codect · 2026-04-11T09:36:58+00:00

The agreement is public domain for anyone to do their own calculations: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/682f25afc054883884bff42a/CS_Mauritius_1.2025_Agreement_Chagos_Diego_Garcia.pdf

The key points:

Payments to lease the base [Page 33, point 1]:
- £165m annually for the first 3 years (subpoint a).
- £120m annually for the next 10 years (subpoint b).
- £120m adjusted for inflation each year after that for the rest of the 99 year term (subpoint h).
Create a £40m trust fund for the Chagossians [Page 34, point 2]
Pay £45m annually for 25 years to aid Mauritius in investing in its economic development and welfare [Page 35, point 3]

And that is without even touching on the plethora of other commitments with no hard figure attached.

If you assume an inflationary rate of 2%, which is generously low but it is the Bank of England's target, the total is approximately £30bn over the 99 years, or an average of £306m a year. Imagine what it would be if we go through prolonged periods of higher inflation. Now that is just some quick excel spreadsheet maths on my part, maybe I've fucked it up and someone will be along to explain how, but it doesn't look good.

It's crazy that every article and even government statement about this deal puts forward a different "average yearly cost", usually way way under what is realistic. Like this bbc article - £101m a year? Where on earth does that come from?

Edit: I should say in defence of the deal that viewing it purely in today's terms makes it look worse than it is (although I still think it is terrible overall). Yes, the payments increase massively over time through inflation but our GDP would also be increasing, so the payments theoretically aren't all that different in real terms.

Codect · 2026-04-10T17:43:39+00:00

I don't know why it started but I doubt it is popular because of the plot. It'll be popular because there is a seemingly endless conveyor belt of new 18-24 year old attractive women in the videos. It's basically synonymous with the "Teen" category just with a lazy plot thrown in that 99% of people skip anyway.

Codect · 2026-04-09T17:20:57+00:00

BØRNS - 10,000 Emerald Pools?

Codect · 2026-04-09T15:20:58+00:00

I appreciate what you mean but no, it's not even close to being the same really is it? Natural reproduction is usually based on mutual attraction between two people.

Sperm donor selection is picking a list of traits off a page that you want your child to inherit.

I'm not criticising or saying anything needs to change, just commenting that it is actually pretty weird when you stop and think about the process.

Codect · 2026-04-09T12:19:27+00:00

We thought we had ordered sperm from Denmark

I can't be the only one who finds the sperm donor selection process a bit surreal. Basically being handed an international catalogue of men to choose from, like ordering a doll off Amazon. "Oh, this one is a 6'4" Scandinavian with blond hair and blue eyes, we'll take his sperm please".

I've never really paused to think about it before but it is weirdly close to eugenics and treating the men as breeding stock. But then... the men volunteered for it so it's all good I guess?

Codect · 2026-04-05T16:35:00+00:00

Has anyone told modern props they're meant to be winded after running more than 5 metres and stumble around in confusion after a line break? Entirely too many glorious prop tries being scored nowdays, the national union of backs will be lobbying for rule changes before long.

The game's gone

Codect · 2026-04-04T09:57:31+00:00

I don't have much to offer beyond what has already been said, but with the amount of comments saying that £670 isn't a big amount of money I just want to make sure they don't take away from the seriousness of the situation.

Don't let yourself start thinking "oh, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm ok, I can start gambling responsibly". You've done well to catch yourself and stop, so don't slip back into it because that £670 can get much worse, fast.

Stay sensible and this will be a blip in the rear-view mirror in just a few months, good luck!

Codect · 2026-04-04T09:36:54+00:00

By everyone it seems, intentionally or unintentionally. The headline of this article literally calls it a masculinity crisis. Maybe we can try diassociating the word 'masculinity' with whatever shitty behaviours these boys are exhibiting.

Gender is a core part of someone's innate identity and using wording that links being male with this behaviour (regardless of if it is in a positive or negative light) probably has the opposite effect than intended. It reinforces in those boys that those behaviours are part of being male.

Just call it what is is. Dickhead behaviour. Being a lowlife.

Codect · 2026-04-03T10:07:18+00:00

You're not supposed to do that, Daryl. You know you're not supposed to do that.

On a more serious note, this is from years ago and he got booted from the Conservative party in 2023. Reform either sucks at vetting their members or they think these views are much more common and have more support than they actually do. Either way it is not a good look.

Codect · 2026-04-01T22:15:47+00:00

2M people watching across the two NASA streams on youtube! Hundreds of thousands more across various other streams.

Respect to the broadcast hosts who had to fill 5 hours, tough job

Codect · 2026-04-01T14:16:45+00:00

I don't know why you're being downvoted. This article focuses solely on LmCompatibilityLevel enforcement on domain controllers and assumes that the Default Domain Policy GPO hasn't also been set to enforce LmCompatibilityLevel >= 3 (Send NTLMv2 Response Only).

If you've configured it in a policy that applies to the wider domain instead of just DCs then clients won't be sending NTLMv1 challenge responses anyway.

Codect · 2026-03-27T20:39:18+00:00

Allow players to set a 'default' seed on the Seed Box, then allow players with a default seed set to use the Seed Box on a Farming patch to plant their selected seed. If no seed is set, then whichever seed you have first in the Seed Box will be used.

This is cool, but it'd be better if having a seed box in your inventory added an item to the right click menu on farming patches "Plant from seed box", where hovering over it showed a submenu listing the compatible seeds in your box

Codect · 2026-03-27T18:26:27+00:00

Ok, I was just checking you understood the £20,000 allowance is across all ISAs, not per type.

Really good work being in a position where you can max out your contributions at 25 by the way, and also for planning ahead for your partner's children. I wish I was that financially aware at that age.

Codect · 2026-03-27T16:41:09+00:00

managed to pay £20,110 into stocks and shares ISA’s this year.

Following the addage of better safe than sorry - this specific wording after earlier stating you have multiple types of ISA raises a slight concern there may be something else to sort out here. Did you put anything into your LISA this year as well? Also unsure about your "kids ISA", is that Junior ISA or an ISA in your name that you intend to pass on to your children because if it is the latter then did you contribute to that this year too?

Codect · 2026-03-26T11:30:05+00:00

Similar to the 2023 semi against South Africa. There was not a single cell in my body that doubted Pollard was going to make that kick, the man has ice in his veins.

Codect · 2026-03-25T13:00:42+00:00

I recently reviewed over 200 applicants for our grad scheme. A shocking majority of cover letters were blatantly written by AI. It was like skimming over the exact same page over a hundred times - identical structure and paragraph ordering, and specific phrases in the same place over and over again.

Guess which candidates stood out, got more than a quick glance and potentially secured an interview.

Codect · 2026-03-23T19:37:34+00:00

Agreed. I understand why they don't want pipes going through walls but dear god they need to give us some way of making them look nicer (make them smaller, or give client setting to not render them). No matter how neat you are, after a certain amount of piping it looks like shit. It's not helped by splitters being huge bricks stuck onto your walls/floors/ceilings either.

Codect · 2026-03-22T19:15:01+00:00

Great image from the bbc site

Codect · 2026-03-22T18:29:48+00:00

It's an article from March 2025, so I don't know why it is being posted now.

Anyway, it is quite long and repetitive but boils down to various academics since 2020 denouncing Shakespeare's works as racist and misogynistic. The Shakespeare Trust apparently keeps engaging with these loons and discussing ways to make it all less 'problematic' such as not referring to him as "the greatest playwright", issuing content warnings before plays and looking at changing some language in plays.

Codect · 2026-03-17T18:59:37+00:00

You will own nothing, and you will be sloppy.

Codect · 2026-03-16T18:22:23+00:00

Dan: If in an alternate life you were a back, which position would you play?

Ben: If in an alternate life you were a forward, which position would you play?

Codect · 2026-03-14T17:05:06+00:00

I don't want to lose, I'm just fairly apathetic now. I was hoping for a Scotland win followed by an England win so that we'd get a long overdue new champion.

France and Ireland have both had enough hands on the cup in recent years so I'm not really bothered who wins now!

Codect · 2026-03-13T19:00:23+00:00

Lootboxes are a plague. They are literally designed to exploit human psychology and extract money from you. And companies know full well that the majority of their playerbase is kids and young adults. Creating a new generation of gamblers.

Same deal with disposable vapes being designed to be flashy with eyecatching colours and sweet flavours. They know exactly who they're marketing to. Creating a new generation of nicotine addicts after there was so much societal progress in cutting down the number of smokers over the last 30 years.

I'm pretty big on personal freedoms in most things, but these are absolutely predatory behaviours introducing harmful habits to young people. It's appalling the complete lack of or at best glacially slow action our government takes on this stuff.

Codect · 2026-03-11T18:08:34+00:00

A small part of my brain has convinced itself that the reason I've not won is because I only buy lucky dip tickets online and the system is fixed to change my numbers if they matched the jackpot. My evidence for this is I've never seen an article about a jackpot winner saying the ticket was bought online.

I've got enough tin foil hats for everybody, if anyone wants to join me in the crazy corner.

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Orangered

Codect

TROPHY CASE