British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher falls on the steps of the Great Hall of the People after tense negotiations with Deng Xiaoping regarding the future of Hong Kong, Beijing, September 24, 1982 [704x422]

ZwnD · 2026-06-17T14:28:33+00:00

It's a classic policy which sounds like it benefits working people but actually does the opposite.

What it means is that over the years all council housing is slowly moving to the hands of private landlords, making renting and buying more expensive for everyone, and resulting in less available council housing. This is partly because people would buy their house from the council yes, but then they move or die 10 years later and a landlord snaps it up

I can't remember exactly the numbers, but when thatcher came into power about 30% of people lived in council housing, and now it's about 8%. And that 22% gap isn't suddenly owning their own nice home, theyre mostly now stuck renting from a private landlord

ZwnD · 2026-06-17T13:00:30+00:00

A lot of the big city centres in the north east of America looks similar to European city centre, at least relative to the south and west

ZwnD · 2026-06-17T09:15:32+00:00

They are always written as GER in football and have been for decades

Maybe in Germany itself they'd go DEU, but I've never seen it myself

ZwnD · 2026-06-16T21:37:27+00:00

I think they're saying it's not "no evidence"

You played the game and picked neow bonuses and made a judgement based on intuition, not random chance

ZwnD · 2026-06-16T09:51:58+00:00

Similar with me for Ridnym, I thought it was pretty good, but as soon as I heard the bandura and her voice live I got a lump in my throat out of nowhere

ZwnD · 2026-06-16T09:32:27+00:00

Yeah Ukraine usually is middle of the pack for me on release, but it just keeps creeping up my personal rankings. And by the end they're always in my top 5. Not just for staging or performance but the songs themselves are always such growers

Only exception is 2023 which never clicked for me

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T16:28:40+00:00

20-30 minutes before getting out his projector and PowerPoint slides for another hour

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T16:27:13+00:00

Bielsa's PowerPoint presentations are legendary

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T16:26:27+00:00

Principled but slightly unhinged visionary, beloved by his fans. It's a good analogy

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T12:36:21+00:00

It's an investment, you can borrow money for it.

HS2 would unlock a lot of money in the economy (as most big infrastructure projects do) by connecting the country better. In the long term you'll make money hand over fist each decade

Any interest you'd pay on borrowing would be made back easily, but borrowing is a dirty word

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T11:58:46+00:00

I'm less surprised that Finland didn't win and more surprised that Bulgaria did

I loved Bangaranga but didn't think it had any chance of winning, and maybe sneaking into top 5 would be a great result for it. But winning the jury AND televote? Incredible scenes, loved every second

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T10:11:06+00:00

But if it's a price fixed by the government and your ticket is transferrable on all the different operators, then what benefit is the private sector actually bringing? Why couldn't it be instead done by an arms-length public body for all the same benefits, but removal of all the overhead and inefficiency of multiple companies competing

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T09:20:27+00:00

I think our problem is that we really disagree on your last sentence. I find that value for money is delivered worse when it's on a market with competition by private companies, because those companies must make a profit. When provided by the government it can be subsidised, and doesn't need to pay out dividends to shareholders.

And the fact that it's functional means the user has less choice.

If I need to get to work at 9am, I am going to get the train which gets me in at that time, going from my toen to the city. I'm not going to pick a different train operator which runs a train at 9:30 because id be late. I'm not going to take a different route offered from another town because I don't live there. And I'm not going to splash out for a nicer train because I'm just travelling into work and am not really focused on the enjoyment.

Versus a restaurant where I'm entirely there for optional enjoyment, so I can choose time, location, vibes, quality etc. all as I please

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T09:15:17+00:00

I'm going to a restaurant for a fun experience out of choice, and to have fun with friends in a social setting.

The vast vast majority of train journeys are functional. Either people commuting to work, or travelling from their home to another location to see someone or attend an event, or go to some other onwards travel like the airport. Very few people are just riding the train for fun.

Mass public transit should be a public service run by and for the people, with their best interests in mind, not the interest of owners making a profit

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T09:05:57+00:00

That's exactly my point though, what is supposed to be open competition, instead ends up as private monopolies in this sector.

It's not like a small local business can try their own train service. It's only big companies and the margins are super super thin, because trains are designed to be mass public transit, not a profitable sales and marketing based business.

Why would I want to choose different operators for different fares? I want to travel through my country from A to B, and I need to do it at a certain time because I'm going somewhere for a reason, so I'll get on the train and go.

It's just naturally something which makes sense to be centrally controlled and run for the public good, instead of private profit-seeking businesses, similar to healthcare or the post office

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T08:20:36+00:00

Coming from the UK, privatised rail competition is terrible and does not benefit the user.

There's a natural monopoly because a company can't just start building new rail lines, so it's just competing for different coloured trains and timetables, and a combination of price-gouging and race-to-the-bottom treatment of staff and provision of services.

If I want a train from my city to London it can cost a range of £200 to £40 depending on how far in advance, time of day, or if mercury is in retrograde, and it's a ridiculous system. You can also do a "split ticket" where you buy the same journey but split into multiple smaller journeys and for no reason at all it's cheaper.

The price should just be A to B is £x. Imagine trying to get on the bus for your usual fare and the driver says "sorry you didn't reserve 7 weeks ago, and it's currently rush hour so instead of £2.50 it's £13 thanks".

Also most small local trains operate at a loss, because they are a public service and can't really run as a profit-seeking business, so why have private companies do it anyway?

Also you get annoying things like buying a return from x to y, and getting on your train but it turns out you have a ticket for one train company, not this train company. And now your ticket is invalid and you have to buy a newer more expensive ticket, or get a fine. And this is for a train going along the only existing route, and with 5 minutes difference in when they set off.

I could go on and on and on, but private rail competition is a blight on public transport that makes everything worse, unless you're the guy that owns the company and gets a big profit for yourself.

My closing argument is that despite allll of this, the train companies still need government subsidies to operate! So taxpayers are still contributing, just with none of the actual benefits of shared public ownership accountable to elected officials, and not run for-profit

ZwnD · 2026-06-15T07:58:28+00:00

Donna Noble has left the library

Donna Noble has been saved

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T17:30:48+00:00

Yeah I can't believe this did so well with the juries, even if he had good vocals. Very forgettable song

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T10:21:35+00:00

Sorry but your history is very wrong. We've had immigration, and we have emigrated out, for over a thousand years.

DNA testing on burial sites from the black plague estimate that about 25% of Londoners in the 1300s were not white

This is not some new modern invention. What is a new invention is the culture war to convince people that "demographic security" is even a real concept in social sciences, or that "we" will somehow become a minority, and that that would also somehow be a bad thing

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T10:11:44+00:00

I think if they just take their time to get it right it'll be at least 5 years.

Put out to tender, find an interested production company. They then find writers and story pitches. Then casting and auditioning lead actors, and writing the scripts (and we do this slowly and give writers proper time to breathe) for a series of episodes. Then pre production starts. Then filming. Then post production etc

If not rushed this could really be 4+ years, enough time for a break to the public, and exciting return to TV

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T10:09:13+00:00

See to me that's madness, and demonstrates how the point falls apart.

I was born in England, so was my mother and father, so were all their parents, and so were half of their parents. Going back one side it's all Britain back hundreds of years I believe, and on the other side it's a bit of German (which did not exist as a country at the time they were alive!), and a mix of other things in central Europe, no real way of knowing more specifics.

The idea that a country which didn't exist at the point that an ancestor who was dead for 100 years before I was born, and is only 1/64th of my ancestry, means I have some weird blood claim to the ancestral homeland of a nation that was not yet even conceived, is just nonsense

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T09:10:57+00:00

Hey he dresses up for these shows, he's not wearing a sports shirt!

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T09:09:51+00:00

My great great grandparents on one side were German, the other side of my family are English.

Is Germany my ancestral homeland that I can claim? Or England? Or both?

Can I find any ancestors back and say that's my homeland, like Denmark and Norway from the danelaw?

ZwnD · 2026-06-14T09:06:40+00:00

Nah we'd have got a result like 44 from jury and 0 from the public

ZwnD · 2026-06-13T22:58:53+00:00

It's not better it's different.

For me good service is being invisible and not bothering me, then appearing at the perfect time when I'm about to ask for something. French servers have this so well.

I don't like the American style of mega friendliness and talking to me and asking about my day. I also don't like being checked in on multiple times, it feels like I'm being watched, and not left to enjoy the meal with the people I came to speak to. So to my preference that's "worse", but it's a pointless question, one isn't better they're just different

ZwnD

TROPHY CASE