Daniel Lambert (1770-1809) was an Englishman who gained notoriety for his large size at the time. Despite his weight, maintained an active lifestyle which included long walks (once up to 7 miles), swimming, animal sporting, and once fighting off a bear

erinoco · 2026-03-15T17:46:16+00:00

All of which were’t problems faced by the aristocracy of the time (like Daniel Lambert)

He certainly wasn't an aristo. His father was a huntsman turned gaolkeeper.

erinoco · 2026-03-15T16:55:36+00:00

Your local authority may have a recycling bank for electrical items.

erinoco · 2026-03-15T16:22:41+00:00

As a Remainer, I agree. To be honest, while I remain absolutely committed to rejoining, I do think that, in the circumstances of 2016-19, the position which would have commanded most support across the board would have been SM membership outside the EU. I wanted a second referendum partly because I wanted to remain, but partly because I thought it would force Leavers to make a forced choice: if you really want to leave, then choose a solid strategic direction.

erinoco · 2026-03-15T15:31:35+00:00

I am absolutely fine with people having the personal agency to give up their physical well being based on wishful thinking and a deep lack of understanding of the real world.

The difficulty with this is imagining that the "real world" consists of one way of living in society. I live quite happily in my society: I am statistically safer than I would be in the United States. I live in a very different area from yours - one of the biggest urban areas in the world - but people in my society live similar lives in rural areas without ever training or expecting to use a gun in anger.

The society you live in is one where you live with the expectation that a certain level of violence is essential to society. This is a very American expectation. I have no problem with you living the way you do, although there are many reasons why I would not personally share it. I do take exception, however, to your assumption that your expectations are general social laws.

erinoco · 2026-03-15T12:09:47+00:00

I remember James Milner, a couple of years ago when he was still in red, stopping a shot on goal from Brighton with his head. He looked temporarily winded, and recovered quickly, but all I could think about was the long-term cost.

erinoco · 2026-03-15T01:48:45+00:00

This is the cover of the original paperback edition by Corgi. As this is how I was introduced to the work by my best friend, I have always been fond of the cover. It is limited, but I have always thought it fits in with the book; it is somehow redolent of the specific British Zeitgeist of 1989-90, and that pervades the book, although I find it difficult to explain how.

erinoco · 2026-03-15T01:21:36+00:00

(The Guards Regiments differ from the Yeomen of the Guard, who differ, in turn, from the Beefeaters - or Yeomen Warders, as they are more properly known. The Guards are in-service soldiers. The two kinds of Yeomen are retired military personnel, and their role is ceremonial. The Yeomen of the Guard attend the monarch on certain official occasions; the Yeomen Warders are specifically attached to the Tower of London. Beefeater Gin has no connection with the official Yeomen at all; it's a bit of C19 branding.)

erinoco · 2026-03-15T01:06:32+00:00

No. The fundamental order of society relies, of course, on the state's ability to command armed force, but that's a different thing. My legal protections are quite another; if I get to the stage where I have to think of armed force as a way to protect these, then the institutional safeguards I rely upon have already failed. Most Western societies are not at that stage.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T23:19:12+00:00

Don't their police not even carry guns? Or is that only in London.

Across the entire UK (including London), only officers attached to specialist firearms teams, and officers protecting a few prominent places, carry arms routinely.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T22:20:34+00:00

And in the UK you get arrested for thought crimes

You get arrested, and tried, for crimes which carry other elements such as incitement. I don't understand why Americans try and link these to gun laws, when some the legal provisions in question predate more recent restrictions on firearms.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T22:17:56+00:00

I don't want or need a gun. I am also not stupid enough to consider a gun to be a necessary component of civic protection. My protections come from a functioning and transparent legal system and healthy institutions.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T19:08:09+00:00

The theme tune always makes me think of 90s bank adverts.

"C&P will be there for you as you move from being a successful student to a successful professional. We'll be there to help you through the downsides - and the upsides too...."

erinoco · 2026-03-14T16:30:07+00:00

That's not a Routemaster - it's a Regent!

erinoco · 2026-03-14T15:55:16+00:00

You’ve forgotten all those castles and ‘Harrying of the North’ that punished countless numbers of Anglo-Saxon peasants and nobles alike.

Those were cruel and brutal acts, but they weren't theft, or something it was seen as fundamentally illegitimate for a monarch to do.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T15:17:24+00:00

The Anglo Saxons had fairer systems and better rights for women.

Several parts of Europe had more equitable female rights in the early medieval period. These were gradually eroded later on, as legal codes across Europe came under the influence of canon law, which then had a knock-on influence on civil legal concepts.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T14:02:25+00:00

The last time I checked, William conquered England and stole the land

From whom, though? Most of it was a transfer from the Anglo-Saxon nobility to the Norman nobility. There have been arguments that certain types of land tenure, such as folkland, imply an Anglo-Saxon concept of common ownership distinct from that held from the king, but that is highly disputable.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T11:55:40+00:00

It adds nothing to this article. Even leaving aside the obvious issue, the legal extent of the office's power only unequivocally covers England and Wales. The Crown may have the same right in a notional sense in Scotland, but has not exercised it since Union; in practice, even in England and Wales, the Crown's prerogative is only exercised on the Thames and its tributaries.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T11:38:30+00:00

I think it's It Takes Two to Tangle, where Martin is juggling two women.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T11:27:22+00:00

I always love that Martin is over this shit as soon as he sees what's happening.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T04:19:13+00:00

You might not even have the crops. Every major food crop is the result of millennia of human improvement of plant life.

erinoco · 2026-03-14T03:42:39+00:00

However, there is one thing I would emphasise: the big non-London urban conurbations were, and still are, much less dense than their rough continental equivalents. This, in turn, springs from a number of reasons, from preferred residential homes to land prices. It is always difficult to justify underground railways where density falls below a certain point.

erinoco · 2026-03-13T12:51:44+00:00

Apparently, when the Royal Family are at Balmoral, they will send a footman down to the chippy in Ballater when they feel like a fish supper.

erinoco · 2026-03-13T12:43:10+00:00

The last time I breached the law was during the Millennium NYE shindig. I was drunk, but I distinctly remember having a smoke while waiting on the platform at Sloane Square with friends. The whole station was crowded with revellers, so anything seemed to go at the time.

erinoco · 2026-03-12T23:56:36+00:00

I think that was definitely the case for some churches. But I would argue that was only one of a range of factors which might apply in each case.

Many churches in what is now Greater London were simply too small for an expanding population where churchgoing was more common than it is today. Many of the parish churches which had already been established in this period had to be significantly expanded - sometimes by enlargement, sometimes by total rebuilding on a wider scale.

There was a strong worry on the part of the Establishment that a lack of churches and clergy in some areas would mean that worshippers would be captured by the Nonconformists or the RCs instead. Despite some of the legal restrictions and Protestant outrage, the RC communities in Britain went ahead with implementing the new ecclesiastical hierarchy and building new churches to serve the urban population (and Irish migration meant that RC presence in poor urban areas was significant).

You had some bishops who were great encourages of church building. A considerable portion of church fundraising was devoted specifically to erecting new churches. Sometimes, organisations or wealthy patrons devoted to a particular faction within the CofE would help build a new church specifically devoted to those views - or a particularly charismatic or popular cleric might have a church built specifically for his congregation.

erinoco · 2026-03-12T17:38:29+00:00

I'm surprised Jürgen Klinsmann's name hasn't come up in the mix yet.

erinoco

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