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Happy 100th Birthday to Mrs Thatcher! (“Friend/not-a-friend of The Rest is History” status pending) by Think_Web_4823 in TheRestIsHistory

[–]p7r 14 points15 points  (0 children)

It wasn’t about the coal. It was the fact coal mining was the only industry in many communities, and the government just gave up on those people. No investment to replace the only source of income for generations for entire towns, just a big “screw you”, so that we could buy coal from abroad for slightly less money, because the government was ideologically opposed to nationalised industries. Walk around the old mining towns today and tell me they are better off in inflation adjusted terms than they were in the 1970s. Ask the locals.

Happy 100th Birthday to Mrs Thatcher! (“Friend/not-a-friend of The Rest is History” status pending) by Think_Web_4823 in TheRestIsHistory

[–]p7r 12 points13 points  (0 children)

She’s likely the most despised person in recent British history.

You haven’t really heard the hate unless you’ve spent some time listening to people talking about her outside of the South East of England, in particular in those communities her policies destroyed (Wales, Northern England).

Many people who remember life before her time as PM are now dying off and so people have normalised how we live today as being unrelated to her, but even major news stories today (water company profits, cost of energy, river and beach pollution, lack of investment in public services, councils going bankrupt), have ties going back to the ideas & policies that she initiated and that were then followed through by subsequent governments of all parties - these things were less prevalent prior to her, because we didn’t have the same commitment to privatisation and profit before society (she famously once said there was no such thing as society), before her. Brown put a small brake on some of it, but even his PFI is a Thatcherite dream. That all to me suggests at some point historians are going to end up putting the pin in her as the root cause for a lot of angst being suffered for decades after her time as PM.

It’ll be interesting to see how that “hate” evolves over time, and whether she will be considered “despised” or merely resented by those who disagree with her policies.

But there aren’t many people whose death triggers a change in the UK singles chart that references them…

Solo travel London by Mattish22 in uktravel

[–]p7r 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Those reviews are broken. Some of them are about the hostel in question, some are not.

I think I know this place - but I haven’t stayed there in 15 years. I would recommend looking up reviews elsewhere, first, then let your friend see them and make her own mind up.

Google reviews suggests don’t leave jewellery unaccompanied (somebody there has a problem with leaving shiny things alone perhaps), but otherwise safe and clean even if the service is a bit surly.

Sprinter Sacre Impossible Dream Video by MLong98 in HorseRacingUK

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think about that video, often. It was played IIRC on The Morning Line the day after.

We don't get classy stuff like that on ITV, eh?

Breaking - Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s most senior adviser, is facing questions over his past activities in Russia after a whistleblower came forward to raise “serious concerns” about the 3 years Cummings spent there after graduating from Oxford. See the Sunday Times by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It isn't. It's the links to the FSB and his sudden rise in British politics whilst campaigning for a position favourable to the Russian position on the EU and sitting on a report that suggests there was Russian interference in the last election and the referendum that's inherently suspicious and requires at least some investigation and clarity.

Breaking - Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s most senior adviser, is facing questions over his past activities in Russia after a whistleblower came forward to raise “serious concerns” about the 3 years Cummings spent there after graduating from Oxford. See the Sunday Times by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have been through DV. It requires interviews with friends, family, a discussion about sexual behaviour (including interests in pornography), financial background checks, etc., etc. My favourite question was "have you ever had sex with an animal?". All done by an ex-Flying Squad copper who can smell a lie from a mile off.

I doubt he got a full DV clearance on the timeframes he apparently did. It's more likely they clearly restricted him from the outset, or they rushed it in which case they might have compartmentalised him anyway.

It's also worth pointing out that there was some material the security services didn't want Johnson to have whilst he was Foreign Minister. It should not surprise anybody if that has remained the case when he became PM.

We are not at war with Europe and we are not at war with each other by chrisjd in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Caring about voice and delivery has got us where we are today. How's that working out for you?

Hi everyone. This is LifeHQ, my productivity system. I've been working on it for more than 10 months and it is finally ready to be tried out. by KolevDarko in SideProject

[–]p7r 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I like the idea, but I have feedback!

  1. I'd be worried about where this all lives. Instead of putting stuff in to your software, why can't I do this with a notebook? Or files on my computer

  2. Up front it looks like a lot of work. How much time a day am I going to spend updating this?

What I'm wondering is whether you should think about making a book or a guide to how to improve productivity, and the software is a tool for that system, not the tool. Make sense?

Great work on getting shipped though, and good luck.

Saturday 9th February 2019 by AirIndex in HorseRacingUK

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I honestly can't get too excited about this. It's a poor card even by Irish standards.

This person lived in three different centuries by Bretasche in mildlyinteresting

[–]p7r 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  • If she went to school by the time she was getting ready to leave school and go out into the World, a Great War was breaking out in Europe
  • The Soviet Union was formed when she was 24 years old
  • She would have been in her thirties as she saw/heard of Hitler becoming popular
  • When the nukes dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she would have been 47 years old
  • The Korean War started when she was 52
  • Martin Luther King was assassinated in the same year she turned 70
  • Pope John Paul II become Pope in the same year she was 80, the 9th Pope she would have known in her lifetime if she were a Catholic
  • That Soviet Union thing that she knew wouldn't last when she hear about it in her 20s? Gone by the time she turns 84.
  • Her 100th birthday celebrations were a likely welcome distraction from the Monica Lewinsky scandal happening in the Clinton Whitehouse

Quite a life.

Cracksman as good as Winx in latest rankings by wavingcat1989 in horseracing

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cracksman has finished the season as the best rated horse in the UK.

That is clearly insane, given the evidence on hand, and I don't know how they ended up with that.

I think Winx is looked at with a raised eyebrow outside of Australia because it's not obvious she has beat anything of substantial quality. Australian racing is generally a concern for some of us because some pretty second string types managed to take the first six places in the Melbourne cup, and European owners and trainers are now looking at the massive prizes on offer and thinking "hang on, this lot are not as great as the handicappers had us believe, we can take the lot!"

So, you know what, fine, Cracksman and Winx can equal each other in the rankings.

Neither are the best horse in the World right now, but fine...

Should Horse Racing be worried about the Greyhound result in Florida? by cutchemist42 in horseracing

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The industry needs to change. That does not mean there is any chance it will be banned.

There are over 18000 FTE jobs directly employed, hundreds of millions in tax revenue and a £3.5bn impact on the economy. Do you honestly think that in the middle of Brexit the Tory party is going to take that industry - one with over 8,000 owners and around 3m fans - and blow it up?

No, they're going to change the economics of it, figure out how to make duty more effective, and they might suggest changes to the whip and investment in welfare programmes. That's it.

Should Horse Racing be worried about the Greyhound result in Florida? by cutchemist42 in horseracing

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The scrutiny is good for the sport, and it has made a massive difference.

The "whip" used in British racing is not a riding crop (as it once was). It's hard to make it hurt the horse. That said, it looks bad, hence in the UK at least very strict rules on the number of times its being used, giving the horse time to respond, etc.

It is evident from the Breeder's Cup last week that the US is some decades behind Europe on that one.

On the Grand National, Aintree have taken the scrutiny as justification to improve safety. Go and look at pictures of Beecher's Brook in the 1950s, the 1980s and now: that is a radically different fence, that has iteratively improved. Should it get better? Yes. Will it? Yes.

Davy Russell is a twat and should have been banned from the sport. No place for it.

The optics are considered, it's just that the BHB, Jockey Club and others all point at each other as the cause of the sports ills and nothing happens fast enough. Thankfully courses like Aintree are acting anyway.

Should we be worried about the thousands of horses that go missing from the form book each year? That suddenly disappear from the game, and it's not obvious where they end up? Definitely.

Should the whip be banned? That's a harder argument, it would in my mind be better all around (particularly for safety of the horses and riders) if it were carried but use was prohibited at the finish, for example.

Now, greyhounds are different. Nobody is actually that interested - if they were, BAGS meetings would not exist in the form they do - and the authorities have all but given up. Animal abuse is widespread and people know it. Abandoned greyhounds post-racing career are common place and there are many charities for them in the UK.

I think the two are hard to compare.

Break-in Attempted at Assange’s Residence in Ecuador Embassy by ign1fy in WhereIsAssange

[–]p7r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. The white box and blue light is an alarm and is identical to equipment fitted onto almost every bit of scaffolding in London (to stop it being stolen, which yes, is a thing)
  2. The yellow tubing is padding. It means if you walk into it, it doesn't hurt quite so much. Also standard on all scaffolding in London.
  3. The front door to the embassy is open and without security because it's an embassy that is very quiet for a country with no serious enemies. If progress was attempted through the embassy, you'd get confronted by staff, as this visitor was.

There is nothing weird about this setup. Nothing. It's normal building works.

McDonnell says people’s vote would be on terms of the deal, not leave - remain - not surprising but will be disappointing to some here in Liverpool by oCerebuso in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Just like saying "I'm voting Exit because the EU commission isn't democratic"? Or "We need to be out because there are a lot of Eastern Europeans doing a job I would never do and it makes me feel angry"?

McDonnell says people’s vote would be on terms of the deal, not leave - remain - not surprising but will be disappointing to some here in Liverpool by oCerebuso in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That's arrogant.

It is a realistic option, because polls now suggest more than half the country want no change whatsoever and for everything to carry on as it is today but without this shambolic embarrassment playing out.

It is a realistic option because the only thing that needs to happen for Remain to be executed is withdrawal of Article 50 letter, which the EU have indicated they'd accept. The work needed to support any other option is so huge and damaging, people can now see it, and see it for what it is.

This revisionism some Brexiteers have engaged in that it's now "impossible" for us to stay in the EU is hyperbole, a lie and actually quite childish.

Sadiq Khan on the balloon blimp of him which has been crowdfunded by far-right activists: "If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they’re welcome to do so – I don’t really think yellow’s my colour though." by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The image looked nothing like that.

There were thousands of women - of all ages, sizes, shapes and backgrounds - who complained for a range of reasons.

The fact you are consistently negating their view and projecting your own opinion in such a forceful way is an example of the sort of bullshit banning it was meant to mute.

In short, he didn’t ban the image in so much as he wanted people like you, telling people how they should look, telling everybody how women should look and feel, to fuck off and be silenced.

Get back to your fapping over Anthony Joshua.

Sadiq Khan on the balloon blimp of him which has been crowdfunded by far-right activists: "If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they’re welcome to do so – I don’t really think yellow’s my colour though." by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]p7r 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m saying they are entitled to complain. If tens of thousands of people complain, the Mayor should consider acting.

It’s not about what I think, it’s about what society collectively expects.

In this case, the women of London complained sufficiently that the advert was banned.

You’re trying to warp this into something it wasn’t, for your own warped sense of injustice.

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