Brexit, for once some facts.

[gw8izr]

Great company to deal with (The Company enrolled me with them for a while some years ago)
Not because of being big hearted but because they didn't have another mug willing to clean fans at the time.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-3595418/The-couple-charged-12-000-year-Bupa-health-insurance-ve-no-illnesses-customers-30-years.html
The couple being charged £12k a year by Bupa for health insurance... even though they've no serious illnesses and have been customers for 30 years

• Couple in their late 60s given incredible quote to renew an annual policy
• When their daughter went online she found a similar deal for £6,000
• Shockingly, the half-price offer came from the same insurer — Bupa
• Bupa openly admits it fails to tell loyal policyholders about cheaper rates

I had private health all of the time that I was working as part of my benefits package, never needed them once! Totally healthy, hardly had a day off sick in 30 years with that company.

Retired - rebuilt a large agricultural building to pass the time, now need a minor hernia operation. I live in a country where health is devolved to the assembly and I’ve been waiting 2 1/2 years so believe me none of the parties are covering themselves in glory here

 

[oldgroaner]

Coronavirus news update

Corona virus did not originate in Wuhan seafood Market

And it has been around since late November

Even more alarming is the footnote
https://today.line.me/id/pc/article/Coronavirus+Wuhan+to+quarantine+all+cured+patients+for+14+days+after+some+test+positive+again-LYOWll
Wuhan to Quarantine all cured patients after some test positive

 

[oldgroaner]

I had private health all of the time that I was working as part of my benefits package, never needed them once! Totally healthy, hardly had a day off sick in 30 years with that company.

Retired - rebuilt a large agricultural building to pass the time, now need a minor hernia operation. I live in a country where health is devolved to the assembly and I’ve been waiting 2 1/2 years so believe me none of the parties are covering themselves in glory here

Would you believe it? I also need an op, an Umbilical hernia operation and have been told "Oh, they won't bother doing that now"
It has previously been displayed when I was in for lythotripsy, for kidney stones, and laid on the gurney waiting and the specialist noticed it and said "You don't often come across one of those, would you mind if some of my students have a look at it?"
I agreed and in trooped a dozen young ladies in their uniforms who showed all sorts of different expression, including a couple who asked permission to touch it and went "ooh" when I said if you press, it will collapse back inside.
After that they all wanted a go, and were reduced to laughter when one asked "Aren't you embarrassed at being sort of treated as a curio by us?"
What made them laugh was my reply.
"On the contrary, this is great fun, how many 72 year old men get the privilege of being looked at and touched by a dozen attractive young ladies with warm hands?"
I suspect they intend doing the op posthumously for training purposes, much simpler, cheaper, and no doubt it will entertain some curious trainees.
Perhaps we need a "Physically amusing or instructive medical defects donation" form, as well as one for remaining good spare parts?"

 

[oldgroaner]

How to feed the people in an epidemic Chinese style
Not "TAkEaway" now "THROWaway"

Ha so! Two portions of Egg threw young please!

 

[oldgroaner]

LBC News@LBCNews
·
5h
House of Lords peers have been branded "a national embarrassment" after it was reported that their expenses soared by almost a third last year https://lbcnews.co.uk/politics/uk/house-of-lords-rising-expenses-embarrassment/

My response

oldgroaner@oldgroaner

Replying to
@LBCNews and @LBC

The problem being we paid for it not the Russians

 

[oldgroaner]

On twitter regarding the new passport

Darren Grimes

@darrengrimes_
· Feb 22
This beauty symbolises our reclaimed independence and sovereignty; our citizenship of a proud, great nation. https://pic.twitter.com/yUvdzuJ2Hr
My reponse
oldgroaner@oldgroaner

Replying to @MarieAnnUK and
@16MillionRising

You are not a "Citizen" no one is, we are "Subjects" which rather ruins the notion of personal freedom, effectively we are not independent but owned: Subject definition is - one that is placed under authority or control

 

[oldgroaner]

Not perhaps as good a decision as Lincoln's to go to the Opera, bearing in mind the latest news from China

Coronavirus: Britons evacuated from Wuhan finally released from two-week quarantine

This is probably the worst decision made in a lifetime

"We will all go together when we go
Every Hottentot and every Eskimo
When the Virus comes to everyone you know"

 

[oyster]

Not perhaps as good a decision as Lincoln's to go to the Opera, bearing in mind the latest news from China

Coronavirus: Britons evacuated from Wuhan finally released from two-week quarantine

This is probably the worst decision made in a lifetime

"We will all go together when we go
Every Hottentot and every Eskimo
When the Virus comes to everyone you know"

I think it's one of those dyslexic vegan lab workers to blame. One of them came across a bottle with a label "carnivorous" and, disapproving of it, thought they'd throw it out.

Or, to explain how it has spread:

I love my friends, and they love me,
We're just as close as we can be.
And just because we really care,
Whatever we get, we share!

I got it from Agnes,
She got it from Jim.
We all agree it must have been
Louise who gave it to him.

She got it from Harry,
Who got it from Marie,
And everybody knows that Marie
Got it from me.

 

[PeterPi]

Just looked at the video of this "Genius" at work and noticed a parachute descending immediately after the launch.
Bit of a blooper to forget to fasten it to something.
More on this rather strange (ex) person

"
“Mad” Mike Hughes, who hoped to prove the Earth was flat by going into space, died on Saturday near Barstow, California, after attempting to launch his steam-powered rocket for a new television series called Homemade Astronauts on the US Science Channel.

In a statement, the Science Channel said: “Our thoughts & prayers go out to his family & friends during this difficult time. It was always his dream to do this launch & Science Channel was there to chronicle his journey.”

"It's Science Channel, Jim,, but not as we know it"
This could be the shortest TV series on record


A readers comment
Darwinism in action, the average I.Q. of the human race just went up a couple of points.

Reminiscent of the old song
All together now
They scraped him off the tarmac like a lump of strawberry jam and he aint gonna jump no more

The goons had a steam powered rocket on January 10, 1957. It was the end of the horse drawn zeppelin.

The Goon Show Site - Script - Wings Over Dagenham (Series 7, Episode 15)

 

[PeterPi]

when it became populism? democracy has always been dodgy (it gave us hitler, thatcher and idi amin, in no particular order), but we haven't always scaled the dizzying intellectual heights of trump or boris, if you get my drift?

Anyone who wants to be a politician should be banned from being one.

 

[PeterPi]

The reality is he pandered to those conditioned to a point of view by years of propaganda, the majority was gained because of our FPTP voting system not due to any virtue of this charlatan and his bunch of plotters.
More voters voted for other parties, not his, remember?

as to this
"What a simple minded thing to say. I wonder if they've even noticed that people voted for Boris because he did care about what people thought and that's what got him an eighty seat majority."

You need to remove the "thought" and fit the words"been conditioned into thinking" into the empty space

As I said elsewhere, any one who wants to be a politician should be banned from being one.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

Anyone who wants to be a politician should be banned from being one.

I agree (it should be like the jury system). In a separate development I gather the new chancellor decided not to scrap pension tax relief. I'm in a weird situation, I regularly vote for labour (who would scrap it) and feel a palpable sense of relief when the torys dont do it ( I overpay pension to the 40k max and it would have a tangible effect on my net income). Conflicting public vs private values I guess.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

Not perhaps as good a decision as Lincoln's to go to the Opera, bearing in mind the latest news from China

Coronavirus: Britons evacuated from Wuhan finally released from two-week quarantine

This is probably the worst decision made in a lifetime

"We will all go together when we go
Every Hottentot and every Eskimo
When the Virus comes to everyone you know"

We do have it coming (in a very broad anglo Saxon sense we wiped out the hottentot or khoi khoi when we barged uninvited into their world much like the Corona virus is barging into ours and colonizing us, to very stretch a metaphor)

 

[oldgroaner]

I agree (it should be like the jury system). In a separate development I gather the new chancellor decided not to scrap pension tax relief. I'm in a weird situation, I regularly vote for labour (who would scrap it) and feel a palpable sense of relief when the torys dont do it ( I overpay pension to the 40k max and it would have a tangible effect on my net income). Conflicting public vs private values I guess.

Way back in the early days of the thread I proposed a new way of organising Democracy

1. Elections to be banned
2. Selection will be by lottery, all voters automatically entered
3. The winners become an MP for the length of a single Parliament
4. Then they are sacked and have to go home to face the music from the voters.

Brilliant plan I say (with my usual self effacing modesty)
I commend it.

 

[oldgroaner]

Boris and co are losing their grip when this sort of headline appears
MI5 dragged into Home Office civil war as officials deny 'false' claims against Priti Patel
Security sources have issued a highly unusual denial that MI5 was holding back intelligence from the Home Secretary
Unnamed sources were quoted at the weekend claiming MI5 officers had reduced the volume of intelligence they show to the Home Secretary because they did not “have confidence in her abilities.”

Sir Philip Rutman, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, is suspected by allies of Ms Patel of sanctioning briefings against her after she sought to have him removed following disagreements over his “obstructive” approach to her.

MI5 officers were said to be “furious” at the claims, published in The Sunday Times, and within hours security sources took the highly unusual step of issuing a denial unprecedented in its strength....

My take: No one should trust a woman who was sacked for what she did

Patel met Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel's centrist Yesh Atid party, and reportedly made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was discussed. The BBC reported that "According to one source, at least one of the meetings was held at the suggestion of the Israeli ambassador to London.

In the Guardian
What did Israel hope to gain from Priti Patel's secret meetings?

 

[oyster]

Way back in the early days of the thread I proposed a new way of organising Democracy

1. Elections to be banned
2. Selection will be by lottery, all voters automatically entered
3. The winners become an MP for the length of a single Parliament
4. Then they are sacked and have to go home to face the music from the voters.

Brilliant plan I say (with my usual self effacing modesty)
I commend it.

How about this?:

"Franchise" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the August 1955 issue of the magazine If: Worlds of Science Fiction, and was reprinted in the collections Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and Robot Dreams (1986). It is one of a loosely connected series of stories concerning a fictional computer called Multivac. It is the first story in which Asimov dealt with computers as computers and not as immobile robots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story)

 

[oyster]

Boris and co are losing their grip when this sort of headline appears
MI5 dragged into Home Office civil war as officials deny 'false' claims against Priti Patel
Security sources have issued a highly unusual denial that MI5 was holding back intelligence from the Home Secretary
Unnamed sources were quoted at the weekend claiming MI5 officers had reduced the volume of intelligence they show to the Home Secretary because they did not “have confidence in her abilities.”

Sir Philip Rutman, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, is suspected by allies of Ms Patel of sanctioning briefings against her after she sought to have him removed following disagreements over his “obstructive” approach to her.

MI5 officers were said to be “furious” at the claims, published in The Sunday Times, and within hours security sources took the highly unusual step of issuing a denial unprecedented in its strength....

My take: No one should trust a woman who was sacked for what she did

Patel met Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel's centrist Yesh Atid party, and reportedly made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was discussed. The BBC reported that "According to one source, at least one of the meetings was held at the suggestion of the Israeli ambassador to London.

In the Guardian
What did Israel hope to gain from Priti Patel's secret meetings?

I suggest we consider Mandy Rice-Davies be quoted in regard MI5's denial. (Little could she have thought as she first uttered those words that they would still be both echoing and attributed to her.)

Mandy Rice-Davies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[oyster]

Planning - the idea is to identify what needs to be done, and doing them, before things go wrong.

If you cannot see that threatening everyone with the sack might not be the best game plan, I guess your mindset would also assume that leaving the EU without approrpiate agreements is also a really good idea.

The Civil Service Is Rewriting HR Rules To Rein In Number 10 And Dominic Cummings
The move follows Cummings' claim that anyone suffering from “personal crises” such as stress or a bereavement should leave their jobs.

Posted on February 23, 2020, at 8:18 p.m.
Mark Sedwill, the head of the civil service, has moved to rein in Boris Johnson’s chief aide Dominic Cummings by taking the unprecedented step of appointing a senior official to rewrite Whitehall HR rules and ensure special advisers are treated with “respect”.

The cabinet office is advertising for a “Special Advisers' HR Policy Lead” to “revise and embed a full suite of HR policies, processes and principles”, following a series of disputes between Cummings and ministerial aides.

A senior Whitehall official told BuzzFeed News the role has been created in response to high-level concerns within the civil service about the treatment of special advisers by Number 10, and fears that the prime minister’s team has broken employment law.

The decision by senior officials to act comes after BuzzFeed News learnt that special advisers have been in contact with the FDA trade union — which represents civil servants — to discuss their treatment at the hands of Downing Street aides.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/civil-service-dominic-cummings-hr-rules

 

[oldgroaner]

Another day another Tweet

Iain Duncan-Smith says it's time for experts to handle Brexit as 'there are problems ahead'

My response
Replying to
@TheNewEuropean
The only one who could make Brexit work lived over 2,000 years ago and unlike Boris (who either passes water or falls in it when faced with an emergency) could walk on it!

And before anyone points out I don't believe in God, I know but like Boris, I can avoid the truth when I fancy

 

[Nev]

Iain Duncan-Smith says it's time for experts to handle Brexit as 'there are problems ahead'

I thought the Tories had had enough of experts. Perhaps it might have been wise to listen to experts a couple of years back not now that its too late, and we will all now have to make the best of a bad job.

I guess we will muddle through as we usually do. We will probably end up slightly worse off but there are usually so many other things to blame that on, that Brexit probably wont get the blame if thats the case.