The Night Mail

[Winslow Boy]

4 hours ago, bbishop said:

Dr Beeching?

I presume.

[iL Dottore]

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Comparing number votes cast last Thursday for any given team to votes cast in earlier elections for that same team is a bit pointless. I look at it this way. It doesn’t matter whether or not the Great Wonderful Railway Party increases the number of votes cast for it in Swindon, as Swindon will always be a GWR town, whether 50’000 or 55’000 vote for the GWRP.

 

A successful election strategy - no matter how it may pain the ideologues and purists - is to get enough voters in Crewe and Derby to vote for the GWRP to get it first over the line under the FPTP system.

 

 

4 hours ago, PupCam said:

Good luck with that!

Well, it worked for Starmer.

 

Stick the right colour rosette for the safe seat on to a penguin and it"d get elected.

 

The secret is to get the votes in those areas that are not full of party faithful.

[PhilJ W]

The bottom line is that Reform split the tory vote.

[iL Dottore]

9 hours ago, polybear said:

 

And the UK would become a backward, oppressive authoritarian State that would make DPRK look like the Notting Hill Carnival....

You mean it isn't already?

I'm confused.

Yours

Dave Spart

[iL Dottore]

Just now, PhilJ W said:

The bottom line is that Reform split the tory vote.

Maybe so, but - as they say - don't look a gift horse in the mouth...

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

As a very sharp University friend of mine once put it:

"In Britain, tell someone you're an engineer and they'll ask you to take a look at their faulty washing machine.  In Germany, tell someone you're an engineer and they'll ask you to marry their daughter".

That's one of the reasons I say I'm a horticulturist rather than a gardener when asked. If you say your a gardener they ask if you can cut the grass and sweep the leaves up. Or horticulturists know the names whilst gardeners say those 'green things'

Edited July 8 by Winslow Boy

[Winslow Boy]

22 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 

Well, it worked for Starmer.

 

Stick the right colour rosette for the safe seat on to a penguin and it"d get elected.

 

The secret is to get the votes in those areas that are not full of party faithful.

You've seen our candidate for our part of Manutopea then I take it.

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

I've just finished the dusting and vacuuming in anticipation of the girls coming round on Wednesday for a girlie night in with Mrs SM42. 

 

She was expecting me to be on nights, but I have been swapped to days for some project work.

 

Thus I will be banished to the upper floors all evening  to entertain myself. 

 

I may do a bit of modelling, I may back up some files, I may just do nothing in particular. 

 

Andy

You could come and do my vacuuming and dusting as your free. Wednesday will be fine.

[Tony_S]

25 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

you can cut the grass and sweep the leaves up.

I did that today. Also some light pruning of a climbing rose, after careful instruction. Instructions, as in which bits to cut rather than don’t fall off the ladder. The rose is called “The Generous Gardener “ , I don’t think there is a “Generous Horticulturist” yet. 

Edited July 8 by Tony_S

[jjb1970]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Funnily enough, while many always did go to places others went - as popularity indicated somewhere must be OK - the growth of social media and the "Instagram Moment" in particular, has seen more and more people want to go to the same places as everyone else.  As an example, I can no longer see the appeal of going up Snowdon, when on a good day you might have to stand in a queue for three-quarters of an hour to stand at the summit pillar, take a few quick photos then get out of the way.  Funnily enough if you went up Wales' second highest mountain on the same day you'd probably meet 2-3 people.

 

Call me old-fashioned but when I select where to go on holiday, how impressed other people will be by my choice is about the 497th consideration on my list. 

 

One of the things I am very happy to have done in my youth is take local leave in China in the early 90's. That was the time when China was opening to the world and it is one of the few places I have been which really did feel alien at every level. At that time none of the signage had romanised script under the Chinese script to help foreigners (even today that's not unusual) and English speaking people were rarer than rocking horse turds. Yet some of my most treasured memories are from that time.

 

At the time China was pretty much a third world country, you didn't have to go far from the bund in Shanghai before use of words like squalid would be fully justified. I travelled around by train, bashing mighty DF4 diesels and SS1 electrics in soft class sleepers, which left a (so far) life long interest in Chinese trains. For ID, I remember looking in the galley of the restaurant car and seeing a bloke in welly boots and a blood soaked white coat welding a cleaver with aplomb (a characteristic of Chinese people......) butchering God knows what with the floor awash with guts but the food was excellent and cost peanuts. My attitude was in for a penny in for a pound and all that and while I had a stomach upset once it wasn't serious.

 

I suspect I was the first white person some had seen and it was normal to be properly started at, especially by children yet stares were of the curious kind and the people were remarkably nice and kind without exception. China is undoubtedly a much better country for its people today. People have lives they couldn't imagine in the early 90's,  it's gone from squalid to a condition where it is the western bubble which feels shoddy and a bit backwards in comparison and it is much more visitor friendly in terms of information and ease of getting by so I don't want to get misty eyed about much harder times for people but in a way I do miss at least aspects of the old China.

 

So yes, leaving the usual holiday path can offer rich rewards if people are willing to look a bit differently. 

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[SM42]

6 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I didn't realise that Linda McCartney had been made into sausages.

 

Dave

 

The motherland has a similar attitude to relatives.

 

In the absence of pigs  we have brother in law ham, grandad ham and all sorts of ham made from relatives. 

 

Andy

[SM42]

5 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

You could come and do my vacuuming and dusting as your free. Wednesday will be fine.

 

Sorry, I've decided nothing in particular is what I'll be doing. 

 

I could come and do that. 

 

Andy

[AndyID]

59 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

The motherland has a similar attitude to relatives.

 

In the absence of pigs  we have brother in law ham, grandad ham and all sorts of ham made from relatives. 

 

Andy

 

We get redneck ham here.

[polybear]

17 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

After all, if all the guidebooks say that visiting the Curly Fries Museum in Splunk on a Saturday afternoon is not a good idea because it is jam packed with tourists and locals alike, expect no sympathy from me if you turn up on a Saturday afternoon and find it far too crowded.

 

Does iD have a website link by any chance - it sounds right up a certain Bear's street....

 

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

So yes, leaving the usual holiday path can offer rich rewards if people are willing to look a bit differently. 

 

For some reason I've often thought that Nepal might be an interesting place to visit - the Nepalese I've encountered have always been very nice people.  Maybe I should investigate some more....

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Funnily enough, while many always did go to places others went - as popularity indicated somewhere must be OK - the growth of social media and the "Instagram Moment" in particular, has seen more and more people want to go to the same places as everyone else.  As an example, I can no longer see the appeal of going up Snowdon, when on a good day you might have to stand in a queue for three-quarters of an hour to stand at the summit pillar, take a few quick photos then get out of the way.  Funnily enough if you went up Wales' second highest mountain on the same day you'd probably meet 2-3 people.

 

Call me old-fashioned but when I select where to go on holiday, how impressed other people will be by my choice is about the 497th consideration on my list. 

The “instagram bucket list” tourist (note: tourist, NOT visitor) has become a curse - Italy, Japan, France, Switzerland, Bali and more besides are cursed by these ignorant t#ssers. They come in, create havoc, spend almost nothing, put a huge strain on the infrastructure, p#ss off the locals and then s#d off.

 

I really doubt that many (any?) have much of an interest in what’s on the bucket list, let alone an fascination with, or affinity for, local culture, history and cuisine….

 

But I’ve had a thought:

 

Using a friendly hacker, how about creating an internet meme whereby they are encouraged to go streaking in Tehran, graffiti “tagging” buildings in Pyongyang and waving Ukrainian flags in front of the Kremlin.

 

It might help cull the herd….

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The bottom line is that Reform split the tory vote.

It's high time we had a "none of the above" vote option. 

 

Reform didn't split the Conservative vote; they provided a vehicle for disaffected voters who wanted rid of what the Conservstive Party had become. It was a "1974 moment"; a repeat of Heath asking "who runs the country?" and being told "not you, mate!"

 

Look at the figures for abstentions. NW Cambs was one of those "rosette on a donkey" constituencies but the local MP got his P45 by a couple of hundred votes with a drop of several thousand in overall votes cast. 

 

That said, Im still not a fan of PR. Look at the chaos in France, where the various Leftist factions are united only in refusing to have the largest single party in government. This isn't new; the Dutch have taken several months to form a government. The Belgians and Swedes both found themselves unable to form governments for long periods (years in the Swedish case) for similar reasons.

[rockershovel]

7 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

The “instagram bucket list” tourist (note: tourist, NOT visitor) has become a curse - Italy, Japan, France, Switzerland, Bali and more besides are cursed by these ignorant t#ssers. They come in, create havoc, spend almost nothing, put a huge strain on the infrastructure, p#ss off the locals and then s#d off.

 

I really doubt that many (any?) have much of an interest in what’s on the bucket list, let alone an fascination with, or affinity for, local culture, history and cuisine….

 

But I’ve had a thought:

 

Using a friendly hacker, how about creating an internet meme whereby they are encouraged to go streaking in Tehran, graffiti “tagging” buildings in Pyongyang and waving Ukrainian flags in front of the Kremlin.

 

It might help cull the herd….

There is a story doing the rounds to the effect that the tourists who appear in the news footage of the new PM entering Downing St. were looking for the Trooping of the Colour, cancelled because of the General Election. 

[monkeysarefun]

26 minutes ago, polybear said:

Does iD have a website link by any chance - it sounds right up a certain Bear's street....

 

 

 

YOu've missed your chance to  get to the Baked Bean Museum Of Excellence unfortunately.

 

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/captain-beany-museum-tripadvisor-closing-26089504

 

 

Edited July 9 by monkeysarefun

[polybear]

1 minute ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

YOu've missed your chance to  get to the Baked Bean Museum Of Excellence unfortunately.

 

https://captainbeany.com/baked-bean-museum-of-excellence/

 

"#1 of #17 things to do in Port Talbot"

 

That's not exactly much of a recommendation in Port Talbot.......

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

36 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

That said, Im still not a fan of PR. Look at the chaos in France, where the various Leftist factions are united only in refusing to have the largest single party in government. This isn't new; the Dutch have taken several months to form a government. The Belgians and Swedes both found themselves unable to form governments for long periods (years in the Swedish case) for similar reasons.

 

 

There  is more than one model of PR - Party List, Single Transferable Vote, Mixed Member Proportional, Parallel Voting, as well as hybrid models used by various nations.

 

All up over 100 countries use PR while less than  50 use FPTP and many of these are former British colonies - and the UK itself.

Edited July 9 by monkeysarefun

[New Haven Neil]

I wonder what proportion of those 100 countries are able to form a stable government?

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

 

 

 

For some reason I've often thought that Nepal might be an interesting place to visit - the Nepalese I've encountered have always been very nice people.  Maybe I should investigate some more....

You get off the plane at Katmandu and join the queue.  This is actually full of turdists who want to climb Mt Everest.

[monkeysarefun]

30 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

I wonder what proportion of those 100 countries are able to form a stable government?

If you want a surefire  "stable"government the answer would be to go full dictator. There is very little political infighting or  political uncertaintly in China, Russia or  North Korea etc.

 

As is becoming more and more apparent in the US for instance , the stability of a political system depends very much on everyone treating the rules in good faith and abiding by them rather than working out ways to go around them.

Edited July 9 by monkeysarefun

[Oldddudders]

The Grauniad had a good story yesterday about some Reform candidates being bogus names, i.e. the candidate didn't actually exist, or wasn't involved in campaigning, meaning they didn't turn up at the count. I think one 'candidate' was actually dead. This should run and run nicely. It fits w their leader not turning up at Westminster on the first day of term, where helpful staff showed other newbies the ropes. 

 

Inevitably a number of new MPs from distant parts arrived by train, and Avanti got it on the neck for cancellations .... Sherry's new MP was pictured at Newton Abbot complete with guide-dog, ready to board GWR.