BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[icowden]

Sorry - complete tangent but I just came across this and had to share it.

Jonathan Gullis, The Seagull's Lament - A New Yorker Profile​

https://mrhenrymorris.substack.com/p/jonathan-gullis-the-seagulls-lament

On a watery Monday in Stoke, Jonathan Gullis is having his photograph taken beside a canal. The photographer, flown in from Brooklyn at ruinous expense, keeps asking him to “lean into the melancholy of post-industrial decline.” Gullis, who thinks leaning is woke, grudgingly obliges by staring at a discarded Greggs wrapper as though it is the last letter from a dying empire. The resulting image runs on the cover of this magazine under the caption “The Seagull’s Lament.”

I search his vexed face for clues, but at thirty-five, Gullis wears the perpetual expression of a man who has just been cut up by a Honda Accord. He never smiles. He reminds me of the depression-era hobo clown Weary Willie. He gurns, he grimaces, he looks permanently defeated. Emmett Kelly performed the character for decades, but offstage he struggled with alcoholism and the collapse of his marriages. You get the sense that offstage, Jonathan Gullis struggles with being Jonathan Gullis.

 

[BoldonLad]

Lies damned lies and statistics again. If you can't see that this country has been in a downward spiral since 2008 then I can't help you.
Any positive stats you can give are bought and paid for in the national debt which is spiralling out of control. Slowly but surely.

Oh, you are talking about the Country!, it has been in a downward trend since way before 2008, as I have said numerous times on here.

My original comment was on Richard’s comments on the Stock Market.

 

[Pblakeney]

Oh, you are talking about the Country!, it has been in a downward trend since way before 2008, as I have said numerous times on here.

My original comment was on Richard’s comments on the Stock Market.

The section in question was about printing money to afford stuff like the NHS.

 

[briantrumpet]

Lies damned lies and statistics again. If you can't see that this country has been in a downward spiral since 2008 then I can't help you.
Any positive stats you can give are bought and paid for in the national debt which is spiralling out of control. Slowly but surely.

That's telling you, PB.

 

[Pblakeney]

That's telling you, PB.

View attachment 11454

All evidence backs up my position. You can't do anything about a problem until you acknowledge that you have a problem.
Once you've done all you can then it's time to sit back and enjoy. I'm not depressed, I just call out what is happening to the ostriches.

 

[BoldonLad]

The section in question was about printing money to afford stuff like the NHS.

Well, that was ONE of the points in the article linked by Brian.

 

[Pblakeney]

Well, that was ONE of the points in the article linked by Brian.

It was the highlighted ONE though. Was my interpretation incorrect?

 

[BoldonLad]

It was the highlighted ONE though. Was my interpretation incorrect?

Might have been to you, but, to me, Richard’s credibility, or otherwise, was the main point of Brian’s post.

 

[briantrumpet]

Has Zuckerberg lost the plot? Must admit I never did really get what the 'Metaverse' was supposed to be.

 

[briantrumpet]

A good piece on the lack of good political speeches these days.

https://www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/why-cant-the-english-teach-their

One obvious result has been the decline of political oratory. Speeches have given way to clips for the socials, quotations to memes. Arguably, this does not matter—trends in communication ebb and flow, the world moves on. But it is a secondary effect of a deeper problem. Good speeches are necessarily the result of good thinking: attention to your message, your values, and how every line and word contributes to it. You can only craft them if you are confident in your ideas, which so many politicians now are not. You can, of course, have clarity of thought without producing grand speeches, but we seem to have lost both.

This is more than the loss of memorable quotes. Politics has become so reactive, so consumed by communications, that space for reflection is vanishing. Without time to wrestle with ideas, the ability to think atrophies like an untrained muscle. The political class does not become stupid, but it calcifies—incapable of grappling with complexity, forced into safe generalities, and increasingly adrift on the issues that matter. Decisions are made to survive the news cycle rather than to pursue principle. Policies remain untested, positions unexamined, and arguments shallow.

 

[AuroraSaab]

When I was a kid we had to sit through that Brian Walden Sunday show, I forget the name, and it's regional counterpart with Austin Mitchell, while dinner was being made. It could get heated but it was mostly just earnest, intelligent debate. No soundbites, not much personal slagging off. People like Healey, Benn, K Clarke I think, Shirley Williams, then local MP's. It didn't seem so at the time but these people seem like political giants compared to current parlimentarians.

 

[Ian H]

Has Zuckerberg lost the plot? Must admit I never did really get what the 'Metaverse' was supposed to be.

View attachment 11473

It's a virtual world where you can give your money, your identity, your very essence, to Herr Zuck.

 

[briantrumpet]

Stuart Heritage wasn't exactly impressed with the first Liz Truss Show.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...uss-show-review-hapless-ravings-from-a-closet

 

[Shortfall]

When I was a kid we had to sit through that Brian Walden Sunday show, I forget the name, and it's regional counterpart with Austin Mitchell, while dinner was being made. It could get heated but it was mostly just earnest, intelligent debate. No soundbites, not much personal slagging off. People like Healey, Benn, K Clarke I think, Shirley Williams, then local MP's. It didn't seem so at the time but these people seem like political giants compared to current parlimentarians.

Weekend World. Austin Mitchell was on Calendar. Incidentally both had excellent theme tunes 😀

 

[Stevo 666]

The Torygraph as you well know, is no longer renowned for it's truthful reporting and has a history of publishing propaganda from Russia and China.

I just don't think it's relevant - and plenty of other people have pointed out that is not especially relevant.

They obviously can't. Clearly you think that Italy and Greece should take all Syrian, Afghan, Iranian and Eritrean refugees.
That clearly would not be fair or sustainable.

The UK isn't even in the top 25 countries for numbers of refugees arriving. UNICEF estimate that there are 117.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. 8.4 million of those are asylum seekers. The UK currently has 1% of the world's asylum seekers.

I deliberately added a link from the BBC to cater for this sort of reaction, but you seem to have missed that.

And Just because you think that something isnt relevant doesn't mean it isn't. We have finite finances and need to strengthening them, not spashing even more.

As a sovereign country we can (or at least should be able to) choose how many and what type of person we admit. And judging by the public mood, people like yourself who seem to think we should take anyone and everyone are in the minority, with good reason. If the govt and assorted libtards keep on telling themelves this isn't an issue, the electorate will make sure it is pretty soon.

As for fairness, we'll as I often have to remind lefties, life isn't fair - never has been and never will be. Get real.