BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[briantrumpet]

We're spending a few days with my sister near Madrid. Yesterday afternoon a wildfire started nearby, caused by a car fire. The fire service worked through the night and by this morning it was declared under control.

We decided to spend the day in Madrid, and as we were about to sit for a coffee mid afternoon after sightseeing, my sister got a message saying that her neighbourhood was being evacuated because a change in wind direction reignighted the fire and the smoke was very bad.

We are spending the night enjoying the hospitality of a couple friends of my sister, hoping that we will be allowed in tomorrow to collect our suitcases and the hire car.

But climate change is a hoax.

Same has happened to the latest forest fire here... looked promising this morning, big flare up this afternoon with a couple of villages being kept under close watch tonight, having thought previously it was all under control. Grim.

 

[icowden]

So sad that this bookshop is closing. Anyone fancy suggesting anywhere where it might get an appropriate welcome and clientele?

View attachment 16697

Clacton seems nice?

 

[briantrumpet]

Would it be inaccurate (as well as being overly cynical) for me to think that the whole university expansion has been achieved in effect by getting students to finance the bulk of the expansion of the university sector by piling the debt on them rather than the institutions or the government? I reckon that in 18 years I've serenaded about 100k students out of Exeter, and if each of those leaves with a tuition fee debt of £30k, that's £3bn, which seems quite a lot of money for one university.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Whether it's a lot or not surely depends on the running costs of the university, from all the staff wages, pensions, to building maintenance and improvements, to investment in technology and other equipment etc.
Without knowing those costs it is pure speculation whether it's a lot or not.

 

[briantrumpet]

Whether it's a lot or not surely depends on the running costs of the university, from all the staff wages, pensions, to building maintenance and improvements, to investment in technology and other equipment etc.
Without knowing those costs it is pure speculation whether it's a lot or not.

Agreed. Of course there are major sources of funding from elsewhere, notably all the industrial research funding most departments have to raise - for instance, the major partnership funding that Exeter gets from the Met Office (I assume it's major, anyway).

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

So sad that this bookshop is closing. Anyone fancy suggesting anywhere where it might get an appropriate welcome and clientele?

View attachment 16697

"will be offering a wider range of harder-to-find books".

Is 'Mein Kampf' still in print then?

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Agreed. Of course there are major sources of funding from elsewhere, notably all the industrial research funding most departments have to raise - for instance, the major partnership funding that Exeter gets from the Met Office (I assume it's major, anyway).

It is Uni dependent. The three main income sources are tuition fees, research grants and other funding body grants. Some are majority funded by fees, and others majority funded by grants. Overall across the sector, the largest portion of funding does come from tuition fees now.

The grants aspect also highlights why those academics who bring in major funding are treated like deities by their institutions. I worked with a couple of them, they got away with all sorts in terms of how they treated other staff as they bought in £millions in research grants and were therefore untouchable.

 

[briantrumpet]

"will be offering a wider range of harder-to-find books".

Is 'Mein Kampf' still in print then?

I think you just log into your account at thewhitehouse.gov.us and they will post it direct once you've made the Bitcoin transfer.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

I think you just log into your account at thewhitehouse.gov.us and they will post it direct once you've made the Bitcoin transfer.

Is it signed "With love, DT x"?

 

[AndyRM]

Mein Kampf is even more unhinged than Trump, which is some going.

 

[Beebo]

Who manufactures an inflatable boat that is 25m long?
There can’t be a legitimate reason to own such a boat. It can’t be seaworthy.
You would think it was fairly easy to find out who makes them and make it illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g4vxjg2yno

 

[secretsqirrel]

Who manufactures an inflatable boat that is 25m long?
There can’t be a legitimate reason to own such a boat. It can’t be seaworthy.
You would think it was fairly easy to find out who makes them and make it illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g4vxjg2yno

I did a Google Shopping search. Biggest I could find was Alibaba.com. Nowhere near 25m tho’.

 

[Rusty Nails]

I am not about to join in the bashing of the French on this, well just a little, but they could make a lot better contribution to stopping the boats than they are being paid to do.

I would prefer it if they just told us it was our problem and we should handle it better at our end.

 

[briantrumpet]

I did a Google Shopping search. Biggest I could find was Alibaba.com. Nowhere near 25m tho’.

Whoa. If you disappear off the forum, we'll know that MI5 has been alerted by your Googling habits and taken swift action.

 

[Beebo]

I am not about to join in the bashing of the French on this, well just a little, but they could make a lot better contribution to stopping the boats than they are being paid to do.

I would prefer it if they just told us it was our problem and we should handle it better at our end.

I agree.
How much does a boat that big weigh. Just getting it into the sea must be hard.
Then blowing the boat up must take 30 mins.
Then loading 150 people on it another 30 mins.
How can they not stop that?
It does seem a bit half arsed. They clearly don’t want to stop them, and I’m sure we wouldn’t stop them going back to France if they wanted to.