And when Kenneth Williams said, "Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy" he knew we would all remember it.Apparently most headline "writers" of YouTube vids believe that "infamous" = "famous".The joys of the english language.I very much dislike words like "associated", because they can mean "really closely involved with", or "knows someone who is a member".And a reply to the tweet:Apparently an anti-violence campaigner.Apparently the man detained for shooting Fico is 71 years old.The alleged name and identity is being fairly widely shared on social media
I think we can start to rule out the possibility of professional assassins.
https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1790790908381905294?s=46
"Wow. Looks like Slovak PM Robert Fico's reported assailant, writer Juraj Cintula, was associated with pro-Russian paramilitary group Slovenskí Branci (SB). Their leader was even trained by Russian ex-Spetsnaz soldiers."
https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790789652078526939
I like how something being outstanding could be good or bad, based on context.
Thus when FDR said that December 7, 1941 was "a date which will live in infamy" he apparently meant that we'd all be hearing about it for a long long long time.
And Froneri is a rebranding of Richmond ice cream co of Leeming Bar. Grand old Yorkshire name. 'appen.It is ironic that you’re struggling to spell Häagen-Dazs as the name was, of course, entirely made up to sound vaguely Scandinavian and doesn’t obey any actual Scandinavian orthography.Haazgen-Dazs is owned by Froneri, which is British, no?And now it's Hagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's - a US takeover (though the latter is now owned by Anglo-Dutch Uniliver).Very interesting. And each age is different. 'Next' for example did not exist in my formative years, nor McDonalds. The rivals to M & S were BHS, Littlewoods, but all regarded as very much second and also rans. Huntley and Palmer would have been a rival to the great McVitie. Heinz had no rival in the baked bean and tomato ketchup stakes. Birds Eye and Findus occupied pole positions in frozen stuff.I was a crunchy nut eater for much of my youth. Can’t remember when I last ate a bowl of Kelloggs.They are both items where the difference in price between Kelloggs version and super cheap supermarket version is eye watering.No one in their right mind would prefer Rice Krispies to Corn Flakes.Hard to know how you would prompt this without hitting the leading question problem. "What would your vote be if Farage became leader of Reform" is a very good way of a. putting Reform top of mind, b. implying that received wisdom is he'd do a better job for them.The last 2 polls by JLPartners on Wikepedia had Lab on 41 and 42, and Reform on 13% in both, so not sure where the shift figures in the header come from.They conducted a standard VI poll at the same time. Then added the Farage leading Reform question as a supllementary.
There would seem to be a few percent Con to Reform shift, but possibly just MOE.
The changes are with that poll.
Many probably thought Farage was head of Reform anyway. It's like asking "would you prefer Rice Krispies or Cornflakes?" then "what about if the Cornflakes were fortified with vitamins and iron?" I bet you'd get a few people changing their choice simply because they were being prompted.
Just unnatural.
They (or their Lidl proxy) are both essential for making chocolatey nest thingeys with mini eggs on top suitable for Easter and after.
Agree. Cornflakes only the rest of the year.
Kelloggs is one of those companies I think of as default brands. When you dominate a category so much, particularly if you’re consumed by children in their formative years, that you’re almost establishment. Default. Normal.
Usually there is an “alternative” that plays the part of the yang to the default’s ying. Itself a default, establishment alternative. But somehow a bit non-U. But sometimes the dominance is such that there is no real established alternative.
Here are some default/alt staples of my youth:
Cereal: Kelloggs / Weetabix
Chocolate: Cadburys / Rowntree
Media: BBC / ITV
Cars: Ford / Vauxhall
Shoes: Clarks / Startrite
Biscuits: McVities / none
Chocolate biscuits: Pengiun / wagon wheels
Burgers: McDonalds / Wimpy (now BK)
Squash: Robinson’s / none
Campsites: Eurocamp / Keycamp
Supermarkets: Sainsbury’s / Tesco (I suspect for others that might be different)
Newsagents: WHSmith / John Menzies
Soft drinks: Coke / Pepsi
Instant coffee: Nescafé / Maxwell House
Portuguese beer: Superbock / Sagres
Mid range clothes shop: M&S / Next
Tesco was downmarket. Sainsbury's were moving from staffed counters to self service.
Ice Cream: Walls. Alt: Lyons Maid.
I buy Co-op West Country salted caramel - unbeatable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froneri
Edit to add:
Froneri owns Hangen-Dazs outside the US, while General Mills owns it in the US.
It is ironic that you’re struggling to spell Häagen-Dazs as the name was, of course, entirely made up to sound vaguely Scandinavian and doesn’t obey any actual Scandinavian orthography.Haazgen-Dazs is owned by Froneri, which is British, no?And now it's Hagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's - a US takeover (though the latter is now owned by Anglo-Dutch Uniliver).Very interesting. And each age is different. 'Next' for example did not exist in my formative years, nor McDonalds. The rivals to M & S were BHS, Littlewoods, but all regarded as very much second and also rans. Huntley and Palmer would have been a rival to the great McVitie. Heinz had no rival in the baked bean and tomato ketchup stakes. Birds Eye and Findus occupied pole positions in frozen stuff.I was a crunchy nut eater for much of my youth. Can’t remember when I last ate a bowl of Kelloggs.They are both items where the difference in price between Kelloggs version and super cheap supermarket version is eye watering.No one in their right mind would prefer Rice Krispies to Corn Flakes.Hard to know how you would prompt this without hitting the leading question problem. "What would your vote be if Farage became leader of Reform" is a very good way of a. putting Reform top of mind, b. implying that received wisdom is he'd do a better job for them.The last 2 polls by JLPartners on Wikepedia had Lab on 41 and 42, and Reform on 13% in both, so not sure where the shift figures in the header come from.They conducted a standard VI poll at the same time. Then added the Farage leading Reform question as a supllementary.
There would seem to be a few percent Con to Reform shift, but possibly just MOE.
The changes are with that poll.
Many probably thought Farage was head of Reform anyway. It's like asking "would you prefer Rice Krispies or Cornflakes?" then "what about if the Cornflakes were fortified with vitamins and iron?" I bet you'd get a few people changing their choice simply because they were being prompted.
Just unnatural.
They (or their Lidl proxy) are both essential for making chocolatey nest thingeys with mini eggs on top suitable for Easter and after.
Agree. Cornflakes only the rest of the year.
Kelloggs is one of those companies I think of as default brands. When you dominate a category so much, particularly if you’re consumed by children in their formative years, that you’re almost establishment. Default. Normal.
Usually there is an “alternative” that plays the part of the yang to the default’s ying. Itself a default, establishment alternative. But somehow a bit non-U. But sometimes the dominance is such that there is no real established alternative.
Here are some default/alt staples of my youth:
Cereal: Kelloggs / Weetabix
Chocolate: Cadburys / Rowntree
Media: BBC / ITV
Cars: Ford / Vauxhall
Shoes: Clarks / Startrite
Biscuits: McVities / none
Chocolate biscuits: Pengiun / wagon wheels
Burgers: McDonalds / Wimpy (now BK)
Squash: Robinson’s / none
Campsites: Eurocamp / Keycamp
Supermarkets: Sainsbury’s / Tesco (I suspect for others that might be different)
Newsagents: WHSmith / John Menzies
Soft drinks: Coke / Pepsi
Instant coffee: Nescafé / Maxwell House
Portuguese beer: Superbock / Sagres
Mid range clothes shop: M&S / Next
Tesco was downmarket. Sainsbury's were moving from staffed counters to self service.
Ice Cream: Walls. Alt: Lyons Maid.
I buy Co-op West Country salted caramel - unbeatable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froneri
Edit to add:
Froneri owns Hangen-Dazs outside the US, while General Mills owns it in the US.
Nonesense.What is a lanyard and why are they important?The ribbon like thingy which one wears around the collar* to bear a security pass at work.
Apparently seen as a crucial issue by HMG.
*Edit: neck, really, but in practice outside the collar. They became a thing about 25-30 years ago in big organizations.
👊I got it even if nobody else didWe didn’t start the fire…..Naturally funny politicians with proper comic timing and the ability to go beyond one joke into an impromptu riff (and I agree Johnson annoyingly did have that):Gag writing, like plumbing, is something that really ought to be left to the professionals. There's still a talent to deliver someone else's material well, but to come up with good new jokes means seeing the world in a peculiar way that isn't that compatible with much else.Having a sense of humour - getting jokes, laughing naturally, being at ease in the comic moment, capable of self deprecation - is quite common. Especially in the British. Actually BEING FUNNY - making people crack up - is vastly rarerI think Cameron could do a decent cutting line, like his 'not like we're brothers' jibe to Miliband, but it's a kind of top boy bullying humour perhaps. Truss I don't know but she has a cheeky grin.Starmer seems to be funnier in private than public, which is unhelpful for him. Truss I think had quite a decent sense of humour. May showed herself to have decent comic timing after the Queen’s death. Neither Cameron nor Clegg nor Brown had the humour gene. Blair had his moments. Major had it. Thatcher didn’t.Truss is just insaneIt wasn't that Boris necessarily did comedy routines, but one knew he had a sense of humour. An early speech referencing Huskisson's violent death due to Stevenson's rocket (back in the halcyon days) was funny because Boris accidentally made himself laugh. I don't think Truss is renowned for her sense of humour, though she seems quite a sport. Sunak doesn’t have a detectable sense of humour. Nor does Starmer.Not really. What does it even mean?“There are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh‘Funny’ is such a subjective thing.Boris was an untrustworthy lying shit (and I wasn't even married to him) but he was a funny untrustworthy lying shit. Worth a lot in my book.After all, our Greatest Ever Prime Minister® wasn't renowned for getting to the end of a coherent sentence, ever.He was trying to say "bro" and he thought, I sound ridiculous, so he then tried to say "brother" and he did.What an orator Sir Keir is.What's a tech blo blobber? #PMQs
https://x.com/tomhfh/status/1790705176707293422?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
SKS Fans please translate!
Does this mean he is not our next PM? Probably not.
But he Had Charisma and Delivered Brexit, so that's fine.
I always found his heavily signalled overworked or underworked zingers followed by an expectation that everyone would be amused & charmed distinctly unfunny, so that’s a no redeeming qualities from me.
disasters “.
You don’t find that funny?
I suppose I might conjure up a grim rictus at the irony of BJ having a bit of a laff about disasters.
Still, speaking of rictus smiles and exPMs, just had Gordy Broon on C4 going on about how terrible & damaging child poverty was in the UK. Thank goodness we listened to him in 2014, think how much worse it could have been.
Starmer seems like he's hiding a sense of humour somewhere
Sunak won't share
I’d say Boris is the only PM with the gift that I can recall. And he proves that being funny can get you very far in life (into a lot of beds; and into great jobs) but it doesn’t mean you will be good at those jobs - not at all
Indeed it’s so rare I’m not sure I can think of another significant British politician with the gift. Certainly not Cameron or brown or Blair or Truss or TMay.
Maybe George Osborne?
(The inexplicable thing about Rishi isn't so much the poor delivery as the terrible material. That ought to be fixable by getting some competent writers in.)
- Trump. Sad.
- Apparently Stalin
- Berlusconi
- Dennis Skinner
- Idi Amin
And a few who have their moments but fall short of being full natural comedians, including Farage, Farron, Charles Kennedy, Salmond.
We didn’t start the fire…..Naturally funny politicians with proper comic timing and the ability to go beyond one joke into an impromptu riff (and I agree Johnson annoyingly did have that):Gag writing, like plumbing, is something that really ought to be left to the professionals. There's still a talent to deliver someone else's material well, but to come up with good new jokes means seeing the world in a peculiar way that isn't that compatible with much else.Having a sense of humour - getting jokes, laughing naturally, being at ease in the comic moment, capable of self deprecation - is quite common. Especially in the British. Actually BEING FUNNY - making people crack up - is vastly rarerI think Cameron could do a decent cutting line, like his 'not like we're brothers' jibe to Miliband, but it's a kind of top boy bullying humour perhaps. Truss I don't know but she has a cheeky grin.Starmer seems to be funnier in private than public, which is unhelpful for him. Truss I think had quite a decent sense of humour. May showed herself to have decent comic timing after the Queen’s death. Neither Cameron nor Clegg nor Brown had the humour gene. Blair had his moments. Major had it. Thatcher didn’t.Truss is just insaneIt wasn't that Boris necessarily did comedy routines, but one knew he had a sense of humour. An early speech referencing Huskisson's violent death due to Stevenson's rocket (back in the halcyon days) was funny because Boris accidentally made himself laugh. I don't think Truss is renowned for her sense of humour, though she seems quite a sport. Sunak doesn’t have a detectable sense of humour. Nor does Starmer.Not really. What does it even mean?“There are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh‘Funny’ is such a subjective thing.Boris was an untrustworthy lying shit (and I wasn't even married to him) but he was a funny untrustworthy lying shit. Worth a lot in my book.After all, our Greatest Ever Prime Minister® wasn't renowned for getting to the end of a coherent sentence, ever.He was trying to say "bro" and he thought, I sound ridiculous, so he then tried to say "brother" and he did.What an orator Sir Keir is.What's a tech blo blobber? #PMQs
https://x.com/tomhfh/status/1790705176707293422?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
SKS Fans please translate!
Does this mean he is not our next PM? Probably not.
But he Had Charisma and Delivered Brexit, so that's fine.
I always found his heavily signalled overworked or underworked zingers followed by an expectation that everyone would be amused & charmed distinctly unfunny, so that’s a no redeeming qualities from me.
disasters “.
You don’t find that funny?
I suppose I might conjure up a grim rictus at the irony of BJ having a bit of a laff about disasters.
Still, speaking of rictus smiles and exPMs, just had Gordy Broon on C4 going on about how terrible & damaging child poverty was in the UK. Thank goodness we listened to him in 2014, think how much worse it could have been.
Starmer seems like he's hiding a sense of humour somewhere
Sunak won't share
I’d say Boris is the only PM with the gift that I can recall. And he proves that being funny can get you very far in life (into a lot of beds; and into great jobs) but it doesn’t mean you will be good at those jobs - not at all
Indeed it’s so rare I’m not sure I can think of another significant British politician with the gift. Certainly not Cameron or brown or Blair or Truss or TMay.
Maybe George Osborne?
(The inexplicable thing about Rishi isn't so much the poor delivery as the terrible material. That ought to be fixable by getting some competent writers in.)
- Trump. Sad.
- Apparently Stalin
- Berlusconi
- Dennis Skinner
- Idi Amin
And a few who have their moments but fall short of being full natural comedians, including Farage, Farron, Charles Kennedy, Salmond.
Test:My Grandad had his funeral service in the Minster, he was a lay preacher and involved in the York Mystery Plays, and a couple of weeks later the South Transept got hit by lightning and the roof burnt down. I’m not saying the events were related but…
Edit: D'oh!
The Lib Dems fucked themselves by straddling two horses for decades.If only Cammo had the maturity and insight to have recognised that his interests lay with nurturing his coalition partners and not f**king them over, how our history might be differentWait until September when I do the threads on the ten year anniversary of David Cameron leading the forces of light and righteousness to defeat the scourge of Scottish nationalism.David Cameron is a fuckwitAgree that pineapple is a terrible topping for pizza.***TRIGGER WARNING***Is there anything I can do or say to change your mind?
I am contemplating using that Farage photo in the next thread.
However if anyone says anything rude about the Lord Cameron after this comment then I will deploy the picture.