Interesting speech made in the Bundestag. In German but with subtitles. Best part is the look on Merkel's face. She looks like she's eating vinegar off a fork the whole time.

Often with such complicated issues it is good to break them down into a more understandable format. So here we have Brexit - the omelette problem.

LEAVER: I want an omelette.

REMAINER: Right. It’s just we haven’t got any eggs.

LEAVER: Yes, we have. There they are. [HE POINTS AT A CAKE]

REMAINER: They’re in the cake.

LEAVER: Yes, get them out of the cake, please.

REMAINER: But we voted in 1974 to put them into a cake.

LEAVER: Yes, but that cake has got icing on it. Nobody said there was going to be icing on it.

REMAINER: Icing is good.

LEAVER: And there are raisins in it. I don’t like raisins. Nobody mentioned raisins. I demand another vote.

DAVID CAMERON ENTERS.

DAVID CAMERON: OK.

DAVID CAMERON SCARPERS.

LEAVER: Right, where’s my omelette?

REMAINER: I told you, the eggs are in the cake.

LEAVER: Well, get them out.

EU: It’s our cake.

JEREMY CORBYN: Yes, get them out now.

REMAINER: I have absolutely no idea how to get them out. Don’t you know how to get them out?

LEAVER: Yes! You just get them out and then you make an omelette.

REMAINER: But how?! Didn’t you give this any thought?

LEAVER: Saboteur! You’re talking eggs down. We could make omelettes before the eggs went into the cake, so there’s no reason why we can’t make them now.

THERESA MAY: It’s OK, I can do it.

REMAINER: How?

THERESA MAY: There was a vote to remove the eggs from the cake, and so the eggs will be removed from the cake.

REMAINER: Yeah, but…

LEAVER: Hang on, if we take the eggs out of the cake, does that mean we don’t have any cake? I didn’t say I didn’t want the cake, just the bits I don’t like.

EU: It’s our cake.

REMAINER: But you can’t take the eggs out of the cake and then still have a cake.

LEAVER: You can. I saw the latest Bake Off and you can definitely make cakes without eggs in them. It’s just that they’re horrible.

REMAINER: Fine. Take the eggs out. See what happens.

LEAVER: It’s not my responsibility to take the eggs out. Get on with it.

REMAINER: Why should I have to come up with some long-winded incredibly difficult chemical process to extract eggs that have bonded at the molecular level to the cake, while somehow still having the cake?

LEAVER: You lost, get over it.

THERESA MAY: By the way, I’ve started the clock on this.

REMAINER: So I assume you have a plan?

THERESA MAY: Actually, back in a bit. Just having another election.

REMAINER: Jeremy, are you going to sort this out?

JEREMY CORBYN: Yes. No. Maybe.

EU: It’s our cake.

LEAVER: Where’s my omelette? I voted for an omelette.

REMAINER: This is ridiculous. This is never going to work. We should have another vote, or at least stop what we’re doing until we know how to get the eggs out of the cake while keeping the bits of the cake that we all like.

LEAVER/MAY/CORBYN: WE HAD A VOTE. STOP SABOTAGING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. EGGSIT MEANS EGGSIT.

REMAINER: Fine, I’m moving to France. The cakes are nicer there.

LEAVER: You can’t. We’ve taken your freedom of movement.

@taniwharugby said in TV Serieseseses:

finished S3 of The Last Kingdom.

not quite as good as other seasons, seemed to jump about a bit more with the different storie lines and then the pig headedness of Alfred & Uhtred was frustrating.

Still really liked it though.

Thought the character Skade was sexy AF in this too.

This series went a long way away from the books which might have had some impact on the lack of continuity.

@jc said in Brexit:

So May wins the confidence vote 200 - 117.

Would you say that makes her position stronger than before the no confidence vote was forced? I'm thinking yes. Whilst it's not good to have 33% odd of your own party having no confidence it is still a pretty large margin of support.

@baron-silas-greenback said in US Politics:

@catogrande said in US Politics:

So Cohen has been found guilty of several charges and faces a jail term of 36 months. Any thoughts as to how this might impact on Trump? Some news outlets are suggesting his wider business dealings are being put under greater scrutiny following the verdict on Cohen.

he has been convicted of lying.... good luck using him as a witness...
Muller is just an invesigator looking for a crime. he is oging to keep finding things, because... how could he not. Even if he has to make stuff up, he will. Trump is correct this is a witch hunt. Anyone remember when the point of this was russian collusion?

Ha! Good point. A somewhat compromised witness.

Fair point also about it being supposed to be about Russian collusion but, in the case of Cohen, if one investigation uncovers something else, well they shouldn't ignore it should they? Anyway not just lying, campaign finance violations and tax evasion. If any I'd say the middle one is most likely to impact on Trump. To what extent though is something else.

So Cohen has been found guilty of several charges and faces a jail term of 36 months. Any thoughts as to how this might impact on Trump? Some news outlets are suggesting his wider business dealings are being put under greater scrutiny following the verdict on Cohen.

@rotated said in Brexit:

@catogrande said in Brexit:

@crucial said in Brexit:

@majorrage said in Brexit:

@crucial Labour would withdraw article 50 without a doubt.

Sure. Then flounder around for ages trying to work out their next move. If they were to have that as part of their manifesto how many votes would they lose?
As much as a balls up this has been, I have to give May some credit for at least trying to make a silk purse from a pig's scrotum. It has been the process and vagueness around what 'out' really means that has been the killer. Imaging voting for something that wasn't defined but would have a major impact?

Yes. Imagine that. A ridiculous thought.

As the Australian republic vote and NZ flag vote show this is the most effective strategy to dilute overall majority support for an idea by forcing it to coalesce behind a single form of brexit/flag/republic.

Except that didn't work for Cameron. And in a big way.

@crucial said in Brexit:

@majorrage said in Brexit:

@crucial Labour would withdraw article 50 without a doubt.

Sure. Then flounder around for ages trying to work out their next move. If they were to have that as part of their manifesto how many votes would they lose?
As much as a balls up this has been, I have to give May some credit for at least trying to make a silk purse from a pig's scrotum. It has been the process and vagueness around what 'out' really means that has been the killer. Imaging voting for something that wasn't defined but would have a major impact?

Yes. Imagine that. A ridiculous thought.

@booboo said in Grace Millane:

@booboo said in Grace Millane:

@no-quarter said in Grace Millane:

@donsteppa said in Grace Millane:

@jegga said in Grace Millane:

@no-quarter said in Grace Millane:

Cynical question: do these vigils happen if we remove social media? Would so many be attending if they couldn't narcissistically post about it online?

Any of you old buggers remember anything like this happening before? The reaction seems way OTT given we never get vigils for, say, the innocent children that are regularly killed in domestic violence incidents.

(Edited but probably too late for anyone to take this post seriously now)

Nope . I don’t remember there being grief olympics held before social media .

Some parts of the outpouring around Princess Diana's death are the closest I can think of pre-social media.

Yeah I have fairly vague memories of that but can remember it seeming to be a massive deal at the time. Difference there is people actually knew who she was and many were fans already.

@booboo yeah I think you're right. Also I see one of the vigils was organised by Alison Mau and a womans rights group and talked about "NZs attitude towards women" etc so they seem to have jumped at the chance to push their message.

I hate that this young lady has tragically died.

But part of me really wants it to be found she died as a result of something other than at this bloke's hands.

Partly so the UK don't blame ME!

But mainly so grandstanders like Mau get shown up. (What does she care about men anyway? Bloody Aussie.)

Having said that on balance of probabilities I suspect there will be a trial... and it may not end well for the accused.

But let's hear the evidence first huh?

I'm going to rephrase that.

I think I want this not to be a murder so that we are all reminded of our system of justice being 'innocent until proven guilty'.

I've seen so much shit just assuming he's guilty. I will not be surprised if he is. But he's assumed to be guilty by so many. It's got to compromise the trial.

This will pan out how it does. But there is a fair amount of assumption of guilt so far.

I'm guessing that level of assumption is mainly fuelled by how quickly the police have nabbed someone for it.

@jegga said in Grace Millane:

@donsteppa said in Grace Millane:

@jegga said in Grace Millane:

@no-quarter said in Grace Millane:

Cynical question: do these vigils happen if we remove social media? Would so many be attending if they couldn't narcissistically post about it online?

Any of you old buggers remember anything like this happening before? The reaction seems way OTT given we never get vigils for, say, the innocent children that are regularly killed in domestic violence incidents.

(Edited but probably too late for anyone to take this post seriously now)

Nope . I don’t remember there being grief olympics held before social media .

Some parts of the outpouring around Princess Diana's death are the closest I can think of pre-social media.

Good call , that was utterly bizarre.

Yep, that was bizzarre. Seeing normally sensible people that you know well, acting out some high level grief for someone they've never met but they held in high esteem just because her husband fancied some other ugly bird. Totally nuts.