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.

@Siam said in All Blacks v BI Lions Test #3:

World rugby's biggest game advertisement in the fallow years between world cups and is influenced by an insecure refereeing system but the gin swillers will be reminding themselves "controversy lasts far longer in the advertiser's eye than a pure spectacle, and think of the clicks we'll get!"

Even the perpetrator knew he was offside playing at the ball!

Still our beloved team only really have themselves to blame

Taking nothing away from the Lions who will take more pride than us over the drawn series.

It was a great series and none of us predicted it thus.

one question though:

Did it feel lucky to draw that?

honest question from an unquestionably biased kiwi

edit: The question was aimed at Lions supporters (lest I lose my arrogance)

Honest answer? Yeah we were lucky in the end. Lucky on a couple of counts, firstly in that for much of the match we were outplayed and only some uncharacteristic balls ups from NZ kept us in the game. Later on we got nearer to parity and if you're there or thereabouts with 10 minutes to go you have to feel that you have a chance of nicking the game. So lucky but dissatisfied. Secondly the non penalty. I did think is was sort of accidental at least instinctive rather than deliberate, but to me it was definitely a penalty. Whether or not Barret would have slotted the kick is another matter and if he hadn't then you lot would just have had something else to make you spew

We rode our luck over two tests and overall the better team did not win, but that's the beauty of sport. Winning great but you watch because of the uncertainty.

Gatland's legacy will go down as a two-time undefeated Lions head coach (a fact he has reminded us of a couple of times already) but in truth this time round he was very lucky. There was no cunning master plan to out-coach NZ. Fair play to him in Australia four years ago, he got that last game spot on though.

@jegga said in Add Fidel to the 2016 body count:

FFS, how is Yoko Ono is still alive?

A macrobiotic diet. She lives off dead beetles.

And don't forget the police also raided Cliff Richard's house and seized all his computers. Everyone's worst fears were confirmed when they found he'd been making new music.

Nice quote from David Warner following Faf Du Plessis ball tampering of a couple of years back.

"We hold our heads high and I'd be very disappointed if one of our team members did that.

"The rules are in place for a reason. If you're not going to use them why bother having them?

"If you're going to overstep the mark, be prepared to get fined and miss Test matches."

@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Media Discussion:

I'm fucking done with listening to the opinions of people who have heard or read the same as me

Well your time on the Fern had to end one day.

Well, I watched the game at home and was amazed at the England performance. I thought we had a chance but... Even though we were pretty dominant more or less throughout the game and it was ours to lose almost, there was always in the back of my mind that you just cannot trust a Kiwi to know when to say enough is enough. Having said that I felt reasonably comfortable with four minutes to go and two scores needed but even then... hmmm.

I didn't watch it at the pub as a 9.00 am kick off would have meant ruining the rest of the day but at around 11.40 I got a call from a mate. "I'm down at the Royal Oak and I need someone to talk rugby to. I can't go home and talk to her". So the rest of the day has been washout really. No complaints though.

Thanks to all who have posted congratulations and compliments on our performance. That takes a bit of doing, especially after the success you've had.

No where's that bottle of red?

@mn5 said in Re: Movie review thread...:

@rocky-rockbottom said in Re: Movie review thread...:

The Living Daylights (1987)

"Timothy Dalton" "TIMOTHY DALTON"? Who the fuck is this weasel-eyed fluffybunny? This wooden wiener is about as suave as goddamn cock cancer. Compared to his illustrious predecessors, messrs Connery and Moore, he looks like he bought his clothes in the fucking supermarket.

"Timothy Dalton". May as well be Tomoko fucken Dildostein for all he's got to do with my Bond franchise. HowTF did he even pass the screen test? His dad must be the goddamn director.

Did the dishes. Read up on the footy. Basically stalled until this bland Where's Wally twat got OFF my telly.

I enjoyed this one. It was a bit 'dark'. Pretty certain a few people who knew Fleming said he said Dalton was his personal favourite Bond.

Necros was one of the coolest henchmen too, better than that homo Dario from LTK

Doubtful seeing as he died 23 years before The Living daylights was made.

@Hooroo said in The Time Has Come To Log In:

@erps You're not an ex-St Pauls lad are you?

If so, I think it was you that told me to check out the fern when discussing rugby at a party in London!

We're not in a blame culture here you know. Own your own mistakes.

@r-l

I can thoroughly recommend the Weatherspoons App. With this you can sit at your table and order and pay for the cheapest item on the menu (it is a bowl of peas by the way) for someone else's table and then watch the mayhem when the waiter gives the food to someone that doesn't want it and refuses to take it back. Leave it 20 minutes then order again.Even if the original customers have left.

Hours of fun.

@siam said in Coronavirus - UK:

@r-l said in Coronavirus - UK:

You can't make people have it, you'd just hope they'd see the bigger picture.

This is bang on.
The feature of covid is the first month when the people universally complied with an articulated threat. Then cracks and inconsistencies followed - Ferguson's numbers were high, health spokespeople flaunted lockdown rules, tic toc videos from the nhs were questioned, the lockdown dates kept changing.

In my contrary way I'm sceptical that the government's message has satisfies the people adequately enough. I've believed this for all countries. If the kids in class aren't learning the lessons, is it the kid's at fault or the teachers?

I say the teachers and suggest that we had everyone on the same page in the first month and then the teacher's got inconsistent. Sure, some kids learn at different speeds, but any leader with a clear, consistent and coherent plan will get the message across to everyone - just like in March 2020.

I'd love to know how many sceptics exist in Britain right now, and why they're sceptical

You have hit on a point here about the public buy in regarding lockdown, it has without a doubt reduced. This though, IMO, is only in part due to the mixed signals and varied info coming out, anyone who realistically thought that the Government experts knew everything from the get go need their bumps felt. The data on this thing is constantly changing, modelling will also change along with that. This is what we call learning by experience. Anyone that expected different would be a fool.

Lockdown burnout though is a real thing, people will only put up with stuff for so long, especially if they see no real reason. From my limited view it seems that the buy in for lockdown etc is such greater among those that have had first hand experience of the effects of covid, either through their work or family/friends.

@canefan said in Coronavirus - UK:

@r-l said in Coronavirus - UK:

@canefan
You can't make people have it, you'd just hope they'd see the bigger picture. The longer we stay in the covid grip of waves and restrictions people suffer.
I know others have mentioned above but its health, mental health, its people's jobs and businesses etc.
If anyone has a suggestion to get us out of this other than vaccination then I'd love to hear it.

Great point. It may be a public health issue, but it has far reaching consequences for all health sectors, and most importantly the economy. The UK will be wanting to trg to turn around the 9.9% drop in GDP

Economy slated to rebound by around 7.5% this year and a further 5.5% next year. The economy will be OK with a little time, to be honest, for most people it already is OK. There are of course some sectors that will suffer badly - travel, hospitality etc. However the levels of support for businesses form the Government has been very good. This is of course at the expense of Govt borrowing but it should be remembered that the cost of that borrowing is extremely low. Something like 0.7% pa.

@kiwiwomble

I was serious wondering what your job was until I found the other “Utopia”.

@broughie said in Gin:

@r-l I don’t anything about Gin. How does it differ from scotch and whiskey. I willing to try.

Think good vodka but with many overlaying flavours which are usually quite subtle individually. It’s a very interesting spirit to sample, but takes a fair bit of involvement IMO.

Nothing like any type of whiskey.

I'm really enjoying tasting the many craft gins that a re available now, though I always go back to a Gordons, Tanqueray or Plymouth for an everyday gin.

While I'm enjoying tasting them, some I find not to my liking. One called Hophead Gin was a case in point, far too bitter and the overall hoppiness was overpowering. I'm currently enjoying an Italian one that has the skins of Muscat grapes as part of the flavouring, so a bit of Grappa like overtones. It's called Marco 46 and comes in at 46%, so that bit stronger than your usuals.

Pride of place though is a special bottle of Hendricks...

@r-l said in Coronavirus - UK:

@catogrande said in Coronavirus - UK:

The low take up of the vaccines amongst BAME communities is something that we’ve been aware of for sometime but little seems to be getting done to correct this.

What needs to be done? High risk groups (BAME included) have been prioritised in lots of areas during the pandemic, for example their chronic health reviews have been prioritised in an attempt to engage the BAME groups in particular and uptake there has been good from our part of UK, flu jabs also but not the covid vaccine. In our CCG we've had a number of mosques hosting vaccine centres, you'd think that would be encouraging but you can't make someone have it and we shouldn't have to spoon feed information to people, its been accessible to anyone who can turn on a tv.

Edit:I'm grumpy

Grumpiness excused.

I'm sure that there is lots being done small scale, at local surgeries, I'm more thinking that more should be done on a general level to engage with the sectors of the community that have poor take up. Quite how or what is way above my pay grade though.

@victor-meldrew
Kathleen was seriously hot back in the day. Sizzling in Body Heat

@pakman @scribe

The low take up of the vaccines amongst BAME communities is something that we’ve been aware of for sometime but little seems to be getting done to correct this. A few of the more prominent and influential black and Asian guys have been promoting the vaccines and good on them for doing so, but nothing concerted by the medicos or local authorities, cos racism.

@canefan said in Investing - Property/Shares:

Some of the Chinese EV companies are exploring battery swapping stations to get around issues with slow charging

That sounds like a sensible stop gap measure. The elephant in the room though is battery disposal. Questions are already being asked about how green EVs really are. Energy is green but the hardware, for want of a better word, is another thing. Long way to go yet.