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Flashman

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Everything posted by Flashman

  1. Is it snowing on the moral high ground you all occupy?
  2. Can anybody point to a better system? For example, name the Irish or German President? Furthermore, many foreigners admire our constitutional monarchy - I can think of French and Cantonese ex-colleagues who expressed these views to me in the past. Of more interest to me if how bitter and twisted are some members of this forum. It must be soul-destroying to be so unhappy about so many things so much of the time. I’d advocate emigrating, but who’d have you?
  3. Reactions to the Queen’s death have been an eye-opener. I will be treating people differently in future, based on their lack of empathy and basic common decency. To be fair, my friends and acquaintances are all similar in outlook, Club memberships, education, etc. so there have been no shocks. However, I will review colleagues and friends of friends if they cannot be civil to those in mourning. Treat others as you wish to be treated is a very simple concept.
  4. Cecil Rhodes said it best.
  5. Splendidly-worded statement from President Biden.
  6. Food for thought for those taking cheap shots at the wider Royal Family.
  7. Why “get involved”? The most active posters on this thread won’t be convinced by any fact, argument or opinion except those which support their own point of view. If I could be bothered, no doubt I’d see the same PW “experts” on the Covid and Brexit threads. Were they Israel’s fault as well?
  8. And we finally end up with Godwin’s Law by proxy. Somebody should produce a bingo card of the mentalist cliches chucked out by a certain type of pub bore know-it-all that we have now read in this thread: - “mainstream media” liars - Russia only defending itself - West provoked it - Brexit to blame - What about Israel..? What’s next, I wonder? The Royal family..? Rand Corporation..? Military Industrial Complex? Israel..? You’d think that Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook lies and subsequent bankruptcy would make these people a little more circumspect, but self-awareness is not in their repertoire. Oh, and what about Israel..?
  9. Always Altberg. UK manufactured, great aftercare. You get what you pay for, particularly with boots.
  10. It’s also online as part of Amazon’s Newsstand, or whatever it’s called.
  11. Who, I wonder, is the target market for this implement, based on the branding? A quick look at the website makes clear who they think will buy it… To answer the question, it’s heavily discounted both on Amazon and it’s own website, suggesting it’s a volume product that doesn’t typically offer any confidence in the quality.
  12. Not really. 1. Still not convinced by HH - as I said in my opening comments. 2. Electric costs don’t float my boat. 3. I won’t buy anything that’s obviously “made in China”, so looking at the pricier end of the market. 4. I work in London and will stop by the numerous outdoors shops at some point. 5. I like the sound of anything made for a Scandi winter - if it’s good enough for them, it should suit me.
  13. Will anybody recommend some thermals? i felt the cold on my peg for the first time ever, whilst wearing normal gear over a Helly Hansen thermal top. I wish to ramp up the base layer, hence the request. Has anybody worn Sub Zero F2? Thanks, all.
  14. Battery failure is a known fault. It can be repaired for £30 or so. The trouble is, what will fail next? A circuit board and another £30 repair? At what point it is better to buy a new one, which I guess is the reason why they make electronic goods with a finite life span.
  15. 1. Vanguard’s fees are low and they’re well regarded. 2. Doing anything yourself as a direct investment will probably lead to you being scammed. 3. You appear to be an everyday/restricted investor, so you are limited to “safe” platforms such as Vanguard. 4. Pay an IFA for advice if you want to try something for racy. If your investments fail, the FOS & FSCS try to return your money, so it’s a no lose punt. The FCA are trying to protect retail investors from themselves at the moment. 5. Personally, I’d look at med-tech investments. However, you will never see decent prospects because you’re a retail investor.
  16. Latin is a useful gateway subject to aid learning other European languages and the Classics. Many of the posts here seem to be about: 1. Don’t like Boris - and it’s his, and only his, decision. 2. Class war. 3. Projecting the poster’s own comprehensive system learning experience. Offer the subject - and let it wither in the vine if children don’t take it. From what I read about it in the papers, it won’t divert much in the way of resources from other subjects. Who knows, it may replace Gender Issues and Knitting from the National Curriculum.
  17. FT - 19 July: It is still too early to start tightening UK monetary policy, even though it now looks possible that the economy will emerge from the pandemic without sustaining any long-term damage, according to a member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting committee. Professor Jonathan Haskel, an external member of the monetary policy committee, on Monday said the risk of premature tightening choking off the recovery still outweighed the risk of inflation temporarily exceeding the BoE’s 2 per cent target, despite the improvement in the country’s medium-term prospects. “For now, tight policy is not the right policy,” he said in a webinar. “The economy is not fully recovered yet and faces two headwinds over the coming months: the highly transmissible Delta [coronavirus] variant and a tightening of the fiscal stance.” The comments from one of the most consistently dovish members of the nine-strong committee point to a likely split of opinion within the MPC when it meets next month to set policy. Last week, Michael Saunders, another external member of the committee who had previously favoured very loose policy, signalled he could vote to pare back the BoE’s bond-buying programme as early as the August meeting. Sir Dave Ramsden, a BoE deputy governor, also indicated last week that he was changing his mind about inflation after official data showed prices rising at a faster pace than the BoE had forecast. Jonathan Haskel: ‘For now, tight policy is not the right policy’ © Jason Alden/Reuters Haskel agreed that the prospects for the UK economy were now much brighter than they had been at the start of the year, thanks to the rollout of vaccines, combined with fiscal and monetary support. There was now at least a possibility that a strong recovery in the labour market, combined with rapid digitalisation, would return gross domestic product to its pre-pandemic path, he said, with “no scarring at all and even a boost to potential output”. The BoE forecast in its May monetary policy report that output would remain around 1.25 per cent below its pre-pandemic path in the medium term, while the Office for Budget Responsibility in March pencilled in a permanent hit to GDP of 3 per cent, largely because of the slump in investment. Haskel argued that economic “scarring” could be less than feared, because the drop in investment had been concentrated on physical assets, with companies still investing strongly in intangible assets, such as R&D and software. Meanwhile, changing working practices could yield lasting productivity gains, he said. This was driven by rapid digitalisation and automation, rather than the adoption of homeworking, where the evidence of productivity gains was very mixed, he said. Inflationary pressures could rise in the short term, as people began to consume more in expectation of better times ahead, he acknowledged. But this did not make it necessary to raise interest rates, he argued. A lot of the rise in inflation over the coming months would be temporary, because of the last year’s swings in oil prices, while the recovery was still fragile — and had so far occurred “under the protective blanket” of government support schemes that were now set to expire. Shipping costs have risen because of a shortage of active vessels. Numerous carriers were mothballed - cold lay ups - hence the delays in restocking Chinese tech across the West.
  18. Look for gangmasters at A and M road roundabouts, hiring out labour by the say.
  19. Flashman

    India

    Whataboutism. Predictable. And a bit boring.
  20. Flashman

    India

    It’s an old scam: get the immediate publicity by making the shocking, headline-making statement and retract or apologise later. Retractions never gain the same circulation figures and in any case the publicity has already been gained. Chris Packham does it all the time. Just the sort of trick played by the Trot Left…
  21. The Tories will become stale. Labour will reinvent itself. There’s nothing new : it happened in 1945, 1964, 1979, 1997 & 2010.
  22. There are lots of fakes out there, so buyer beware if shopping on the internet.
  23. Like champagne houses, Mont Blanc spends mental amounts on marketing & PR. Buy one if you like the look of them. Also, pop by the fancy pen shop in the Burlington Arcade, to see other manufacturers’ second-hand options.
  24. 1. The MSC benchmark so beloved of supermarkets is an expensive cartel created by the same supermarkets to whitewash the low standards it approves. It’s too expensive for smaller (sustainable) fish processors to join, thereby damaging the smaller end of the fishing industry. 2. The Chinese & Koreans own a sizeable chunk of the UK fishing industry - the large processors in Grimsby, for example. 3. The Chinese will kill everything they touch. In this case by overfishing. 4. Once the proper fish run out, they will sell the grim-looking muck that makes up “crab” stix, etc, moulded to look like fish. And them move on to wreck something else. It’s obvious to everybody in the fresh food business and the supermarkets just don’t care. The vac-pack frozen fish you buy on the cheap is another nail in the UK fishing industry. Buy fresh from a proper fishmonger. Ask where they buy the fish. Bllingsgate does not mean good - it means foreign and frozen.
  25. Consider who will be the likely tenants of flats in the area you describe, particularly, if managed by social housing-type managers. Lots of running repairs... However, yields are low, but pretty safe. Instead, consider letting to vulnerable tenants - there are specialist managers. The fit & fittings must be prison-quality, but yields are much better.
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