scottsdad

He did himself no favours with that one - though what choice did he really have? Come out as a Remainer, get vilified and accused of being anti-democratic and working against his own beliefs? Come out as a Brexiter and abandon the 48% of the electorate who voted remain? In the end he chose neither which was worse than both other options as it made him seem indecisive. I don't think any labour leader would have done well there.

Here's what I don't get. The media had the knives out for Corbyn in 2017. But people were enthused by his left-wing policies. In 2019 the press still had the knives out for him. He still had left-wing policies. So...what changed? My thinking is that 2017 was just an oddity/outlier following the carnage of the referendum and 2019 was back to normal. Happy to be proven wrong though.

2017 was an utter outlier of an election. A year after the Brexit referendum but before the negotiations, it was still the main issue, the Tories changed leader, UKIP vanished overnight, Trump came to power...it was a strange time to call an election. Add to that Theresa May was by a country mile the worst campaigner I have ever seen. The right wing press being no chums of Labour leaders is not new, nor was it unique to Jezza. Remember the disgusting stuff they wrote about Ed Miliband's family, and endlessly recycling the picture of him gagging on a sandwich. Starmer's not having it easy at the moment either.

The doc says there is no point in going for any treatment. I've mentioned this in the depression thread, but this cancer frankly isn't a health concern for him right now.

'She is crying for help': Britney Spears sparks concern after posting NINE full frontal naked pictures on Instagram as worried fans beg her to stop

Years back I had a stereo in my bedroom that I could set an alarm on. It would play track 1 of whatever CD I had in at the time. Results were varied. Some mornings getting terrified awake as some big banging tune starts thumping with no warning. Others too gentle. Turns out (from my experience) that the best CD for this was Dire Straits, Brothers In Arms. Track 1 is So Far Away which has a very nice, gentle intro and builds into a fairly chilled song.

13 days the Daily Heil has had this on its front page. Cost of living crisis, inflation, Ukraine, climate change, local elections, Queen's health - all of it playing second fiddle to trying to get after Starmer. They must be terrified of him. In the end he played the only card he could. No way he could stay on if fined, so he made it a badge of honour. Now people can see a difference between him and BawJaws; this whole thing had been done to make the curry the same as Boris's birthday parties, leaving do's, BYOB nights, quiz parties and Christmas parties. And in the end I reckon the only thing people will really take away from this is that Starmer is a man of integrity whereas Johnson isn't. This has backfired on the right wing press.

I'm fairly sure the chancellor looks at how much money I make, how much I am ever likely to make, and puts the transition above that. It is getting personal now.

When I was 19 I had the same thing. Turned out to be a cyst - got it removed on the Friday, back to work as a door to door salesman on the Monday. But for the months (yes, months) it took me to build up the courage to go and see the doctor, I was shitting myself. Nowadays I'd be there like a shot.

Not going to happen... because you paid up?

6 for Tuesday

All I will say here is thank god for my wife. I talk to her about all this and she knows exactly when to console me, when to tell me to get a grip, and when to cheer me up. This would be near impossible without her. And the good people here, who have offered help and support. Much as a few threads here can be fun, or infuriating, this place is a gem.

Marriage is a wonderful institution. So is Broadmoor and Wormwood Scrubs.

Had a talk with my mum at the weekend. We were visiting and she asked me to help her with a problem with the car. We got outside and she said there was no problem, but wanted to speak to me away from the kids. We sat in her car, in the driveway, and spoke. She has spoken to the doctor and dad and was now speaking to me. They have had to come up with a plan for my dad - for his resuscitation. When it comes, and it will be soon, he doesn't want any special measures. No shocks, no ventilators. It wouldn't help and would just hurt him. The doctor recommends stopping the treatments for his eyes and his skin cancer - there is no point putting him through these treatments. She wanted me to know as the nearest of their children, I'll probably be there at the end to help her. Some discussions you just don't want to have. I had resigned myself to what was happening with him a week or two ago. I had a very rough time about 2 weeks ago (I was snapping at the wife and kids but managed to recognise what the issue was and stop) but I am settled to it now. I think it has just hit mum. They have been married 52 years now. Horrible to see her like that.

You can add "The Jester from Leicester" to Ronneh for the snooker. The most boring snooker player around.

Just hope they don't reposition the cameras to make the Cazoo advertising board the top quarter of the screen. I have trouble watching when the table is squashed on screen like that.

Absolutely. I've published in a few niche places before with impact factors lower than this - but that's when discussing an extremely niche area (the rise of the sodium carbonate industry in 18th century Glasgow, for example, was an off-beat work of mine that ended up in a Scottish history journal; my work on cellulose structure in much higher journals) For Covid and masks, there must be fifty journals with higher IFs. Chances are these other journals rejected the paper and he resubmitted it till he found someone to take it.

"It's been an emotional day. Even the cake is in tiers" is probably the oldest wedding day joke going. Still gets a laugh.

You check out guitar George, he knows-all the chords Mind, it's strictly rhythm he doesn't want to make it cry or sing They said an old guitar is all, he can afford When he gets up under the lights to play his thing

The Storyteller, Dave Grohl. Good read.

The 1% club. No matter how much I think about it, I cannot work out the phone-in-the-trouser-pocket question.

He was fantastic in The Night Manager too.