Toadfish in the UK/Europe

[Griffin NoName]

DOH!

[Griffin NoName]

Anyone been watching Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain?

I've managed to survive his slightly odd views (demonstrated I think by his hiding himself in the edge of the frame in most shots) until last week's.

I need to make a BIG objection to being told We Are All Thatcher's Children.

I am NOT. I never. Who does Andrew think he is?

I am a child of the Sixties NOT the eighties.

Ah well, he's a pip squeak. My younger sister's age. Born too late to be a Boomer Baby. 

(and I may get a chance to tell him in person soon; will report back if so).

(apologies to other young pip squeaks)

[beagle]

I need to make a BIG objection to being told We Are All Thatcher's Children.


I am a child of the Sixties NOT the eighties.

Here you go then...

I've only seen excerpts from the book, but those seemed bang-on, seeming to identify Attlee and Thatcher as the towering P.M.s and the other post-war ones as bunglers and imitators (including "Yo" Blair).

We're probably all children of both in the sense that institutions they put in place (or demolished) we take for granted.

[Griffin NoName]

There's a book? Eek.

The miners were an institution. I never took them for granted. Not when the lights went out all over England.

Bring back Beveridge.

[Griffin NoName]

Boris gives up education to stand for Mayor. Will Ken give up Mayor to stand for education?

And what percentage of Russian Diplomats is 4? Do we have enough left to expel as the ante ups? What do we expel when we run out of them?

[Griffin NoName]

So Russia expels 4 British diplomats and we say that's a good result? Think I probably have a fundamental misunderstanding of diplomacy.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Tit-for-tat.

Case 1: the UK expels 4 Russian diplomats, therefore Russia expels 4 UK diplomats.

Case 2: Saddam Hussein pulls out his tongue to GWB, therefore the US destroys his country to bits and pieces.

It is quite simple, actually. 

[Griffin NoName]

But tit-for-tat diplomacy would be: Russian A (allegedly) kills Russian B on British soil in a particularly nasty way (the old umbrella trick was probably kinder), so Brit X (allegedly) kills Brit Y on Russian soil in a particularly nasty way. Russian B and Brit Y would need to be on foreign soil for broadly similar reasons and Russian A and Brit X would need to be - oh, hang it all, diplomacy is just too hard.

[beagle]

Bit in the papers today about this. Apparently Qatar is our new best friend. Enough reserves of LNG-able gas to supply Britain for 250 years and run by an ex-Sandhurst rather than ex-KGB man.
Together with Norwegian contracted supplies that means we could tell Putin to (diplomatically speaking) boil his head. BP won't be happy when Gazprom compulsorily renationalises everything, but they'll probably do that anyway.

Alternative suppliers of samovars, caviar and jewel-encrusted eggs are still being investigated.

[Griffin NoName]

Good news at last:

The European Commission has tired of waiting for the UK to give up imperial measurements, and now says it can use some of them for as long it wants.

Imperialism Rules !!

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Huh! Now they will have other excuse to delay the metric system here in the US. 

[Alpaca]

It dumbfounds me when kids in science classes still struggle with the concept of SI units.

Argh.

[beagle]

It was the old story of British officialdom implementing vigorously the sort of EU petty regulations that most other countries would quietly ignore.

Once market traders were harassed for letting old ladies buy bananas in units they understood it turned into a cultural battle.

http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news-and-events/1-press-releases/2002/metric-martyrs-go-to-european-court-backed-b.shtml

In practice imperial/metric runs in parallel fine. If you ask someone they're height or the distance to the next town I've never heard them answer in meters or kilometers though; might sometimes know what their weight is in kilograms though.

[Swatopluk]

Now they have just to resolve the differences between US and UK non-metric units (like e.g. the gallon)

[Griffin NoName]

Simple. Gallons just means a lot