A great watch if you have an hour or so - Three great football writers (from excellent mag The Blizzard) chew the fat about the world of football.

epemberton · 8 days

Yeah, Marconi is pretty hard to get on with. The podcast he does with The Times is almost unbearable, he's just a grumpy contrarian shouting down opinions he doesn't agree with.

My feelings for Jonathan Wilson, on the other hand, rapidly turning into a full blown man crush. I really like what he's doing with The Blizzard, and he basically seems to have the perfect life, jetting round the world to see football games. He's covered the last 5 African cup on nations, and travels widely round Eastern Europe and South America just soaking up football!

Scottishbhoy1888 · 8 days

Football, bloody hell!

dangzelamb · 11 days

Looks like it may have worked!

borez · 2 months

Exactly, just as the figures that they used to demonstrate that the upper rate of tax took very little money were based on the year after everyone had been given an extremely clear warning that it was on the cards, so they could make sure they had as much money funnelled into their pockets before the new tax rate hit.

A genius move of politics maybe, but no less morally and ideologically bankrupt for it.

*edit: spelling

trebor33 · 2 months

I think this is a point often overlooked. The placebo effect is, in some cases, the only effective treatment that can be given for things such as long term chronic pain where the cause is not apparent.

The high effectiveness of the placebo effect in homoeopathy comes down to the very detailed consultations that are held and the sense that the patient is getting a 'bespoke solution'. It also helps that homoeopaths are generally smiley, happy purveyors of woo who have tie dye wall hangings and aromatherapy candles and the like and are a million miles away from the big scary hospital that couldn't do anything for you.

Now, in a perfect world we would be able to have all of the above, without the accompanying nonsense about super dilution and shaking it just so before hitting it with a bit of wood. There are clearly some very cynical (or deluded, but probably just cynical) companies making a lot of money off of homoeopathic remedies. But as things stand, doctors can't just send people off for a nice chat and then tell them that they're going to take a sugar pill that will make them better, because medical ethics dictate that you can't come out and tell bare-faced lies to your patients.

So by offering homoeopathy, the NHS is basically making the placebo effect available to people who need it. People criticize homoeopathy for not being able to perform better than the placebo effect in double blind trials, but don't stop to think that the placebo effect is still something important and desirable, but which otherwise cannot be delivered by the NHS with their commendable dedication to provable science and medical ethics.

westknife · 2 months

From the looks of it, I'm guessing it was at the All Tomorrow's Parties weekend. 3 days of awesome music and frolics in a cheesy off season English sea side resort. Terry Rileu and Big Boi both played the Friday of last years festival.

It's a pretty small site and its miles from anywhere, so the acts can all be seen wandering around the festival and bumping into each other for incongruous photo opportunities like this one!

Spaztic_monkey · 2 months

I agree with the other people who've responded pointing out that this is not really to do with the Laffer curve, it's more about excessive (in Prudential's eyes) regulation.

Regardless of that, however, I would say that it is disingenuous to say that the Laffer curve is 'widely accepted'. The only two points people know with any certainty is that you get zero tax income at 0 and 100% tax rates. Between those two points, you're pretty much drawing a wiggly line with your eyes shut, for all the consensus there is about the effects of higher rates of taxation.

fenryka · 3 months

Whilst those are both phenomenal goals, I don't think they quite fit in with the ethos of the OPs video. Those are both piledrivers hit whilst in plenty of space whereas every goal in the video has some element extra element of skill or dribbling that makes it totally unique.

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing someone put their laces through the ball from 35 yards, but in a compilation seeing screamer after screamer can get a bit dull. I much prefer compilations where each goal has something magical about it that you know will never be exactly recreated in the history of the game.

YourLizardOverlord · 3 months

I think this is such a huge problem in governance at the moment, it doesn't matter how transparent you are if no one is looking.

I mean, when people declare their interests on a register, it is precisely so journalists and the public can cross reference their public pronouncements and if there is a conflict of interest kick up an almighty stink. Except politicians are in such high demand for advisory roles and non executive director status in companies and conflicts of interest are now so normalised that it has become run of the mill and people no longer find it a shocking or outrageous as they should do.

The whole news story is just around a breech of MP protocol and the fact that he didn't mention his interests and the appropriate juncture. People should be getting up in arms over things like this, it should be the kind of scandal that brings down governments, rather than just the tawdry backdrop to almost all politics that goes on in this country these days.

The_Gecko · 3 months

If by 'their' lives you mean the lives of all gypsies ever, then no, it doesn't. What it does show is the lives of a sub set of gypsies and travellers who have agreed to go on the programme. They then overlay a highfalutin voice over that goes on about 'unprecedented access to the culture' and acting like they are fully representative of an entire 'race' of people (although i understand that the lines between culture / race get a little blurred in these areas).

Having watched the programme a few times, it seems like the only really common threads between the people featured are big wedding dresses and a proclivity to drink and dance to Lady GaGa records wearing skimpy party frocks. Most of the 'cultural' phenomena would be just as prevalent in any other families that were in grinding poverty after generations of subsistence by way of non-skilled manual labour

It is no less racist than if there was a documentary about an inner city crack den and channel 4 decided to call it 'My Big Black House'.

redelefant · 3 months

The thing is, they must have loads of change. More than likely, everyone on the bus who wasn't using a bus pass paid with a couple of pound coins. So a note should be no problem at all. Except on EVERY bus there only seems to be a small change tray with just 2 10p coins in it. And then if you have the temerity to pay with a fiver, the bus driver looks at you like you've just killed his dog and rustles around for a bag of change that is inexplicably hanging up in his jacket pocket.

Bus drivers can get stuffed.

lommym · 3 months

I'm fairly sure that if we snagged Hazard, he would have to be first choice. He's been absolutely phenomenal in France and there are a lot of big clubs sniffing around, the kid is something specials.

If we got his signature I think it would be exactly the sort of thing we need to step up to the next level. Also, it would really get up Arsenals nose as they've been sniffing around him for ages and if he chooses us over them, well, that would say it all.

epemberton · 3 months

Mick McCarthy for England? Oh who am I kidding, I just don't want Harry to go.

Mind you, he does tick a few boxes. He could have it out with some of the raging egos in the squad (see: Roy Keane) and has actually managed at a major international tournament before. And for those people clammering for an English manager, I know he's technically Irish, but he's a dour, miserable Yorkshireman at heart and he knows it.

SlowDown · 3 months

Because, to put it bluntly, the Greek government lied about the level of its deficit in order to get into the Euro in the first place.

A recent This American Life looked at the Eurozone crisis and they were saying that the figures the Greeks put forward to the ECB regarding their spending did not include expenditure for over a dozen different government departments. They should never have been allowed in the Euro in the first place, but once they'd fiddled the numbers no other government wanted to risk the diplomatic faux pas of calling them out on it.

And to top it off, the guy who came in to reassess all the official government statistics and found out exactly what the deficit really was is now facing life in prison for treason. Which seems like a thoroughly reasonable way to deal with things ಠ_ಠ

Edit: Added linky joy

arrezzo · 3 months

Agree on the closed shop, I think the landlord got divorced and it's not been the same since, the quiz there used to be legendary.

Current favourite would have to be the recently refurbished Blake, it's a bit tucked away in a slightly dodgy area (top end of Walkley, Daniel Hill Street) but they've done a really nice job of it and the beer there isn't half lovely.

Also, the current influx of Thornbridge pubs are all quite welcome, although can't quite get past the fact that its owned by Emma Harrison who operates A4E, the government contract gouging employment agency currently forcing everyone to work at Poundland for free!

pastoralia · 3 months

I think this is the appropriate procedure.

epemberton · 3 months

Thanks for having a go! I just fail to see how a system that has to distribute a limited amount of money to the health system would be improved if it was commissioned from the bottom up, rather than with general oversight from above. There are difficult decisions to be made in the health service and I would rather these are made by people who have an idea of the overall picture of how changes would effect the whole country, rather than some idealistic patient by patient approach.

And with regards to what you say about independent services battling for tenders and gaming the system, I can't see anything about this bill that wouldn't make all those things 10 times worse.

I appreciate your attempt to put forward the positive side of the bill, but you just appear to be churning out the same talking points that the government raise and all I can see is the yawning chasm between that and what is actually included in the bill.

epemberton · 3 months

In my opinion competition should not play a part in delivering healthcare as it will lead to care providers making clinical decisions about patient health for non-clinical reasons. Also, the government is well aware that a number of EU regulations regarding competition will come into play once the market is opened up to private companies, which will fundamentally alter how the government is able to administer and control the health service.

Add to that the fact that the commissioning bodies will be free from geographical responsibilities and will be able to pick and choose who they provide care for. I fail to see how this can lead to anything other than a massive decrease in provision for those in poorer areas at the expense of the rich, who will be able to pay for some kind of public / private hybrid in order to ensure the best service. The choice that is being provided is not to the public as to who they want to provide service, but to the service providers as to who they want to provide service to.

Your argument above is what the government wants everyone to think this is about, but the way the bill is written and structured will put into place inescapable problems further down the line that will jeopardize the universal healthcare you speak of.

PositivelyClear · 3 months

I agree that education and open debate are what will eventually promote tolerance within our society and of course anything that encourages that is to be commended.

However, I don't think that these things are mutually exclusive and I think that there is no harm in ensuring that something is seen to be done when someone oversteps the hard fought lines of unacceptability. Its worth noting that the maximum penalty that JT can expect is a fine of £2500, which I think seems appropriate, and I would imagine you would have to engage in far, far worse conduct to be at risk of being locked up.

PositivelyClear · 3 months

Oh yes, the old right of free speech, I keep forgetting. "My granddad died in WWII so I could be free to go round calling people black cunts as and when I choose to".

If it weren't for the fact that this country was for decades plagued by real and very uncomfortable racist thoughts and actions from all sections of society and that we have only just begun to advance as a society to a point where racism is considered genuinely unacceptable. As much as I would like it if we lived in a world where people could laugh and joke about issues of race and colour and no one would ever take offence, it is not the case and not likely to be the case for many years yet. If it takes the long arm of the law giving people a slap on the wrist in order to drill in to their thick skulls that they're pathetic racist behaviour is not acceptable then frankly I'm all for it.

epemberton · 3 months

The thing is, I don't even know where I would find a pro argument that actually engaged with the reality of the bill! The right wing press just chunters on about how awful the NHS is, without once considering the actual impact of this bill. It would seem it has been made deliberately obtuse and slippery so that the sphincter of public opinion can't actually get any kind of purchase on this almighty turd, to stop it falling into the municipal swimming pool of the NHS.

I suppose if I could get my hands on any trade journals of the private medical and health insurance industry I would find nothing but glowing praise, but then we all know why that is!

I genuinely find myself wanting to tear my hair out the more I hear about this bill. It's being roundly thrashed by anyone who has taken more than 5 minutes to look into it, including the vast majority of doctors working for the NHS (apart from those who can't see beyond the almighty cash cow that they'll be able to get to work on milking once the change is pushed through). And I'm really getting quite disturbed by the dark revenge fantasies where I work out my frustrations on Andrew Lansley with a cricket bat.

PositivelyClear · 3 months

The problem has arisen because JT's lawyers have managed to kick the trial 5 months down the road so that this will still be hanging over his head before EURO 2012. In the typical media frenzy of a major international tournament, their is no way that he will be allowed to forget his upcoming trial and it will just increase the pressure and focus that the whole team are under.

Of course, it doesn't help that the role of Captain of the national team has been endorsed with so much utterly irrelevant 'importance'. It is completely meaningless who stands at the front as they all come out of the tunnel, and if we had any sense we would just give it to whoever happened to be the oldest member of the team and get on with our lives.

epemberton

TROPHY CASE

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