The Aussie Fox commentators kept going on about how lucky Australia had been to not lose more wickets early in their innings.

Warner dropped a fair few edges short of the slips. Maybe the pitch flattened out a bit, but even so….

Warner has a reputation as a hard-handed dasher, but actually he adapted very well early in the innings.

When you’re outplayed in every department on days 1-2 you are struggling. Even though there has been a bit of resolve shown on day 3, England still need at least 3 sessions lost to rain in my estimation and given the last few years.

Seems those calling for Khawaja over Head my well be proved wrong…

I was one of those. In this instance he has played a decent knock. Not a knock that makes you sit up and say “that’s him in the middle order for the next five years”, though. However, when batting at 6 you have to play the hand you’re dealt with whatever partners you have.

England have been a distant second in all departments. Pretty sure the Aussies generated more nicks per 50 balls than England, they all carried and most were caught. England have also shelled catches and missed direct hit runouts. If I was Rory Burns I’d want it to puss down solidly for the next three days and get the first available flight out of Queensland.

I’d much rather the rampant corruption around covid contracts was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but if it has to be an illicit piss-up breaking social distancing rules then so be it. Just so long as it does break that crooked, mangy camel’s back.

I don’t give a **** about the ‘how’ any more. So long as we are rid of that fat, useless, lying ****.

We can worry about dealing with whatever crook/dimwit/shitbag they get in later.

We were burgled 6/7 years ago. The thing I couldn’t get my head around is that the scum had to walk past a noticeboard with all the kids’ school bits on and family portraits etc. Who can just walk into someone else’s place (especially children’s space) to nick stuff with no compunction whatsoever?

Utter filth.

But hey, they’ll have it.

And they’ll use it to buy themselves massive parcels of land to build gated mansions on. Truly a new Victorian Age, but only in the bad sense. And voted for by the very people it is going to **** over the most. It’s quite a remarkable stitch up.

Has all that —^ been fixed yet, or are have we still got a massive cohort of happily thick bastards?

A large scale opinion poll five and a bit years ago would say not.

Please understand that just because people are pointing out the situation we are in absolutely does not mean we’re endorsing it. This is very important.

100%

The only thing that will stop it is a revolution – and we’re not very good at those in the UK.

A good time to effectively outlaw protest, though, just in case. Especially when it starts to leak out how many billions you gave your mates last year for shonky PPE and the like.

causes great misery

It doesn’t matter what you think of it, what I think of it or what its victims think of it. If you make yourself less productive as a small player this is what happens. End of.

The sensible option is to remain part of a large bloc that is determined to preserve a standard of living against parts of the world that will work for a dollar a day. And has the necessary clout to actually do it. Kicking them in the balls and exposing yourself to the world ‘market’ unnecessarily just because you don’t like foreigners has the exact opposite effect.

It really just depends on how long it takes the clots who voted for this to realise it.

Inflation to ‘likely to exceed’ 5% by spring.

This is the beginning of the end for Brexit and the inevitable result of creating conditions where unskilled and semi-skilled jobs command unrealistically high salaries. Inbuilt inefficiency = Inflation = unsustainable.

It really just depends on how long it takes for the electorate to grow up sufficiently.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/06/uk-inflation-likely-to-exceed-5-in-2022-says-bank-of-england

Hobocop

Carrying a fair bit of weight for a hobo.

Dildocop perhaps?

Actually you can end up with no arsehole if you have certain things go badly wrong with your insides.

And yet something has gone badly wrong with the insides of the UK and we have a proliferation of arseholes.

Can’t even get that right.

From a history buff to buff history in one page. Gotta love STW.

Next week…..

History in the Buff with Prof Alice Roberts.

Not the most detailed

has a good turn of phrase

No wonder he’s all antivax and brexity. Sounds like he’s got the skill set for a job in this ‘government’.

It’s here in handy pic form if anyone doesn’t ‘get it’…..

Was it 50k? Add that to 100k lorry drivers

It was 50k, you are correct. And if you add that level of cost to everything you get…. inflation.

Baking in inefficiency overpaying or over-resourcing unnecessarily just hits further down the line. Stupid and futile.

In any case, and in answer to the original question…

He should be finished, yes. But so long as a sizeable group of attention-seeking ‘adults’ provide an audience for his dribblings, he’ll go on coining it. If that audience grows some self-respect and stops using loonydom as a means of being noticed, then he’ll just be another David Icke. But then again, his profile got a boost as a result of all the antivax frothing, so there’s obviously a market to tap into.

Oliver’s presenting was always like he was auditioning for the village am-dram production of MacBeth. All ‘Burnham Wood is come to Dunsinane*’ and that. Or the panto.

*May not be the actual words – can’t remember.

It is also difficult to overstate how bob-on accurate this piece from George Monbiot is. Now George can be a but of a loon himself sometimes, but this is on the money in explaining how so many folk who likely had a ‘lentils and sandals’ phase are now pro-Brexit and antivax. If only self-awareness came so easy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power

I can only presume STW is now going down some handwringing BBC-esque route to ‘balance’ by tolerating batshit craziness in the pursuit of said ‘balance’.

Oh well, just a few more people to chuckle at and file under ‘ignore’.

🤷‍♂️

I am beginning to think Ernie is no lefty at all with his obvious admiration for and strong defense of the tories. Weird

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power

Is Neil Oliver finished?

I hope so.

I know the lady in the link below personally. She has, to date (9 years) arrested the development of any further symptoms. She’s done it with very strict diet control, but she’s done it nevertheless.

https://overcomingms.org/about-us/facilitators/alexandra-blossom

Apparently its to ‘send a message’ to Putin.

It does. It says “we so want to be like you, but we’re even shit at trying to imitate a tinpot dictator”.

He will barely bother to laugh, he’s won. He won on June 23rd 2016.

That’s because they’d act the same way if they were in a position of power/influence.

So much this.

“Cash in hand here, cut corners there, bish bash bosh, look at all that dosh.”

Re the Jess Phillips interview above.

I have an acquaintance that works for Arco in a reasonably senior sales role. He unequivocally told me that Arco (as an established provider of PPE) called the ‘number’ for the government, but found themselves being messed about and ultimately frozen out of discussions. He also told me that (I don’t know how they found out) a mysterious new supplier that no one at Arco had ever heard of was in pole position to get the contract for that PPE and that they had insisted on exclusivity as a prerequisite.

Now I understand that normal procurement rules probably had to be suspended in the rush, but that kind of rigging and influence smacks of corruption, plain and simple. My acquaintance hinted that the mysterious new startup with the plum contract was someone with connections to ministers.

They weren’t even jumping in on a free for all – they were actively trying to rig the market to compete against pukka suppliers of PPE.

It stinks to high heaven, but the voters the New Tories appeal to won’t care.

What is Frosty/ Boris to do?

Be all shouty in public, bang the drum, wave the flag then quietly accept a compromise that still damages the UK, but not quite as much as a total rift whilst sounding off about ‘devious foreigners punishing the UK for Brexit’.

It’s worked like a charm every time so far, why would they do any different now?

Just remembered, I also love the bit where Eastwood is walking to the hangar dressed in military uniform. He still walks like a western gunslinger heading to the Saloon for the showdown.

I know that the gloves seem to be off again after a brief spell of conscientiousness early in 2020 due to the early lockdown and its general message of looking after others.

The number of motor vehicles that are now being ‘piloted’ rather than ‘driven’ feels higher than ever. Especially vans and chavpanzers.

Incidentally, there are two types of vehicle I don’t think I’ve ever seen being driven at anything other than warp speed.

Seat Leons and BT Openreach vans. I understand that the former is actively targeted at reckless young drivers, but do BT Openreach actually install nitrous and drag chutes in their vans?

She’s a powerful singer who was probably overlooked at the start of her career for not being ‘classically photogenic’. So there’s a bit of a story and she is a bit of a ‘card’, but only if you think Mrs Brown’s Boys counts as comedy – which a lot of people do.

She’s good at what she does, if you like that kind of thing.

This government think Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are the equivalent to an English county each. And not a big county.

Spoiler alert.

I love the bit at the end where his Russian vocab lets him down for a moment. The absurdist in me longs for a flashback to a school language master shouting “Oh come on boy! What is the Russian for ‘fire rearward defence missile’?”

The Aussie choices:

Khawaja. Travis Head is one of these players who looks nailed on to score runs, but pretty much never delivers.

Carey. They need someone of some seniority in the job.

Starc. They can afford a luxury bowler given the rest of the attack. He creates rough for Lyon and he is an x factor bowler.

England’s choices.

Malan. He’s got more nous than Crawley.

Pope. He’s the best prospect we have and an edge from Hard Hands Jonny never falls short of the cordon.

Bowling – first three seamers have to be Anderson, Broad and Wood, but age counts against the first two for a whole series and Wood is such a bust a gut bowler I don’t think he can play five tests.

This is the same government that’s apparently championing freedom of speech in universities.

They’re trying to slowly strangle HE. The view of this brand of ‘Tory’ is that the country needs less graduates and more insecurely employed worker drones. The only people who need to be university educated are their kids and their mates’ kids. Britannia Unchained indeed.

Cummins as captain could be very interesting. He’s already pretty handy with the bat, I wonder if the responsibility will turn him into a genuine all-rounder. He deserves it, by all accounts he is a brilliant competitor, hard but fair and he had a lot of injury problems when younger.

Smith as VC opens up the Cape Town issue again for me. The thing that bothers me about that incident is this:

If, as a quick bowler or group of quick bowlers, you are trying to make a ball reverse, you are on top of that ball conditioning effort like a fly on shit. There is no way you’d let anyone do anything to the ball without your say-so. But hey-ho, that is done now.

England rely on Root more than Australia rely on Smith. Australia have the better attack. I just hope the tour doesn’t degenerate into a round Australia last minute covid cancellation trip. But I think it might.

I like the idea of one coin toss for the series. Although it could lead to pressure on home groundsmen if you know that, in a month’s time, the oppo will be batting first in the 4th test of a series!

With just over seven days to go, what are the thoughts of the resident STW cricket fans for The Ashes?

I’m not confident of England doing much to be honest. Yes, two day-night pink ball matches does play towards England’s strengths, but the Aussies aren’t totally clueless about swinging the ball and they don’t have to move it as much as they are quicker through the air.

Carey is as good a keeper as Paine and there is no way Wade is good enough to keep to Lyon through a long test innings.

England’s only recognised spinner is Leach and he has been tonked out of the attack too often for my liking. With Archer and Stone missing, only Wood has real wheels and he won’t play more than three tests if England are trying to keep him fit.

Looking at the batting lineups I can’t see many games lasting more than 4 days if weather doesn’t intervene. Root and Smith are in a different class to the other batters on show, but Australia also have Labuschagne and a much shorter tail.

I hope covid doesn’t bollocks the tour up.

Man of the series prediction – Josh Hazlewood.

The question posed in the thread title was answered on page 2.

Stupidity has been politicised and weaponised.

A few ‘celebs’ whose public profile is on the wane and meant they got passed over for Strictly and that thing in the castle spotted an opportunity to establish a platform for themselves.