Buy cheap and sell dear.

So perhaps stick a bit more in when the market is low.

Most elderly people I know (70 to 90+) seem remarkable unfazed by their impending doom.

But I’m still quite shocked posters on this thread can make massive assumptions about older folk and show apparent glee that they are all going to die.

“A box set or boxed set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box and is offered for sale as a single unit. “

I thought that was the meaning of boxed set! Is there another?

“season” when referring to a TV series annoys me.

“in this space” when referring to carrying out an idea or activity that doesn’t actually exist in 3 dimensions seems to be getting annoyingly common.

The bit about it being ten times more deadly than normal seasonal flu was less positive.

The figures quoted in that Guardian don’t actually support what the journalist is claiming.

To help prevent it spreading. I thought that had been very clear even amongst the media hype.

I thought it was to delay it spreading until the summer, which makes perfect sense. But I’ve only read that on here.

Most ‘flu’ is a cold

Yes, if you look at these reports, they don’t seem to try and identify levels of flu. They use cold and flu like symptoms as reported to GPS, Hospitals etc. to give an idea of yearly changes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-flu-reports

The mortality estimates at the end are quite interesting, but they ARE estimates. So my understanding is that we don’t know how many people get flu in a year, Or how many people die from it.

(they’re a bit long and dense and a bit too technical for laymen like me, so I may have missed something)

It’s down to smart vaccines activated by 5g…

Now you know what Lord Flasheart’s been up to.

Has she spoken to her current friends about this? They may think she’s an absolute idiot for not taking the opportunity. (if they don’t, best not to dwell on it)

Sorry I didn’t know you could keep taking your GCSE’s until you got what you wanted.

Sorry, not sure if sarcasm? Because you can. And education doesn’t begin or end with GCSEs.

Another way of looking at it is:

Would your daughter do best being an average pupil at a school full of high achievers or top of the heap at a reasonable comp? There can be advantages to being a big fish in a little pool. This would obviously depend on the schools in question and your daughter’s character.

You only get one chance at education.

Not strictly relevant, but I have to disagree with this. You can have as many goes as you like.

“the government said it would not appeal.”

I reckon Boris and his cronies will be quite happy with that result. They’ve dodged what looked like a massive expensive mess, and they can blame it those nasty judges. (And Chris Grayling)

My understanding was that this was fairly easy, based on bone size/density and shape of pelvis?

I only did archaeology to Masters level, and it was over 25 years ago, but sexing skeletal remains was a lot harder than they made it look on the telly. Things may have moved on since then

The point being it was often quicker and easier to assign biological sex on the basis of what someone was buried with, which meant making a lot of assumptions about gender identity. eg. If you were buried in a dress you must be a biological woman.

I just though it was interesting in the context of modern debates about gender and identity.

it seems like perfectly reasonable common sense advice to me, explaining simple hygiene to the masses.

Quite right, it explains the importance of good hygiene. But its not isolation, just isolation where convenient.

eg. “if possible avoid using it whilst others are present. If this is not possible then wear a facemask if you have been issued with one.”

Also, not the use of the word “should” rather than “must”

Its all very woolly. Apply that to large numbers of people and its not going to work.

I expect archeologists, …… will be able to ascertain the sex of an adult individual 99.99% of the time in seconds.

Things may have moved on in the past 25 years but it used to be actually quite hard to quickly ascertain sex in the context of an archaeological grave. A lot of older excavation reports simpley assigned sex on the base of grave goods – e.g. if you were buried with a beads you were a woman, if with a spear you were a bloke. Where they had the time and money to do more detailed investigations, this assumption sometimes turned out to be wrong.

There was quiet a famous case of an anglo-saxon woman buried near Andover who turned out to be a “bloke wearing a dress”.

Which brings us back to the whole (social) gender debate thing.

From that govt leaflet up there ^

2. Separate yourself from other people in your home*

You should stay in a well-ventilated room with a window to outside that can be opened, separate from other people in your home. Keep the door closed. Use a separate bathroom from the rest of the household, if available. If you have to share these facilities, regular cleaning will be required.
If a separate bathroom is not available, consideration should be given to drawing up a bathroom rota for washing or bathing, with the isolated person using the facilities last, before thoroughly cleaning the bathroom themselves (if able or appropriate*). Ensure the isolated person uses separate towels from other household members, both for drying themselves after bathing or showering and for hand hygiene purposes.

If you live in shared accommodation (university halls of residence or similar) with a communal kitchen, bathroom(s) and living area, you should stay in your room with the door closed, only coming out when necessary, wearing a facemask if one has been issued to you.
If you share a kitchen with others (such as university halls of residence or similar), if possible avoid using it whilst others are present. If this is not possible then wear a facemask if you have been issued with one. Take your meals back to your room to eat. Use a dishwasher (if available) to clean and dry your used crockery and cutlery. If this is not possible, wash them by hand using detergent and warm water and dry them thoroughly, using a separate tea towel.

If these recommendations cannot be implemented, then home isolation should be avoided.

Sounds like a sort of “Dad’s Army” approach to self isolation.

It happens all the time, even on this thread

A word or phrase can have a particular meaning among certain specialist circles. It can have a different meaning to other specialist circles and another different meaning to a wider general audience. It doesn’t follow that any of those meanings are incorrect.

So “gender” has several completely correct meanings as higlighted by ajaj in his original post (and thankyou for taking the time to do so – I thought it was interesting anyway).

There is no point getting flouncy if you use the phrase “gender debate” and someone misunderstands what you mean. A “gender debate” to a French linguist might mean something different to an America psychologist. The phrase is useless without context.

You lot should see some of the debates about whether “Anglo-Saxon” is a racist term among historians. The answer seems to be – it depends on the context.

I bet Guy Martin is pissed because he didn’t think of it first :-D

Hasn’t The Mary Rose has declared independence – you now have to buy a separate ticket?

Correct, you don’t .

Well, why don’t you explain?

The thing is, there are ways of getting to a height where the earth’s curvature is apparent without taking the sort of risks this guy did.

I think that’s missing the point. The guy wanted to build a steam powered rocket. And he did. And it almost worked (at least the going up part did).

I don’t understand the references to selvedge jeans.

Selvedge is an edge produced on woven fabric during manufacture that prevents it from unravelling.

in 19c/early 20c novels its sometimes used as a metaphor to mean (in modern terms) the crappy bit of life that nobody really wants. Or in more literal terms, the cheaper cuts of fabric the the poor make their curtains and furnishings out of.

So when the fashionistas on here talk about paying £90 for a pair of “selvedge jeans”, I can’t help thinking, “somebody really saw you coming”.

The original article in the BBC quoted him as saying “I have no idea if the earth is flat it round, I just want to see it myself” (or something like that). The project was funded by the flat earth society. So it sounds like a good wheeze to get somebody else to pay for a madcap adventure.

(And how cool does a steam powered rocket sound)

He also held the record for jumping a stretch limo.

I think the world needs more eccentrics like that.

Not sure I know what “loungewear” is.

I assume “track pants” are what we used to call jogging bottoms? The sort of things you can’t wear commando without putting everyone off their Sunday lunch.

I love the smell of wood smoke coming from a freshly lit open fire. Can’t say I’ve ever noticed it in any urban area. Either I never go anywhere middle class enough or its always covered up by the shitty vehicle fumes – the ones that mean you never see lichen growing in towns as the air is so bad.

Sounds like a a bullshit way of deflecting attention from the real environmental problems.

On the ship front the problem is that it has no value

Wouldn’t it be worth someone grabbing it for scrap value?

He’ll be somewhere in China. He won’t be allowed to talk about it when he gets back.

Think it was the early 70s in the UK?

The annual UK CO2 output divided by the population gives around 18 million tonnes of CO2 per person

I’m not sure about 18 million tonnes. The first figures I could find (UK emission 2016 from gov.uk) and some back of a fag packet calculations made it closer to 18 tonnes per year.

And the good thing about planting something like an oak tree is that it has the potential to adsorb carbon for hundreds of years after I’m dead.

But trees aren’t just a carbon sink. There’s the wildlife aspect and the effect on local weather patterns. The Near East used to be a lot wetter before it was deforested by humans. Re foresting the UK would be good, but it would be better if we could re-forest semi arid areas as well.

I’ve got a They Might be Giants album where the second half is a live improvisation based around the Planet of The Apes. Only tried listening to it once.

Daft bunch of clever people acting like morons. As has been said before, they don’t seem to understand that getting anywhere near their targets would result in a global economic meltdown that would make the start of the Dark Ages look like the f***ing Age of Aquarius.

When the crops have failed and you’re up to your arse in polluted sea water, you’ll be looking back with nostalgia on warnings about “global economic melt down”

Last time I checked there were still 24 hours in day and 3600 seconds in an hour. Up you jacques! 🤪

Strictly speaking that’s Babylonian, not imperial. Although I believe the pesky French tried to decimalise the calender after their revolution.

My EDC is the Chelsea glass teapot with infuser (available from Wittards). But for serious heavy duty brewing I rely on a professional 8 pint aluminium teapot

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282927389742

Spine deflection in archery arrows (that’s a measure of how bendy they are) – Hang a two pound weight in the middle of an arrow shaft resting on two pegs 28 inches apart. The actual deflection is most often expressed in decimals of an inch. eg 1.25 instead of 1 1/4.

ust remembered another one (for Cougar?) all recurve bow sight mounts are imperial (because of Murica). 10-24 UNC

There’s an archery society near Coventry, formed in 1785 and basically not changed since. All shooting distances are in yards but the handmade targets they use are exactly a metre across. Nobody really knows why.

Yards for measuring rough distances as I can just about stride a yard. I think you’d have to be a lanky bastard to be able to stride a metre.

The First World War by Hew Strachan (2003) is a good alternative read.

It tries to move beyond what we all (in Britain) think we know about WW1

I like it, particularly all the picturesque location shots of the Wye Valley and Symmonds Yat.

But I thought the ending of the second series was rubbish. A really blatant attempt to try and get a third series commissioned.

At school I was told that History was written by the winners. I’ve come to realize it’s written by the loosers as well (because one day they want to be the winners).

The whole Cromwell in Ireland thing bothers me. The Irish obviously needed a figure to focus their hatred of the English, but the more I read the more I can’t help thinking they picked the wrong man, or the right man for the wrong reasons.

And the more you get into the details of experience at individual and family level the less the great themes of history (as sold by professional historians of all persuasions) make sense.

Plastic bottles

Bought a pair 8 hole boots for the first time in years just before Christmas. Went into the shop in Reading and I was the oldest person in there.

“Are they for you sir ?” said the puzzled shop girl.

I felt like saying ” look love, I was wearing DMs before your parents were a twinkle in you grandparents’ eyes”.

Instead I said “Yes, I find the soles give me confidence on icy pavements”. :-(