Rayvin

Aye if this happened it would tick two very rare boxes for me: 1 - A fight I'd actually pay to see 2 - A "sporting" engagement where I'd actually cheer on the mackem.

I appreciate you're not looking for condolences mate, but I'm so sorry for your loss. That is utterly tragic. I've read everything you've written here twice over, and will take it to heart indeed. The strength it must have taken to write it and the determination to help others avoid the same thing are both admirable in the extreme. Thank you for the warning which I for one will absolutely keep in mind. There's nothing anyone can say about stuff like this that remotely does it justice, I'm just really sorry to hear it. I wish nothing but the best for you and your family.

I'm not sure that's even on the government really. Coming out at 6pm and saying the rules come into play in a few hours is less notice than they've given previously by quite a distance. And yes they could have done many things differently but IMO this rush happens however they do it unless the literally shut the trains down instantly. This is just selfishness from all those travelling.

Jesus... You know that they wouldn't have done that unless they absolutely had to, dragged kicking and screaming most likely. The government lockdown that is, apparently not Rod Liddle, disturbingly.

Aaaand Sony have pulled it from sale. What a mess. Flat out greed from the developer frankly - if it can't run on PS4 and X box then it shouldn't have been released on them.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/16/unicef-feed-hungry-children-uk-first-time-history UNICEF providing food packages to hungry children in the UK - the first time they've had to do it in the 70 years they've been operating. What a pathetic nation we are. @Christmas Tree Is this poverty yet? You were supposed to let me know when we got here

It does appear that the Guardian will effortlessly manage to annoy not just the right, but also every single faction within the centre and left, almost all the time. Some might say this represents a valuable spread of opinions I guess. We need to hang on to the Guardian though because as terrible as it often is, I'm struggling to think of any other credible centre/left media sources besides the Independent.

Very true!

Under fire from the Guardian itself, is what I'd take from this. And in fairness, this is exactly the sort of thing they'd get worked up about. I've not really approached it from this angle, I was making a more general point about the voter base, but if we're looking at internal party politics, it seems that the Labour left are going to try and do to him what the Labour centre did to Corbyn. Great news for all concerned, I'm sure.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/14/keir-starmer-under-fire-failing-challenge-radio-caller-racism "Keir Starmer under fire for failing to challenge radio caller's racism" A woman called in worrying about white people being a minority by 2066 and talking about them being persecuted (i.e. great replacement theory) - Starmer's response wasn't terrible IMO, but didn't directly take it head on and failed to call it out for the racist view it is. So I'm not bringing this up as a stick to beat him with believe it or not - he's playing the game he is because he needs these daft muppets on board and things like "the white race being replaced" is something that they are irrationally concerned about. However, I do think it's worth considering from the point of view of analysing how far from the more sane and informed groups of society he is going to have to travel to make this work. Is it worth it? What is left at the end? How much of this nonsense will we have to swallow just to get our broad church back?

How disappointing. I think if it was just poorly optimised I could have forgiven it to some extent though, and waited for the patches to fix it - but it sounds like it's been rushed in all senses - aspects of gameplay letting it down as much as mechanical issues. I would imagine it'll be playable eventually I guess - hopefully they give it a relaunch at that point.

https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/games-cyberpunk-2077-developers-sorry-for-state-of-game-on-last-gen-20201214 Refunds available for Cyber on console for anyone who has given up on it, along with an apology from CDPR for "not having paid enough attention to the console release". Which I think, as a rough translation, we can take to mean "Sorry that the outcry was so big that we had to actually respond to it". I've also been told that people are breaking the game in stacking damage boosters, and that you can buy $10 items and dismantle them into parts which can be sold for $70 Methinks playtesting was one of the things they didn't have time for. Despite this, some of the people I've talked to are apparently enjoying it, and clearly a couple of people here have too. But for each one of those, I know someone else who has given up trying to play it because of all the issues...

I've been reading a few opinions on this and I actually think rejoining is extremely unlikely now. They'd insist on the Euro for starters. And they'll also take the opportunity to move the union on politically towards greater integration, every step resulting in more and more people in the UK getting cold feet. It seems highly improbable.

Anyone have an insight into what has gone wrong for Arsenal this season? First time i checked the table in weeks and am a bit surprised honestly.

Yeah the EU have been almost faultless in this process tbf. They set out exactly what the situation was 4 years ago and have stuck to it all the way through. It's hard to imagine how they could possibly have been any more transparent.

I think we're going for no deal frankly. Even acknowledging the fact that as per the tweet further up, it makes absolutely no sense to do so, it also doesn't make any sense for brinkmanship to be a factor at this stage. I mean, what would we be trying to get?

I'd be curious to know how many people are still backing No Deal tbh. Is it still around the 40% mark or have they been shaken yet? Was polled by Yougov earlier so I'm guessing that there'll be some data on this in the coming days.

What are the tariffs likely to be? Is it an across the board figure or variable depending on specifics?

Shush

I mean, sometimes you tell yourself that Johnson is just act, and that the real man isn't as fucking useless as he seems to be, but then you read stuff like this and realise that the only thing that makes you think he's pretending to be a buffoon is that it's simply inconceivable that a man this fucking stupid is running the country.

I'm going to hold off until the new year I think - not particularly convinced my 970 will get very much out of it frankly. I've played this a bit but I wouldn't say I'm a fanatic about it. I might be a bit too introverted to get the most out of it though, it seems to favour people who enjoy talking!

Have just seen this explanation of an "Australia style deal" in the Guardian: Downing Street started using the term at the beginning of the year as a more palatable shorthand for a no-deal. The EU does not have a free-trade deal with Australia, although they are in negotiations. The two sides operate mainly on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, with huge tariffs on imports and exports. It would be more accurate to describe the outcome that would be secured by a no-deal as an Afghanistan-style arrangement, given the lack of formal cooperation in that trading relationship. This is because the EU does have a few agreements in place with Australia that it would not have with the UK in the event of a failure of the trade and security negotiations. These include an agreement on the transfer of EU passenger name records to Australian border authorities to help combat crime and terrorism and an agreement on the mutual recognition of conformity assessments, so that a product tested to EU standards in Australia is regarded as compliant, eliminating the need for duplicative testing when it is imported. I am definitely going to refer to it as an Afghanistan style deal going forward

I know but when you're in these communities you effectively have "lobster syndrome"- if one of you is somehow about to emerge unscathed from a pot of boiling water/the righteous judgement of your peers, you pull the fucker back in because you'd prefer to see everyone suffer rather than anyone escape

Looking like you may well be right then, he's just now warned of a strong possibility of No Deal. I actually cannot wait for this to be over now, whatever happens. His inevitable resignation can't be far off once this is done.

And I got stick for Magic the Gathering