Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration, Netflix review: This special overcooks the Christmas cheer - "Meghan’s tips are imparted in an easy-breezy manner as she waxes lyrical about family traditions and spending the holiday with loved ones, determinedly ignoring the elephants in the room. Christmas trees are “able to really encapsulate your family story”, she says. “You really feel the passage of time and the different chapters of your life through the ornaments.” But I’m not sure how going non-contact with your father, moving 5,000 miles away from Britain because your husband hates his entire family, and then giving a bombshell interview accusing your in-laws of being racists, can be conveyed in baubles. Perhaps an angel tree-topper in the shape of Oprah Winfrey? Wearing a Cartier Tank watch and a humdinger of a diamond, Meghan busies around the kitchen, laughing merrily at her own jokes (“This feels like fondue. You’ve never heard anyone say ‘fon-don’t’.”) Wary of being seen as Marie Antoinette, she mentions no fewer than four times that she’s going to do her own tidying up. Guy the beagle pads around at her feet. Hang on, didn’t he die in January 2025? It’s a Christmas miracle!... He also says that the best dinner parties are the ones where you can’t remember anything about the food. In one fell swoop, he undermines the whole premise of this series. No wonder Meghan looks crestfallen. Two of Meghan’s friends come over for a pyjama party, which I did not realise was a thing past the age of 12. This is the most insufferable section. Osaka is press-ganged into decorating a plate for her daughter, and when she mentions in a moment of honesty that she has no time to relax at home because she has a young child to run after, Meghan says: “But that’s the good kind of non-relaxation, right? The stuff that is so soul-filling and amazing!” “Yeah,” murmurs Osaka, her soul visibly draining from her body... At least dear old Harry makes an appearance. He turns up five minutes from the end, let out of the pantry where he has been locked since the end of series one. “Thank you for coming,” says Meghan, momentarily forgetting that this is her husband and not another of her invited guests. He is appalled at the sight of a beetroot, pickled vegetable, black olive, anchovy and fennel salad (“Oh, wow, that’s like the anti-salad,” he says) and who can blame him? Just give the poor man a sausage roll and let him have a happy Christmas."
There is one glaring character flaw that unites Andrew, Harry and Meghan - "In recent years, Harry Enfield has been busy aping Prince (now King) Charles in The Windsors, an absurdist, slapstick and sometimes cruel portrayal of the Royal family on Channel 4. But, as he told The Telegraph this week, he’s “a monarchist now”. His support for the Firm was cemented, he explained, “the day Liz Truss got elected”. “It was like having the work experience there. I thought: ‘My God, I’m so glad she’s not my head of state, and I’m so glad Boris wasn’t my head of state.’” Competency aside, Enfield added that he was in favour of having a “head of state who just says things we all agree with, like ‘At this time of year it’s frightfully cold, isn’t it?’”. Not for the first time, a funny man has hit on the profound. Enfield has put his finger on the essence of exactly what the Royal family ought to be – a constant, reassuring and reliably dull presence. At their best, they reflect the national mood – sympathising with us when we’re down, and cheering us further when we’re up. Unfortunately, that’s something many people fail to understand, some of whom are actual members of the Royal family... Thankfully, those at the heart of the slimmed-down monarchy championed by our King do get it, meaning we can feel unity and warmth in our hearts every time they pop up in some corner of the country to state the obvious."
Meme - "Reminder that Nancy Pelosi is so old that there is literally a picture of JFK checking out her rack *17 year old Nancy Pelosi*"
Nancy Pelosi has poisoned the Democrats for a generation - "The political realignment, if not reckoning, resulting from the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as the new mayor of New York is already in full effect. On Thursday morning, barely 36 hours after Mamdani’s acceptance speech, Nancy Pelosi – the legendary 85 year-old Democratic congresswoman and the first female speaker of the House – announced her retirement after more than four decades in Washington... Like a handful of other geriatric high-profile Democrats (including Joe Biden himself), Pelosi remained in her position long past any logical expiration date. And her departure just before the midterm elections next November could set the Democrats back for decades. The first likely outcome is that it will open up yet another safe congressional seat (this time in San Francisco) to the type of arch-progressive now clamouring for political oxygen in the wake of Mamdani’s win. Think Scott Wiener, the California state senator, or Saikat Chakrabarti, a former advisor to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman. Each boasts exceptional Left-wing bona fides along with the requisite identity-markers: Weiner is gay, Chakrabarti is Asian-American. Pelosi’s own daughter – nepo-activist and attorney Christine Pelosi – might run; as might San Francisco city supervisor Connie Chan, who is heavily aligned with labour unions. In short, in place of an experienced Washington powerbroker, the Democrats are likely to add another radical who will further solidify the Democratic party’s far drift Left-ward. This might bring short-term gains – a brief flurry of Mamdani copy-cat candidates in similar races nationwide, especially in deep blue states. But as evidenced by Harris’s thorough trouncing last year, the American public has lost its taste for the extremism and identity politics the Democrats are now mostly peddling. As in the case of fellow geriatric Biden, therefore, the Left-wing successors to Pelosi are likely to poison the Democrats’ national appeal. But there is an even darker twist for the party. By hanging onto power for too long, ageing establishment Democrats have left the party bereft of moderate talent. They have made it more likely that their party will be taken over by a nationally unelectable fringe... This is why New York senator Chuck Schumer – now 74 with more than 25 years in office – is facing such strong calls to consider stepping aside. Should he pull a Biden and Pelosi and stick around, yet another decade will pass before a more moderate mid-career replacement has a chance. Meanwhile, the Republicans have an entire cabinet of 40- and 50-something potential Trump heirs who could easily run for national office."
Why do millions of Indians defecate in the open? - "It can be even more hazardous for women since each time a woman uses the outdoors to relieve herself, she faces a danger of sexual assault. Recently two teenage girls from the state of Uttar Pradesh were gang-raped and found hanging from a tree after they left their village home to go to the toilet. Their house, like hundreds of millions of others in the country, did not have any facilities... Apart from poverty and lack of lavatories, one of the reasons often cited to explain open defecation in India is the ingrained cultural norm making the practice socially accepted in some parts of the society. "Just building toilets is not going to solve the problem, because open defecation is a practice acquired from the time you learn how to walk. When you grow up in an environment where everyone does it, even if later in life you have access to proper sanitation, you will revert back to it," says Sue Coates, chief of Wash (water, sanitation and hygiene) at Unicef. India will be free of open defecation only when "every Indian household, every village, every part of Indian society will accept the need to use toilets and commit to do so", she says."
Conrad Barwa on X - ""Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular table top game with Americans because it allows them to fulfill their wildest fantasies." "Like speaking multiple languages and being able to make a living while freelancing" Cunk strikes again 😭😭😭"
Meme - trash jones @jzux: "i'm doing a lot of finding out for very little fucking around, actually
would love to fuck around more and find out less, if possible"
Meme - "No Nut November is easy if you don't have nuts. Fuck you vet"
“From ‘Nobody’ to ‘Madhouse’: The Curious Case of Dutch Last Names Imposed by the French” - "When the French took control of the Netherlands in 1811, they conducted an official census and required the Dutch to register last names, which wasn’t a usual practice for them at the time. So, they came up with some silly last names, believing it would just be a short-term thing. It turned out to be permanent. Today, some of these names are surprisingly common:
Niemand (nobody)
ZoGekkehuis (madhouse)
Zondervan (from nowhere)
Dodeman (dead man)
Van der Hoek (around the corner)
Zonderkop (headless)
de Graf (the grave)
Donderwinkel (thunder shop)"
dasha on X - "lara croft on netflix vs the actress that voiced her may easily be the biggest anime betrayal ever *Hayley Atwell*"
Canadian Denied Entry into U.S. at Toronto Pearson : r/uscanadaborder - "I mean CBSA asks me all kinds of questions going to Canada too."
"Last month was first time in 42 years they didn’t ask me, a Canadian citizen, how long I planned to stay in Canada."
Canadian Denied Entry into U.S. at Toronto Pearson : r/uscanadaborder - "45 years ago I was denied entry, also at Pearson, for same thing."
Costco Ebike Supplier IGO in Receivership cites Costco return policy as culprit : r/CostcoCanada
London is richer than anywhere else in Britain – but the city is dying - "London isn’t as young and vibrant as it used to be. It may be the richest and most productive city in Britain, but the capital is also ageing at the same rate as England’s rural villages. While London has not suffered the fate of getting old before it gets rich, a combination of soaring house prices and demographic decline means it is ageing twice as quickly as the rest of England... the city is becoming increasingly a place for middle-aged homeowners, and that is both posing a problem for public services and transforming London’s housing stock... For anyone without the stereotypically large London income, the prospect of home ownership has risen absurdly out of reach... The capital is the only region where a minority are homeowners. As a result, average wealth in London is lower than one might anticipate as the city’s denizens miss out on the opportunity to build equity in a home. At less than £245,000 per household, wealth in London is on a par with the average in Scotland and in Yorkshire, and precisely half the £490,000 average in the rest of the south east of England."
Time to house more migrants in social housing in LondonMeme - Legolas: "There is a fell voice on the air"
Gandalf: "It's Mariah Carey!"
Mariah Carey as Saruman on Orthanc: "I DON'T WANT A LOT FOR CHRISTMAS. THERE IS JUST ONE THING I NEED I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE PRESENTS UNDERNEATH THE CHRISTMAS TREE"
Meme - Gandalf: "By the way, Morgoth created 6-7 Balrogs, and only 3 have been accounted for. Good luck! *sails away*
*3 crying hobbits*"
Meme - Lauren Chen @TheLaurenChen: ""What if the Democrats prosecute their political opponents!?" My brother in Christ, where have you been the past 5 years? *19 mugshots*"
eigenrobot: "this seems like a terrible idea for republicans. isn't anyone thinking about the possibility that the democrats respond with political prosecutions of their own?"
Labour's Yorkshire strongholds are collapsing: the party has no future - "The second wave of the Red Wall revolt – this time in the reddest of red seats – is gearing up to be even more momentous than the first. The most “iron red” areas – the mining towns and steel seats that held strong even during Boris Johnson’s insurgency of 2019 – are poised to ditch the party of their ancestors. The tsunami that threatens to rip through the most Labour corners of the country makes the Red Wall hurricane of the Brexit wars feel like a mere breezy interlude. That seats from Doncaster to Wigan have stayed Labour since they voted for Brexit in 2016 is testament to the stickiness of the Red vote. For all the talk of realignment, Labour’s credentials as the party of the NHS, worker solidarity and ordinary folk struggling on the breadline mattered; in the old mining towns – where tales of police charges at Orgreave during the Great Strike of 40 years ago are still recalled with rage in working men’s clubs – a visceral hatred of the Tories endured. But something extraordinary is happening. When I travelled to Labour strongholds in the old mining areas of Yorkshire, I could not find a single Labour voter. What is so interesting – and fatal for Labour – is that people are deserting Starmer’s party despite the costly regeneration plans underway in their towns. While the term Red Wall might conjure images of mobility scooters and vape shops, these are places where tech startups are becoming more common, and life unfolds to the soundtrack of whining drills... Labour may be pouring cash into the Red Wall, but it this is not translating into votes. Their failure to get basics right is cancelling all the other good work; the tryers feel that government is not helping them but appears instead detremined to “make life harder”. Barnsley’s alienation from Labour seems irredeemable. In the town’s mining union building – a former Methodist church drenched in gold leaf – ex miner Chris Kitchen traced Labour’s doom to its failure to produce an inspirational leader with a vision for our times... Perhaps most damningly, the sensation that Labour evokes among former faithfuls is not anger but bemusement – just like the Tories. Nobody really understands the point of either party any more. Even if Labour can offer some sensible policies and incremental improvements, it has no clear perspective on any of the big questions of our time. Its original purpose – to stand up for workers against the interests of capital – no longer makes sense. The party’s loyalties are divided; its target market unclear; its principles muddied as it battles for survival. Labour’s weakening grip on its former strongholds will be central to the outcome of the plot to oust Keir Starmer. Some Red Wall MPs, although they consider Starmer to be a liability given the dire feedback on the doorstep, worry about elbowing him out. They fear the party would elect a charismatic operator from the liberal-Left and then have no hope of delivering on the “election decider” of immigration... the collapse in Labour Red Wall support strengthens the hand of those within the party who want Labour to stop aping Reform, and competing for its voters – and instead take the fight to the Greens and Lib Dems, shoring up the urban precariat and professional vote. That would reduce Labour from a majority-winning party of the masses to a metropolitan fringe movement that can only govern in a Left-wing coalition. Perhaps that is indeed where we are heading."
Anyone who calls Reform ‘extreme’ is simply blind to their own Left-wing bias - " Since time immemorial it’s been one of the British Left’s most comforting clichés. The only reason the Labour Party ever loses elections, they’ve told themselves after each defeat, is that the gullible electorate is so easily swayed by the brazen bias of “the Right-wing press”. I for one have always found this claim a touch puzzling. First, because plenty of newspapers are Left-wing. Unfortunately for Labour, though, Left-wing newspapers tend not to sell as many copies as Right-wing ones. For some reason, Labour supporters rarely pause to consider why this might be. In any case, while bemoaning the supposedly all-powerful influence of “the Right-wing press”, they rather conveniently ignore the longstanding dominance that the Left has enjoyed in practically all areas of popular culture: film, TV, comedy, pop music, publishing. How often do you see a TV drama that implicitly endorses conservative views and values, rather than portraying them as backward and bigoted? Is it as often as you see a TV drama that implicitly endorses progressive views and values – by, for example, making Tudor England look as ethnically diverse as 21st-century Hackney, or ensuring that terrorists are almost invariably played by actors who are white? Popular culture, though, isn’t the only influential field in which progressive attitudes hold sway. There’s also education. Which is why it was no surprise to find out what some schoolchildren are being taught about Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. At a group of academies in southeast England, Year 10 pupils have been shown a diagram of the political spectrum which places Reform towards the end marked “Fascism” – and almost as far to the Right as the BNP. Pupils were also told that Reform “argues for much lower immigration, deportation of illegal immigrants and stricter border controls. Supporters say this protects jobs and national identity; however, this has fuelled anti-immigrant feeling across Britain, which extremists have exploited to spread hate, xenophobia and racism.” Curiously, the teaching materials caveated this claim by stating that Reform itself is “not extreme or far-Right”. Yet they make it sound very much as if the views it promotes are. Just as intriguing was the advice given to pupils about the news media. They were urged to use “trusted sites like BBC [and] The Guardian”, rather than “sites like The Sun”. Meanwhile, they were told that The Sun and The Mail’s use of pejorative terms such as “flood” in stories about immigration makes “migrants sound like a threat. This type of reporting can make people feel afraid or angry.” Well, maybe. But, if people “feel afraid or angry”, I suspect it’s got less to do with the language of tabloids, and rather more to do with dog-walkers getting stabbed to death in the street, Jews getting murdered in attacks on synagogues, and thousands of young girls getting raped by grooming gangs. To give just a few examples. So, if we want the public to stop worrying about the downsides of mass immigration, we won’t just have to stop using the word “flood”. We’ll also have to suppress an awful lot of bad news. Reassuringly, a note to staff teaching the above lesson tells them that it’s “important that our own political bias does not impact what we tell students”. Well, naturally. After all, we wouldn’t want anyone to think schools are pumping children with Left-wing propaganda to ensure that they grow up to be obedient Labour voters, would we? Personally, I think pupils should be told that, since long before any of them were born, opinion polls have consistently shown that most British voters think immigration should be significantly cut. Which means that, whether or not one agrees with Reform’s stance on immigration, it isn’t extreme. It’s mainstream. Anyone who calls Reform extreme, therefore, is simply blind to their own Left-wing bias. But then, I suppose I’m from “the Right-wing press”, so no doubt my comments should be firmly ignored."
The Americanisation of British English reveals this dark thing about our society - "Candy. Elevator. Highway. Trash. Movie theatre. Fire truck. Americanisms are infiltrating children’s language to the point that some are even adopting American accents. Teenagers have always copied popular culture as a way of establishing a group identity. Yet a new survey of over 10,000 teachers has found the shift most pronounced in primary school pupils, particularly those in Key Stage 1 (4- to 7-year-olds) – undoubtedly influenced by shows such as CocoMelon and vloggers such as MrBeast. Analysis of over 43,000 stories submitted by 5- to11-year-olds to the BBC 500 Words Competition also revealed a huge increase in the use of viral phrases such as “fanum tax” and “capybaras” (no, I don’t understand these either). As a secondary school teacher I have also seen an increase in the use of euphemisms designed to evade algorithmic filters, such as “unalived” and “seggs”. Perhaps this is nothing to worry about. Language is fluid; trends are fleeting. English has always been a hybrid language, magpieing vocabulary from across the world, and this technology-driven evolution is not a one-way process: a few years ago, American parents reported their children adopting British accents because of the popularity of Peppa Pig. Maybe this is just another manifestation of Coca-colonisation, similar to the constant backdrop of American television in the ‘80s and ‘90s (I think of all the times my peers and I parroted Friends catchphrases, like Chandler’s over-exaggerated “could I be wearing any more clothes?”) And yet, this is different. Growing up we had plenty of American sitcom references, but we also had plenty of conversations with our parents. It is the latter which has changed... a recent study found that the average toddler is missing out on hearing more than 1000 words spoken by an adult each day due to screen time. We have a terrifying situation where primary school pupils can use Americanisms like “diaper” and “garbage” but can’t communicate basic needs like going to the toilet"
It is time to abolish the Commonwealth - "Today, the Commonwealth scarcely troubles to promote the ideals described in its Harare Declaration of 1991 – “liberty of the individual under the law” and the “inalienable right” to participate in “free and democratic political processes”. Instead this great association has chosen to adopt the destructive and demeaning creed of post-colonialism, which reduces countries to the sum total of their historical grievances. That leaves the Commonwealth with no remaining purpose save to berate Britain for the sins of the past, while ignoring the obvious abuses of other members today... True enough, the phenomenon of the Commonwealth tyrant is not exactly new. The biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings, known to diplomats as “Chogums”, have always featured an abundance of autocrats. The difference is that, just occasionally, it used to be possible to kick them out. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002 after Robert Mugabe staged a particularly bloodsoaked election. Nigeria was expelled in 1995 when its dictator, General Sani Abacha, hanged the writer and activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Pakistan was chucked out and re-admitted twice; Fiji three times. In fairness, Shirley Botchwey, the new secretary general of the Commonwealth, has issued a brief statement expressing her concern about the “situation in Tanzania” following “disturbing reports of violence, injuries and deaths”. But that is almost certainly where matters will rest. There is practically zero chance of Tanzania being removed for a simple reason: the Commonwealth takes every decision unanimously and there is no consensus behind expelling a member state just because its leader has trampled on the association’s stated principles. But you can be sure there is a consensus for denouncing Britain and building a case for transferring as much of our taxpayers’ money as possible into the coffers of the greatest number of Commonwealth states. To see how the organisation has changed, compare the generous and uplifting Harare Declaration of 1991 with the sour and backward-looking “leaders’ statement” from the Commonwealth summit in Samoa last year. “Noting calls for discussions on reparatory justice”, reads paragraph 22 of this document, and recalling the “dispossession of Indigenous People, indentureship, colonialism, blackbirding and their enduring effects…..the time has come for a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity.” In other words: give us lots of British money. If that is now the overriding purpose of the Commonwealth, why does Britain have any interest in preserving this organisation?"
Meme - "Fig. 3. Don'T TAKE No FOR AN ANSWER
Country. Date. Issue. 'No' Vote. Outcome
Denmark 1992 Maastricht Treaty 51.7% Made to vote again
Denmark 2000 Joining the Euro 53.2% Accepted
Ireland 2001 Nice Treaty 53.9% Made to vote again
Sweden 2003 Joining the Euro 56.1% Accepted
France 2005 EU Constitution 54.9% Ignored
Netherlands 2005 EU Constitution 61.5% Ignored
Ireland 2008 Lisbon Treaty 53.2% Made to vote again
Greece 2015 Euro bailout 61.3% Ignored"
To Protect Democracy, the UK needs to rejoin the European Union, and no one can ever be allowed to leave it again
Meme - "90 Percent of Indian Engineers Lack Key Skills
Coding skills and employability of Indian IT engineering graduates (2019)
Graduates able to write correct with few errors India 9.9% China 8.6% US 34.1%
Graduates not able to write correct code India 52.5% China 81% US 61.8%
Graduates not able to write compilable India 37.7% China 10.4% US 4.1%"
Employability of IT engineering graduates
IT product engineer 3.4%
Startup IT engineer 3.7%
IT services engineer 16.3%
Technical support and network management 36.2%"
Meme - "Sorry but choosing realism over style is why all films look like shit these days nobody gives a fuck if "moonlight isn't blue" movies aren't documentaries they are supposed to be ART."
"Petition to make night scenes blue again!"
Maine elects woman convicted of killing Canadian tourist to city council: 'So broken' - "A convicted killer who was sentenced to a decade behind bars for suffocating a Canadian tourist with sand was elected to the city council of a Maine city that inspired Stephen King’s “It.” Angela Walker was elected as a Bangor council member on Tuesday, more than two decades after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges alongside her brother, Benjamin Humphrey, in the 2002 death of Derek Rogers"
Michael on X - "Liberals who platformed Hillary Clinton as a keynote speaker at their convention want to remind you that bringing American politics to Canada is obviously disgusting and anti-Canadian."
Heavy drinking in youth may aid career success, study suggests - "a sociology professor from Norway argues that bibulousness has its upsides, too. In his book The Beauty and Pain of Drugs, Willy Pedersen of the University of Oslo says that decades of research have identified some benefits from intoxicating substances, including alcohol. His work suggests that breaking down social inhibitions through communal binges can help to advance young adults’ careers. Pedersen and his colleagues spent 18 years tracking the drinking habits of more than 3,000 Norwegians from the age of 13 to 31. Those who started regularly having heavy drinking sessions in their late teens and twenties were later found to have higher levels of education and income compared with those who had abstained or drank very little... As a case study, Pedersen points to the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, which is notorious for its lavish parties, wanton destruction of property and other forms of alcohol-saturated bad behaviour. Its alumni include three former prime ministers: Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, Boris Johnson and Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation. As the Bullingdon Club example suggests, it is possible that young people who are already on more promising career paths are also more willing and able to drink heavily, particularly in Norway, where high alcohol taxes make the habit unusually expensive. Yet Pedersen believes that alcohol may also function as a social lubricant that tends to smooth career paths and ease the intrinsic awkwardness of networking. “It’s obviously not the fact that you drink alcohol, that it sort of comes into your body and does something with your brain,” he said. “The most likely explanation is that all alcohol is a kind of marker of sociality and that habit comes with some types of benefits.” There is no evidence that alcoholism itself is a sensible career strategy: the study found that those who routinely engaged in heavy drinking from their early teens were less successful in later life. Pedersen also warns against getting drunk in solitude."
