Have fun! One of my favourites too. Many happy memories 

I think it’s the parrot. Thomas Tallis wasn’t there in 2004. Or at least it was a different operation

It’s a demonstration of how past trauma can restrict one’s choices in certain contexts. In that it is very realistic imo. 

How often do we hear about people being criticised for bad choices like not being able to beat addiction or leave an abusive partner/household? Or repeating the same patterns of unhealthy relationships. 

Trauma without some kind of closure can often lead to these unthinking negative patterns of behaviour. 

But also as the other post says a lot of the characters are very young and people always overestimate their ages. 

I think that’s too complicated for Southgate.

It’s partly that but more due to the civil service which serve regardless of who is in power. Big decisions aren’t made but the government can keep running without politicians.

Another factor is that each party generates a manifesto as part of their campaign. These are sometimes more vague than others but basically the civil service will prioritise enacting policies from the manifesto first. Apparently although the manifesto is primarily for voters it also helps speed up policies when taking office as the civil service is already prepped for what an incoming government will do. If a policy is in the manifesto then it is also something which it is very hard for parliament to vote against since the majority of mps stood for election on those policies. 

Also those companies are only going to service that debt and pay it off by taking money from their customers who need water (aka everyone). So is there such a difference between the government holding that debt and private companies?

This is a genuine question and perhaps I’m entirely wrong. But it’s not like other industries where we have a choice about where we get our services or products.

He also said recently that he wanted to be leader of the party when sunak goes didn’t he?

Quite possibly true. For me it’s as much symbolic as practical maybe it’s even more important. But I appreciate I am an outlier in that regard probably. 

I think/hope that this is how it will go. We will just align more and more closely until opinion is solid enough to rejoin. 

Its one of those things which realistically might never happen or events could drive a sudden shift. Starmer would push for rejoin even after saying this if he thought it would win him the next election. 

How is your diet? I was tired all the time. I would wake up and could go back to bed after a few hours. I was having a lot of microwave ready meals which wasn’t great but the main thing was the amount of onion I was having. It turns out I am intolerant to aliums (especially onion). 

Not saying you are intolerant to them but it could be something like that so an exclusion diet might work. I did the FODMAP diet to work out what it was. 

I’ve met five tree surgeons and only one of them had all their fingers. 

Checkov’s bunting. 

Yes I was fully expecting Lillian to go off at him. I would have been livid if my sneaky, greedy, partner has been round to have a chat with a relative who was suffering from a mental health crisis without talking to me first. 

It does feel like they are pushing Alice further and further. Said it last time I really hope it isn’t heading towards a suicide or something. 

It was funny seeing them emerge on Twitter almost overnight. Suddenly making football style comments underneath every poll. 

Thanks! Really interesting. I keep looking at LiDAR if my local area (an Iron Age hill fort) and thinking I should do something with it but I don’t have the skills or the time to acquire them. 

How is the processing done? Just out of interest 

Yeah. Just to be clear I was agreeing with you although looking at my post it kind of reads like it could be angry at, or agreeing with, any viewpoint. I have Scottish friends and while they all take the piss as much as they can underneath it they are sound b

Please don’t let reality get in the way of the spittle filled bile people like to spew unchallenged on anything to do with migration. 

And if the tories get their act together over the next few years (a big if) they’ll take a lot of those votes back. 

Also let’s not equate all those reform votes with actual far right views. Don’t get me wrong, the part is but a lot of the voters are just ignorant of their policies and views. 

I know someone who stood as a councillor for ukip (well before Brexit) but later left and they didn’t realise ‘they were so anti Europe’…

He probably took the method from her. He doesn’t claim to have invented it but his YouTube channel does a good job explaining it.

Charles dowding does a similar thing but with layers of cardboard. Just cuts anything off that comes through and adds more cardboard. 

Then to make beds he puts compost/soil on top and lets the cardboard rot down. Quitte effective no dig garden. Supposedly very good for soil structure and health. 

For me it was also because I had enough mornings feeling hungover without even drinking so I couldn’t face actively doing it to myself. 

Didn’t the owner turn it into a charity to fight climate change as well?

I saw a good talk about the way they use facial expressions to classify emotions. They were saying a big problem was that most studies just used western undergraduates. Meant they would get certain cultural expressions wrong (in the example they used that I remember it was Māori expressions).  

Sorry it’s outside my wheelhouse as I am predominantly a medievalist. 

That said, Mary Beard writes very accessible history and is an academic. In terms of more dense academic history you’ll need to ask elsewhere sorry!