blandy

Already, Boris Johnson is saying "this isn't what Leave voters were promised" with seemingly no awareness that this is entirely because him and his chums lied their effing arses off, making all kinds of Unicorn promises. The utter throbber.

Don't agree. It's not nationality that relevant, it's ability and approach and motivation and loads of other stuff. Sean Dyche, Eddie Howe, Gareth Southgate, Chris Hughton.. all English managers who have those things and a "modern" approach to managing players and to coaching and tactics etc. There are plenty of others who don't of course. Just the same as with foreign managers. In some cases, being English is an advantage - not least in settling in, in relating to the league and the players and so on. The younger English managers now are different to the past, to the older ones, because they have to be properly qualified. Previously they almost got jobs based on playing reputation, or name recognition. It's less like that now. But even in the past, Mercer, Saunders, Barton, Taylor, Atkinson, Little, Gregory etc. have done good or superb jobs at Villa. We've had some less good English and Scottish managers, too, obviously, but then again, for various reasons Remi Garde, Dr. Jo weren't successful. Nationality isn't and shouldn't be a factor.

Ah sweet Jesus, indeed. Donna Summer’s vocals are missing! it sounds like an instrumental “I feel love” followed by “Genetic” by Emeralds p.s. I like it

That’s probably there or thereabouts. It’s not easy to complete that crossword, when @The_Rev left it, it was in a mess. Some unintelligent people never wanted you filling it in...

Prune run.

Rain Tree Crow is arguably better than anything else he’s been involved with, IMO. Like Gone to Earth’s first three tracks, but a whole albums worth of goodness. It’s brilliant.

Normally I don't really like the chant of "you don't know what you're doing" because I don't have the abilities to know if managers do or not. But in the current situation, it's apparent that he doesn't know what to do, how to do it, what side to pick, what "tactics" to employ. We used to know exactly how we'd play, even if we didn't enjoy it that much. Now even that's gone. He's floundering around because he's realised that the first 2 seasons style of football, his way, is not adequate and won't result in promotion. So he (I assume) resolved to change to a more attacking type of football, with more creative players, better attacking players. But he hasn't got a clue how to get that aim to actually work. He's trying something he's ill equipped to handle, and boy does it show. Throughout his time here (and before that as well) it's been blindingly clear that coaching is the problem. He can organise a defence, though he's undermined himself hugely in terms of this season depriving himself of a full set of decent defenders and keeper. But the rest of it - not a clue. It's not just him, it's Calderwood too. It's the combination of a defensive minded manager, who's belatedly realised that won't work, and a coach who appears not to be the right fit in terms of attacking play. Chopping and changing, too many players out of position, not knowing the best 11, players not being able to settle in one role and develop understandings, players lower on confidence because they never get picked, or were going to be sold then weren't (Albert, Jack). I've got some sympathy for Bruce in as much as the club nearly going bust in the early summer was clearly a drawback and he couldn't do any transfer business, the new owners have then potted many of the football staff he worked with and intentionally or otherwise that's got to undermine his confidence in whether there's much faith in him from above. He's no doubt feeling vulnerable both because of the what's happened with the owners, the knowledge that so often new owners leads to new manager, and also because of entirely valid criticism of performances and results by us supporters. His interview responses are dreadful, he needs to accept responsibility not try and blame fans as unintelligent and never been happy with him. That's just counter-productive as well as wrong. People like me who never wanted him in the first place have by and large said "OK, he's here now, give him a couple of years and see how it goes. We've pointed out what he's done well, and what he hasn't. The criticisms we made when he got appointed, or when he was about to be, have mostly turned out to be exactly right. In other words the concerns about him are and were completely valid. The people who wanted him have also pointed out where he's fallen short, what the problems are with the style of play and results and so on. This is not "unintelligent" blanket objection to him. It's the result of seeing with our own eyes. It's in black and white in the results.

PAYG isn't a contract (well it is for a month at a time... but ykwim). Plenty people buy their phones outright and then go with whatever service provider they want, and often change between them. This doesn't counter your point about the way people get tied into say, Vodaphone and a 1 or 2 year "pay a ton a month and get a new phone every year or so..." contract, but IMO those deals are not wise ones to follow. The warranty thing - the phone itself, yeah, sure, after the manufacturers warranty has expired, if it fails then there's still a "reasonable" period in law where you can get redress. With the battery this "reasonable" period is not as long as for the rest of the phone (which might be up to 6 years) Batteries can reasonably be expected to last a shorter time and perhaps much shorter if heavily used. maybe 1000 charge cycles is "reasonable" which would be approx 2 to 3 years of heavy-ish use. You're right that many folk will think "3 years I've had this, the battery isn't lasting as long, there's a new Android or Apple phone with shiny features...I'll get an upgrade". I wonder if they're all doing as much as they can to improve battery technology which might ultimately mean they'd sell fewer phones, as you rightly imply.

Definitely. That’s a major part of it. That’s my point about the issue being not the limitations of battery life, but of getting the chance to get a battery replacement. Batteries are consumables, but it should be easier to get them replaced. It’s not the design or engineering at fault, but customer service..

That's completely wrong (IMO). Apple or whoever makes these phones - batteries have a relatively short life of a few years. The phone itself should last much longer. Have a 9 year old mac and a 15 year old iPod that still work (the mac on the original battery still - though it's obviously much larger than a phone battery ). Replacing batteries, whether easily accessed or more difficultly accessed is not a "design flaw, or choice - it's a consequence of portable tech. Batteries do not become obsolete, they "wear out" and like with aa clutch plate on a car, need to be replaced. Most people get a dealer or garage to do that for them. Some get the tolls and do it themselves. Batteries are consumables. The design aspect of building them in, internally is about more than just user accessibility. To get back to Bicks problem, apple stores making it difficult to get an appointment, perhaps prioritising other customer needs is something to validly criticise. Claiming battery replacement is designed in obsolescence and a Defect is not.

I think it's to do with the technology. The battery life of a Li ion battery is limited to what it is. As with removable (consumer replaceable) batteries, it's reasonable to charge for replacements. While it's tricky for a "normal" consumer to do, it is possible and some people do. The alternative of getting shiny thing plc. to do it for you, for a fee after 4 or 5 years is deemed "reasonable" and, realistically, it is, IMO. It's not a "product defect". I guess it's deemed a design feature that people accept and want, even. #backInmydayitwasallclockwork

Woah there! Steady on Hitz. Dangerously veering towards non-boring behaviour. Careful now.

Politics at its absolute, out of touch worst. There's legitimacy in wanting to establish if someone making very serious, historic allegations is "credible". But a bunch of mostly ageing, male senators and a career prosecutor doesn't seem like the best group to do it. It seems like one of the worst. There's legitimacy in wanting to establish if someone is fit for a role, and that should surely consider a whole, verified picture, after the evidence has all been gathered. This hearing isn't that place (at this time). The awful state of it all.

He's not arbitrarily detained. He's free to leave at any time he wishes.

There was a bit on the telly last night that I caught with a interview by phone with a Russian sounding bod who had done this identification of the Russian bloke as a GRU agent. The questioning was poor by Kirsty Wark, but it was all quite unconvincing, tbh. Based on what we know so far the most likely thing is these two Russians were involved, but the thing last night didn't seem like much more than someone with a guess/theory, really that the chap in the pictures is this particular GRU agent.

That makes two of us, then (which for one of us isn't such a good look, seeing as I am incapable of driving a website moderating thingummy properly).

We've been conditioned to recieve a cooler welcome.

Maybe you could consider using an orange highlighter sometimes, for mild variation?

If the "wolf" part was intentionally avatar based , then have a big "Bravo Sir" for funny brainz. Outstanding.?

It's more "Europe Endless" for May, isn't it?

Podcast?

2 and a half minute banger

He's Tim Sherwood. Inexplicably popular with some, but basically useless.

It's like watching a relegation battle between two teams. One team, all the players hate each other and they all hate the manager and the fans love the team. The other club, the fans love the manager, but the players hate the manager and the fans hate most of the players. The loser is the one that scores the most own goals. There's no winner. Just ludicrous incomptence.

The first word of that is the key. If . And the last sentence, too. I'm sure the rules could be tighter, and I'm certain they could be better enforced. I also seem to recall that Grenfell was said to be non-compliant in several ways with the rules on cladding etc. As a general point it's often the case that it's not so much new laws or rules needed as exisiting rules not being adhered with and not be enforeced and non-complaince not being adequately punished. To get back on topic, a significant part of the reasons for that is that the tories back in 2010 and ever since hacked away at the various enforcement bodies and their budgets, making it essentially a free hit for businesses and people to ignore safety and pollution and health related laws and standards. It was said to be due to "austerity" but was nothing more than an ideologically driven assault around the notion that the state shouldn't tell businesses what to do, or not to do and that removing this burden would be "good". It needn't take a socialist government to reverse this idiocy, any competent government of whatever creed governing in the interests of the country should and should and would address this. It's a gaping hole in the way the country operates. On Chris's comment about lovely things - yep absolutely. I mean who wouldn't want all of those things to be the case. The easy part is for anyone to say "shares for workers, mega corps taxed properly, invest in infrastructure, stop excess exec wages build homes make rentals safe..." and so on. Having a proper idea of how to actually make that happen is another step altogether. Because if you can't answer questions as to the consequences of the detail, then it's all just hot air and marketing - momentary headline grabbing and virtue signalling with no actual clue as to how to make it happen. And this is where, by and large, Corbyn and Co. (and May) fall down. It's what lead to Brexit, it's what has led to more and more people having no faith in politicians, yet still being duped by them. "We can leave the EU and have exactly the same benefits" "lovely, but how do you make that happen, when X, Y and Z?" "errr....." "We need a jobs based Brexit" "But jobs will be lost as Companies relocate to the EU, pull out of the UK and stop investing in their UK factories and offices" "err...." "Workers need to be given 10% of the shares of businesses of over 250 people" "Does that apply to non-listed businesses, and if so, how could that work? and what's to stop listed businesses de-listing, or changing their listing to another market, or replacing employees with sub-contractors, or reducing to below 250 employees, or fragmenting into smaller named parts each of fewer than 250 employees...or moving abroad..or..." "errr...."