blandy

1 in 3 chance of a 3. Blew it Wordle 1,032 4/6*

I completely disagree. Covid led to huge losses for the clubs. In part that was refunding TV rights, but it was also through loss of gate and commercial/corporate income. Next, part of the appeal to TV is that the games have big crowds attending, it illustrates that the games mean a lot to people. The atmosphere, too is a selling point. If you look at the most valuable TV rights for sport, they're the IPL cricket and NFL which have huge stadia and crowds. In terms of what that means for Villa and VP, the history around the stadium is a selling point and shouldn't be thrown away, but it's not big enough and 2 of the stands are sub par. The ground needs expanding and improving, for supporters, for corporate, for commercial, for TV viewers and ultimately for the owners and the future of the club.

I see they've done the place up! Not so decrepit, now.

Wordle 1,031 4/6* tricky one

Legally it was a breach. They settled billions of dollars because of it. I don’t trust any of them. Google has a long record of using users data without consent, to be polite. Their business model depends on us not giving a hoot. Apple makes over priced gubbins and their businesses model depends on us being entranced by what they would call seamlessness and that they don’t marketise our data, because they make their money from the kit they sell, not from the info we reveal about ourselves. I’d trust Apple to look after my data more than google, by a million miles. I wouldn’t trust either of them as far as I could throw them to be model citizens.

Google has just settled a huge case where they’d been tracking users activity in incognito and then using the data they collected to sell ads. They’ve repeatedly been found to breach users privacy for profit, over the years. As you’ve said yourself in the past “you’re the product” with google. Pretty much all these big tech giants are horrible in much of what they do and how they do it and how they behave. We’re all hooked to an extent because they also make/provide things we find incredibly useful.

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“This deal makes sense, you sock cooker” That do it for you?

Not sure I understand the first point about recency. A relatively recent bit of kit contains a feature to alert people to its potential misuse by people with malign intent. I’m guessing here, but I’d imagine that the notification thing was probably introduced after people realised perverts could use them to do stalking. General privacy, yeah there’s loads of stuff. Google it, actually don’t. Use a different searcher, to protect your privacy

You can (Labour can) do both. Fixing the unwieldy admin is a non-instant thing. Sending Fred to an unused private bed to get his hip replaced and take him out of a 9 month waiting list, moving everyone forward is pretty much instantaneous.

They pay to use the facilities for their private work, don’t they? It raises money for the NHS as I understand it.

Air tags have a built in thing so you can tell if you’re being stalked with one, like in the instance described. Whatever their failings and strengths overall, privacy is one thing where Apple is better/less bad than other providers like Google, for example.

If they are employed by the NHS they have to meet their contracted hours. Consultants and senior doctors may have contracts that are for a smaller number of hours, but most staff, including nurses and Junior doctors are full time. There are huge numbers of vacancies. Brexit and also the better ts&cs and lifestyle in places like Aus have seen a huge outflow of trained staff. I was in a situation similar to yours. Wait 6 months for an MRI scan on the NHS, or pay and have it done in less than 2 weeks. I paid. It was done in an NHS facility, but in the evening after the NHS had finished for the day. I later had another scan (different body part) done on the NHS. It went like this: See physio at work, because knee ****. Physio says, yep, it’s ****, you need a scan. Go to your GP, say I referred you, say you need a scan and they’ll sort it out. Wait a month to see GP. GP says “ok” I’ll get you a scan. I Wait a month, a letter comes with a time to book an appointment in another 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I phone the number to book the appointment. The appointment is then set for another month later. Then I get another letter reminding me not to miss my appointment for an appointment. Then I go get scanned. They tell me to take a cd of the scan to my GP. So then I book another appointment to see the GP. 2 weeks on, I see the GP, who says “I know nothing about knees, you need to see the specialist, book an appointment with him. So I do. Wait another couple of months, see specialist. “Yeah, your knees ****”. I know. The only bits of the process that weren’t hugely inefficient were the company physio and the tiny company the NHS sent me to who did the scan. The rest was nearly 6 months of waiting, pointless appointments, duplicate letters and all the admin the various folk had to do to pass me from one person to the next. The private MRI scan on my head cost me IIRC 200 quid, was done and dusted, including getting a diagnosis in 2 weeks. They made (I assume) some profit from that. The hours I spent occupying NHS people because of the ludicrous inefficiency would undoubtedly have cost way more than that for a simpler scan of a knee. The NHS is broken. The Tories broke it. Labour needs to fix it, but wedding themselves to 1970s ideology won’t work. It’s a long term fix and using private capacity while they do the fixing will at least see people treated in the interim in greater numbers.

There's a couple of obvious things. Firstly the private medical staff are in place right now. And they've got the beds and capacity to treat people right now. The NHS doesn't have either the staff or the capacity. So sure, invest in the NHS, wait while they build the hospitals, recruit and or train the staff...all the while there's these patients, or would be patients needing treatment. Sod the ideology, make the injured and ill healthy as soon as possible. That's what hospitals and health providers (of whatever ilk) are there to do. The second thing is because of staff shortages in the NHS, the NHS is spending (as you point out) an absolute fortune on locums, so using private facilities is not much different in cost terms, either.

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That’s exactly right in my view. If you’re waiting months, even years in pain then speeding up that wait has got to be good. By using empty private beds and associated staff, more people will get treated and sooner. But it’s no good taking money away from NHS services to pay for it, it needs extra money, like you say. One other thing is the NHS is incredibly wasteful and inefficient in many areas, from personal knowledge. There’s a serious need to sort out a lot of the waste and bureaucracy. It’s a complete shambles. I hope Labour doesn’t bottle it, based on outdated and unthinking dogma around “best health service in the world”nonsense. It isn’t. It’s second rate at best.

Please stay on topic. This isn't a thread for discussing Ground sharing, or moving to a new stadium.

Please stay on topic. There are other threads for the North Stand and VP redevelopment, for other clubs and their stadia and for Small Heath Alliance (whatever one of those is).

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It's a bit more than awkward. I mean they started the current cycle of horror, albeit spurred on and armed by Iranian nutters. Hamas fighters are still doing their killing and hostaging and attacks. As much as Israel has gone mental, Hamas is there too, in the "elimination of the enemy" desire.

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Yep. Ta

Ah, ok, well that then. It’d be good to meet up.