legov

3 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

I thought he'd died years ago.

I just saw his real name was Anthony Benedetto. That's a much better name, much more exotic.

Tony Bennett sounds like a brick layer from Hull.

Haha incidentally Mark Goldbridge isn't a real name either

35 minutes ago, Xela said:

I think most hobbies are to be fair. I'd class posting on forums as a hobby/interest. Look at train spotting, plane spotting, steam rallies, classic car shows, historical reenactments, real ale quaffing, metal detecting, etc, it is all male dominated usually, as is most sport. I think men need a distraction from real life. Women are more focused on real life stuff I think. 

This forum is quite progressive but it can be laddish at times and fall into a Zoo/Nuts/Loaded type banter, but its few and far between and I think always said in a tongue in cheek way, and between posters who are comfortable with each other. I don't think there is an issue with sexism and misogyny on here. IMO of course. 

You really need to make a few more female friends...

6 hours ago, mjmooney said:

Well, we have a racism thread, an LGBTQ+ thread, and one specifically on transgender issues. 

But (unless I've missed it) not one on plain old sexism and male attitudes to women. So here it is. 

With a few notable dissenters, the most vocal VT OT posters would probably be categorised as left of centre and socially progressive. But is casual sexism the last bastion of VT's unreconstructed male football fan 'blokiness'? 

The language routinely used goes unchallenged - the legendary 'DHUTWU', 'I'd ruin that', 'impressive rack', 'mouth, arse and mouth again, if I had any left', etc., etc. 

Did stopping the 'lovely ladies' thread go far enough? At a time when women's football is at an all-time high of popularity, do we ever stop to wonder why there are so few female contributors to VT (active ones, at any rate)? 

I'm an old, white, male football fan, so hardly the riot grrrl demographic. But I have to admit that I sometimes feel uncomfortable about some of the language used on here. 

Controversial? Overreaction? Or just food for thought? 

Go at it. (KW) 

Yes.

No.

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

What did our Australian contributors think of Julia Gillard, out of interest?

I thought she was brilliant.

I'm not actually Aussie, I did spend a few years living there though

Gillard not someone I know a huge amount about as I wasn't living there when she was PM. That said she's most well-known for her little rant about misogyny during House Question Time while she was in the office, the video of which went viral.

I quite like Rudd, out of recent Aussie PMs he would probably be the one I would pick to have a casual chat with.

7 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Yes that is also true and I’m not sure why he was unpopular but I think it was mostly that people had not really thought about him much until he was front and centre as PM. I don’t think he was a liability in the run up to the election, more that he was just a bit beige and uninteresting. 

The previous Labour leader (Shorton) was from the Union wing and more left of centre than Albanese (though not as controversial a character as Corbyn). He had lost Labour an election they were strongly expected to win leading to Albanese getting a go the next time up. 

Shorten was always unlikable for some reason, Albo on the other hand was just a bit boring.

1 hour ago, Genie said:

Is Truss becoming the leader again more or less mental than Boris becoming leader again? I can’t decide.

Personally I reckon Hunt would get the gig.

My outsider's view is that Boris is a smart dude but utterly amoral, Truss on the other hand is genuinely probably the dumbest head of government I have ever seen.

8 hours ago, LondonLax said:

In the most recent Federal Election in Australia the biggest story was not the success of the Labour Party winning back seats to win the election but the loss of wealthy urban Tory seats to independent candidates who combined Tory fiscal policies with environmental policies, calling themselves ‘teal’ (i.e. blue/green) candidates.

The Australian Tories got smashed and shrank back to only representing the rural ‘throbber’ style constituencies with dog whistle culture wars and no actual substance.

There might be a similar story in play in the U.K.?

Was about to post this indeed. Was expecting the election to be centred around inflation and cost-of-living issues and was pleasantly surprised by how environmentalism became the central story as the election panned out.

There's an electoral realignment going on.

So I haven't been following football of late because...reasons.

Wtf, Spurs are being managed by an Aussie now? Lol

On 07/07/2023 at 15:58, Jareth said:

There was a moment a little while back had they got their house in order they 'could' have stabilised the polls and maybe have begun a little fight back. But as it is, you couldn't choreograph their downfall over the next 12 months any better. It beats Game of Thrones when the Lannisters got their comeuppance. 

Non-Brit here, I'm surprised the polls aren't better for the Conservatives tbh, would have thought having someone halfway sane instead of Truss would have stemmed the losses a bit at least. What's been happening?

19 hours ago, tomav84 said:

the problem is that this gathered such public interest due to the abnormal nature of it. it got clicks and views of the news articles...it's (for lack of a better word) exciting. 5 people in a sub, with the oxygen level counting down...it made for a good story, a real life suspense movie.

that being said, if the navy released that little nugget of info about hearing the bloody thing implode at the very same time that the signal was lost, no one would've bothered looking. i just hope no lives were lost due to resources being deployed for this lost cause

I think the fact that it occurred on a trip to the site of the original high-profile marine disaster site played a part in catching people's attention as well. Pretty surreal.

On 11/05/2023 at 16:40, mjmooney said:

I suspect that this is true. While @bickster's point about the younger voters demographic is well made, a lot of their Labour support was on a wave of enthusiasm for Corbyn. From an admittedly small sample, I'm currently detecting a lot of disillusionment with Starmer's version of Labour. They won't vote Tory, obviously, but I can see many of them staying away from the polling booths next time out. 

Way I see it the same thing that's been happening in Australia is happening in the UK. The conservatives have gone too right-wing and that basically means a lot of naturally conservative-leaning constituencies moving away from the tories but not necessarily voting for Labour either. Probably the same thing is happening in America too but because theirs is a two-party system the votes that go to the Lib Dems basically go to the Democrat.

Have felt for a while now that there's a fundamental political realignment going on globally and we are in the middle of it.

Qatar easily the worst team at the tournament, they've never even qualified (from AFC no less) before

9 hours ago, Chindie said:

Thankfully he can't, he's not a natural born citizen of the US.

Never say never, constitutional amendment always possible

6 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

To be honest China is the one that’s more interesting for me. Japan and South Korea reached Western levels of wealth before getting old, but it’s debatable whether China will. They’ll be in a very tough spot if they don’t.

In the short term that ends up being what matters for emissions too. Poor countries (or more specifically ones with lower rates of female education) generally have higher birth rates and are less interested in protecting the environment, but the energy (and water and food) that goes into producing the average Western lifestyle is way higher. So if China and India and Africa get rich and live like we do, the world is screwed irrespective of population trends.

Oh, I agree with you that China's demographic problems are quite interesting. By some estimates its population is already decreasing and obviously this poses severe challenges in terms of living standards since this will be a drag on economic growth, but unlike the West or Korea/Japan they are not wealthy enough yet to sustain the increased social spending that is likely to be required with an aging population.

Not sure why this is necessarily bad in terms of emissions though. Assuming emissions per capita remain constant a decline in China's population would result in a decrease in emissions.

4 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

He was claiming the decline in birth rates would be the biggest problem facing humanity in 20 years time.

He’s being alarmist but it is something humanity will eventually have to grapple with. The expectation of the UN is that in 2100 the world population would be 10.4bn and brith rates would be at 1.84 per woman. If that holds then in 2500 the world population is at 2bn and in 3000 it’s at 225m.

There’s quite a lot of economic problems that come from a shrinking population (mostly about ever smaller numbers of young people looking after larger numbers of elderly people) and it’s quite possible my kids will live to see 2100, so it’s not a completely abstract problem. At the moment the West deals with population decline via immigration but that’s less of an option if the population is declining everywhere.

Also, it’s quite striking how rapidly the population growth trends have been revised down in the past twenty years or so. It’s quite possible in another decade we might be thinking the world population will be peaking in 2050, etc.

But any problem that won’t wipe out humanity for millennia probably can’t be considered our biggest threat.

Japan and Korea will be interesting to look at going forward in terms of how they deal with this. Lower fertility rates than most of the West but more importantly hardly any immigration at all. Japan's population actually is already declining and South Korea is expected to follow suit soon IINM.

Edit: no, actually Korea's population is also already declining.

1 hour ago, Rugeley Villa said:

To save the planet we need to start culling the population it’s quite simple. We cull animal populations for similar reasons.

We kind of are already. Birth rates are already declining precipitously across the world. World population is still increasing of course but at some point it will level off.

Any tips for getting into the MCU for someone who's never watched a Marvel film?

Really enjoyed that latest PMQ best Starmer performance I've ever seen

Just now, villa4europe said:

Holland and Germany too

8 hours ago, maqroll said:

Wall to Wall coverage here in US

Still on Australian TV as well.

11 minutes ago, ccfcman said:

Please be respectful when talking about the Queen of England. She was a head of state, a monarch, a mother to multiple pedophiles, and most importantly a devoted cousin to her husband.

You took that off twitter

Am I the only one who thinks Boris quit a day too early? If he'd stuck around just a bit longer he could have ridden the nationalist fervor, called an early election and won.

Just now, trekka said:

Oh I dunno.  We're talking about places like Papua New Guinea.  I'm sure their embassies and other hotlines to Government can work quickly but never underestimate the potential for delays. 

The Prime Minister of PNG doesn't have email?

Just now, trekka said:

She isn't just head of the state for the UK but head of state for quite a few Commonwealth countries.  All of those need to be informed via official channels before it can go "live" to everyone else*. 

*Apparently.  I fully expect that to be happening / or has happened over the past few hours. 

Yeah but that would take, what, minutes?