Brexit Arms - Out with the old and in with the new

[time4chocolate]

It’s time again for another Brexit Arms thread to see us into Christmas and beyond.

Well what a week it’s been!!

Boris has now completed his first week and he’s been busy. New conservatives have been sworn in, the Queens Speech yesterday shows promise (aware that the proof of the (Xmas) pudding is in the eating) and Boris’ Deal is going to be voted on today with the results being around 3pm I believe.

Meanwhile, on the other side all four wheels have definitely fallen off the red bus and were very nearly joined by a garden gate and a car door. Oh dear!!

Anyway, I have added a few more Christmas decs to the pub and popped the fairy back on the tree (it took a nasty tumble)

We are now good to go.
Cheers all 🍷🍷

Ps. If anyone wants to volunteer for outside catering that would be👍🏻

TheGhostofEpicPast, and you could add rundown seaside resorts and rural areas to the list of communities frozen out of the opportunity cycle.

Other news: Winchester and Dulwich's rejections of scholarship endowments open only to disadvantaged white boys. If Stormzy can fund black students at Cambridge, then why not?

And in view of the recent discussion of caring for ageing parents, there was a good Times column on how product designers don't give enough thought to making consumer products user-friendly for older folk. Dreadful manuals, hideous colour ranges and buttons/control panels too fiddly for arthritic fingers being just a few of the problems noticed.

Xing the Winchester thing is exactly why I’ve never taken up opportunities open to BME. I knew we would end up here, it’s tragic.

Dreadful manuals, hideous colour ranges and buttons/control panels too fiddly for arthritic fingers being just a few of the problems noticed.

You can add fingerprint recognition technology to that, Xing. Lots of elderly people have virtually no fingerprints left because their hands are so worn from a combination of age and physical labour.

I don't suppose that would occur to the techy types who design these things. Wait till they get old and try to use their own inventions.

Another looming issue for the identarians. Labour and the LibDems now have more female than male MPs. I suppose a few could just switch gender rather than having to contemplate all male short lists.

My poor DMIL (90, frail, vascular dementia) even has trouble using the phone now, despite having bought her one with picture buttons/numbers you can read across the room. The hands-free function completely defeats her unless SIL is there to press the right button. She doesn't read the (standard) speaker dingbat because it came too late in her lifetime.

I am incredibly grateful to (1) have been using PCs since the early 80s (2) that my own DM remains compos mentis and (3) that my dad's second wife is only a little older than me, so she can cope still.

We try to help manage MIL's accounts... DH has PoA but automated telephone customer service systems, jobsworth operators and data protection protection conspire to frustrate. And a 300 mile separation doesn't help: we can't pop around to sort stuff out.

I suppose a few could just switch gender rather than having to contemplate all male short lists.

Only if they pass the Layla Moran test first, Howabout.

Howabout, I'm rather cheered by that. Maybe there will be a bit more practical common sense talked in the HoC. Are we nearly at 35% female MPs now, did I read somewhere?

...data protection protocols... obviously.

34% Xing same as Scottish Parliament since 2011. Made no difference in Scotland.

After much navel gazing has been done, I fully expect this pic to come to pass in Labour...

Gives the whole exercise of navel-gazing an air of divine inevitability, Dusty

It's positively noble and pure.

Interesting perspective on social conservatism.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1211608563761721344.html

Paraphrasing: it's about control and consent and pace of change rather than opposition to change.

Gosh - that hard work vs luck debate is a very tough question; for most of my life I'd have sided with the Hard Work Camp, including surmounting all odds against you.

The difficulty for me now is, after surmounting various barriers - I hit a brick wall with DS's SEN. I had to totally adjust, re-plan and put DS's needs paramount. For this, I think it was all worth it as he's turning out really well.

For myself, not so much - but then it could be said that DS's 'success' is 'my' success - but there was more that I was providing and offering to society before, and since, DS's needs became my priority.

there was more that I was providing and offering to society before, and since, DS's needs became my priority.

That's the thing about 'society' though I think
We all contribute in different ways & it's not uniformly measurable
But it encompasses so many things

Sometimes we're in a position where we can contribute in a more tangible way - such as the better off contributing financially to charitable causes, giving up some of our time for something which benefits others, donating to things etc

Other times we contribute in more invisible ways - just by listening to someone who's having a hard time, participating in community events, caring for family members or friends - even just simply paying taxes

Simply by being parents & raising our children the best we can, we're contributing to society 🤷🏻‍♀️

As daft as it sounds, something as small as posting a supportive post or giving advice on MN can make a profound difference to someone you don't even know 🙂

When I split up with my ex a few years ago I started a thread in relationships & it was fantastic - lovely women who have never met me & don't know me from Adam made me laugh, buoyed me up & kept me fighting

I think we often forget the small stuff when we think of things like 'society' and the small stuff can be as important as the showy stuff 🍷

Hard work v luck is always controversial. But the elephant in the room, which is difficult to raise as a talking point, is innate intelligence. I see this because DH has an adoptive sister, who was adopted at eight days old and reared by my (middle-class successful shop keeper x military) parents in law along exactly the same lines as DH. And there is no meeting of minds or common ground between them, to the point that they silently dislike each other, although I can't TBH speak for her.

Her DNA, inherited from her birth parents, has not been altered by her upbringing, travel and cultural environment. She actively prefers EastEnders. Her children take after her, and their genes are hers. Her children could have been funded by Thwaites to attend Winchester or it's feminine equivalents, but first, would not have been won the scholarships and second, probably would not have enjoyed the experience. Paraphrasing Dorothy Parker, who used terms much stronger than any I would use, the paraphrase is: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

DSIL works far harder than me BTW. But her rewards are less for the same effort. It isn't fair, I do understand that.

Do you define innate intelligence as intellectual smarts though, or shrewdness? I have a very good friend who I think has a couple of CSEs to her name; doesn't read at all, as she finds literacy difficult, but can do most things with a needle. She is also as shrewd as she can be. Her 'intelligence' isn't the same as mine, but she has kept me sane in Brussels for the past couple of years with her wry observations on life and her let's crack on with it approach to life.

I've known her for the best part of 27 years, (RN circuit) but really got to know her properly when her dh was posted to Belgium, and we wound up living next door but one to each other. She is an absolute gem, but you have to dig (and she has to allow it) for you to find the sense of humour and wryness hidden there.

As I said before, I don't want London and the SE to fall behind. I'd just like the rest of the country to catch up a bit. It's been an afterthought for far too long.

well said lily totally agree.

as for smarts/academia: social skills beat academic skills hands down in most roles (unless you are science/IT I guess).

Xing “Her DNA, inherited from her birth parents, has not been altered by her upbringing, travel and cultural environment. She actively prefers EastEnders”

So she must be less clever than your DH? The mind boggles.

Yolo There are different types of intelligence though, there isn't just one, so innate intelligence is a difficult one; however I know what Xing means. It's the bright but lazy that drove me batshit (and I have one of those myself).

Morning, all,

It's the last day of the year and what a rollercoaster it has been! We started 2019 with strong-and-stable Theresa May clinging on, still trying to jemmy her unloved and unlamented withdrawal agreement through the HoC while Grieve, Letwin, Starmer, Cooper and Boles plotted from the green benches, the ERG were mutinous and Bercow delighted in shouting Order-r-r-r over an unruly House that was anything but orderly. And the entire country, whichever way it voted, looked on aghast at the trashing of our democracy and the damage to our nation's international reputation. Even watching the news was an endurance test with Steve Bray living up to his name. No one could hear themselves think for all the din, both inside and outside the House.

Well, as is so often the case, empty vessels make the loudest noise.

Tomorrow is the first day of the New Year. We start with a new Prime Minister, a new government that has the overwhelming support of the country, a withdrawal agreement that has the overwhelming support of the House, a new Speaker who has already started dismantled the damage inflicted by the previous incumbent. And Steve Bray has - praise be - shut up shop and laid down his megaphone. The country is already starting to breathe again and dare to hope.

Join us in the Arms for the complimentary breakfast, the free drinks and the banter as we say goodbye to the old year and get ready to welcome the new one.

Kettle's on ☕️☕️☕️

Oh, and it's another light breakfast this morning. We bring out the big guns tomorrow - our guaranteed hangover cure.

Morning all.
Haven't been on here for a while, I must admit brexit hasn’t been on my mind at all over Christmas.
I’m looking forward to end of January though, although I still won’t believe we’ve left until we actually have ( iykwim )

Happy new year to you all

To add to the nature-versus-nurture discussion, all I will say is that I've lost count of the number of times I've seen siblings with the same DNA, upbringing (usually chaotic and/or abusive), family support (or lack of, in most cases), and material wealth and opportunities (ranging right across the class spectrum from titled/wealthy to bare survival) turn out completely differently. Not just in terms of intelligence but also in terms of predisposition to criminality.

What really really irritates me is the lazy assumption that educated = intelligent and uneducated = thick. There are far too many examples in public life of people who disprove that, yet it persists.

Yolo, if you're reading this, I did it. I told Beth last night that you were a big fan. She thought you had the most interesting name because she'd never heard it before. I just said you were a friend I saw regularly in the pub and although our politics were different, we still managed to find things on which we agreed. We mostly talked about Becky High - Beaconsfield High School, Beth's old grammar school - because the future DG of GCHQ recently passed the 11+ and will be going there in September.

Morning, Dirty, Happy New Year to you as well. This time, it will happen.

lily!! congrats on the grammar pass

Lily “What really really irritates me is the lazy assumption that educated = intelligent and uneducated = thick.”

So much this. The comments I heard at work after the Brexit vote were astonishing.