In todays news...

[KungFooBob]

M&S is Percy pig, not Peppa.

[Horse]

M&S is Percy pig, not Peppa.

And typically pink chewy stuff, not chocolate. But apart from that ...

[Mr. Dazzle]

Peppa Pig is aces.

Well not aces but way better to sit through than Paw Patrol. Those dogs can fuck right off, as can the general public of Adventure Bay. Why the fuck do they always call the Paw Patrol for the simplest problem, where are the regular emergency services?

Thunderbirds, undeniably the inspiration for Paw Patrol, is immeasurably better. They only call International Rescue when regular options have been exhausted.

[Cousin Jack]

M&S is Percy pig, not Peppa.

And typically pink chewy stuff, not chocolate. But apart from that ...

I have been educated.

[Mussels]

In one episode Peppa lost her shoes in the garden, Mummy Pig said "Don't worry Peppa, we can go to the shop and buy some more".

Daddy Pig should have given them both a clip round the ear.

[slowsider]

M&S is Percy pig, not Peppa.

So far, at least, there hasn't been a Percy Pig world established. Boris went on a day trip to https://peppapigworld.co.uk/ rather than watching it on the gogglebox.

[irie]

Emmanuel Macron is evidently offended by Boris Johnson's open letter to him.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ted-letter

Macron tells Johnson to ‘get serious’ on Channel crisis after tweeted letter
French president says: ‘We do not communicate on these issues by tweets’ after PM issues five-point plan via Twitter

Seemingly there have been many behind the scenes negotiations with the French administration, but judging by recent events to little or no effect. Unsurprising really given that one less migrant on French soil is one less problem for them to deal with.

The letter:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ember-2021

Dear Emmanuel,

Yesterday’s appalling tragedy in the Channel has shocked people across France and the United Kingdom. I know your thoughts, like mine, are with the families of those men, women and children who lost their lives at sea. I pay tribute to the work of your emergency services who have been dealing with this devastating situation. I also pay tribute to you, the French government and other authorities across France, who have been working on this challenging issue for so long.

We spoke yesterday evening and agreed to intensive talks between our ministers and officials. I am confident following our conversation that you recognise, like I do, the urgency of the situation we are both facing. I have also seen the statement by your Prime Minister today and a read out of a call between the Home Secretary and your Interior Minister, which has agreed a number of positive steps and areas for further cooperation.
In particular, I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary will be invited to Calais this Sunday to meet her counterparts from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. I stand ready to upgrade this meeting to a Leaders’ Level Summit or to arrange further bilateral discussion with you or with colleagues.

As I set out in a letter to you this summer, I have long been profoundly concerned that any morning we could wake to the news of a serious tragedy involving widespread loss of life in the Channel, including of women and children. I noted that the British and French public would rightly ask whether we had done everything possible to prevent such a catastrophe.

Such a catastrophe has now happened. I recognise that in both our countries, frontline law enforcement teams and immigration officials are working day and night but I agree with your words that unless we increase our efforts today, other tragedies will happen. This morning, further boats have arrived with yet more lives put at risk.

I write to offer my support and solidarity as well as specific ideas for saving lives and tackling the traffickers that sit behind these crossings, in a spirit of partnership and cooperation with you and our neighbours across Europe. Britain and France have a joint moral commitment to save lives but also legal obligations, including through the United Nations’ Migrant Smuggling Protocol and the Convention on the Trafficking in Human Beings.

In my letter in June, I outlined areas where I believed we could do more to work together. We have made some progress since then, including with the agreement reached between the Home Office and your Interior Ministry this summer. Although we have made some progress and stopped over 20,000 crossings, far too many have seen their lives put at risk. We must go further and faster, together.

As we discussed last night, I am open to any new creative ideas to help eliminate this terrible trade in human beings and to protect lives. Our model for future steps should be the exceptional creativity our countries showed in the past through the creation of the Juxtaposed Controls. These new ideas would build on the strength of our bilateral security and intelligence relationship and would recognise the scale of organised criminality both our countries are fighting.

To redouble our efforts, I would like us to consider:
• joint or reciprocal maritime patrol operations in each other’s territorial waters;
• deploying more advanced technology including ground sensors and radar;
• reciprocal airborne surveillance by manned and unmanned aircraft, perhaps flying under joint insignia; and
• deepening the work of our Joint Intelligence Cell with better real time intelligence sharing to deliver arrests and prosecutions on both sides of the Channel.

But I am also now formally requesting that we make urgent progress towards one of my previous proposals by establishing joint patrols wherever this can be most effective. This could include French gendarmes and UK Border Force working together, perhaps under one single command structure or the joint deployment of private security contractors. We are ready to begin such patrols from the start of next week, and to scale up thereafter.

In addition to our bilateral work, my ministers and officials are ready to work multilaterally and with the EU to address our shared challenges. France will soon be taking the presidency of the Council of the European Union. I am glad you have committed to make reaching a systematic returns agreement between the UK and the EU a priority for your presidency, especially given the EU’s own legal obligations to address migrant smuggling. The EU has readmissions agreements with countries including Belarus and the Russian Federation; I hope such an agreement can be rapidly reached with the United Kingdom too.

Pending such a readmissions agreement at EU level, I propose that we put in place a bilateral readmissions agreement to allow all illegal migrants who cross the Channel to be returned. This would have an immediate effect and would significantly reduce if not stop the crossings, saving lives by fundamentally breaking the business model of the criminal gangs. My officials will share draft text with counterparts.

As you would expect, we will also be bringing forward measures domestically to further our work to tackle illegal migration and human trafficking. I will make sure your officials are kept updated on these. Our New Plan For Immigration includes far-reaching reforms to our asylum system, designed to deter illegal entry into the UK, break the business model of people smuggling networks and remove more easily those with no right to be here. This builds on our work to make sure that our criminal justice system effectively prosecutes people smugglers.

I remain confident that our two great countries can rise to this challenge and build on our deep security cooperation to address illegal migration and human trafficking at our shared border as well as upstream across the Continent of Europe, in the Mediterranean and beyond.
I am copying this letter to the President of the European Council.

[MingtheMerciless]

Mr Goxx has died,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59432659

[wheelnut]

The issue is that they bring "the factors that are pushing them here" with them and then when there are enough of them the new place is the same as the place they left - which is fine if you want to go to Benidorm and have a cooked breakfast in a cockney bar, watch the English footy and have a game of bingo - but it's less appealing if you pop down to the shops in Woolwich and on the way back you get stabbed to death by Nigerians.

At heart, I’m a bit of liberal do-gooder, but you do have a point. We’ve just had a few days in Paris and walked from Gare du Nord to our airb&b in the 2nd arond. Took about 15-20 mins and on the way lost count of the times we were approached and asked for cigarettes and money from gangs of lads wearing hoodies on every corner. I didn’t feel overtly threatened but I was on edge. Haven’t been for a few years but don’t remember it being like that.

That said, if we’d been displaced from our country with no money, nowhere to live no way to earn money we would probably be the same, we would stick with those we know and try to survive however we could. The problem lies at the source.

[irie]

Little girl stabbed to death by youths in the street, what a lovely place.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-59427833

Googling "Dubai stabbing" first page results shown below, what a lovely place.

https://www.thenationalnews.com › ...
Man jailed for life after stabbing wife to death in Dubai murder he 'didn't ...
23 Jun 2021 — Husband waited by his wife's body after frenzied assault in which he knifed her 11 times.
https://english.alarabiya.net › gulf
Man stabbed to death in Dubai grocery store, one person arrested
31 May 2021 — Police arrested a man after one person was stabbed to death in a grocery store in Dubai on Friday.For the latest headlines, ...
https://gulfnews.com › uae › expat-i...
Expat in Dubai sentenced to life for stabbing wife 11 times | Crime
23 Jun 2021 — Dubai: The Dubai Court of First Instance on Wednesday sentenced a Nepali man to life in jail after he was found guilty of stabbed his wife ...
https://www.khaleejtimes.com › crime
Dubai: Three jailed for stabbing, robbing businessman - News
18 Oct 2021 — Dubai: Three jailed for stabbing businessman, robbing him of Dh12,300. Dubai - One of the gang members was the victim's relative ...
https://www.khaleejtimes.com › crime
Dubai: Woman gets 3 years in jail for stabbing neighbour after ...
14 Oct 2021 — The Dubai Criminal Court has sentenced a 43-year-old woman to three months in jail, followed by deportation, for stabbing her neighbour.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk › news
British tourists in wild brawls inside flash five-star Dubai hotel
25 Nov 2020 — 'The main issue is the false information about a stabbing. This is very serious and it just did not happen, it is nonsense. 'We have beefed up ...
Latest News, Photos, Videos on Dubai Stabbing - NDTV.COM
A 44-year-old Indian man has been sentenced to life for stabbing his wife to death in broad daylight at the parking lot of her office in Dubai after ...
https://newsopener.com › UK
British Tourists In Wild Brawls Inside Flash Five-star Dubai Hotel
25 Nov 2020 — Wild fights between visitors at the Five Palm hotel in Dubai were captured on ... 'The main issue is the false information about a stabbing.
https://www.gulftoday.ae › news › a...
Arab man stabbed to death in Dubai foodstuff store over money dispute
30 May 2021 — 'The perpetrator, who was extremely furious over a dispute with the victim, did not find anything inside the store but a knife to stab him.'
https://lovin.co › dubai › news › du...
Dubai Police Officer On Trial For Stabbing Two Men Outside A ...
An off-duty Emirati police officer has gone on trial for stabbing two men outside a hotel club in Bur Dubai. He denied attempted murder when he appeared at

[Horse]

Little girl stabbed to death by youths in the street, what a lovely place.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-59427833

... And it's not even really today's news - happened Thursday.

[irie]

So we're back with having to wear face masks in shops and on public transport, and having to have PCR tests when (re)entering the UK ffs.

If this "Omicron" variant really is ultra infectious it's gonna rip through the unvaccinated like a hot knife through butter.

[weeksy]

So we're back with having to wear face masks in shops and on public transport, and having to have PCR tests when (re)entering the UK ffs.

If this "Omicron" variant really is ultra infectious it's gonna rip through the unvaccinated like a hot knife through butter.

When did 'we' stop wearing them in shops? Who on earth would get on public transport without one?

[MingtheMerciless]

So we're back with having to wear face masks in shops and on public transport, and having to have PCR tests when (re)entering the UK ffs.

If this "Omicron" variant really is ultra infectious it's gonna rip through the unvaccinated like a hot knife through butter.

When did 'we' stop wearing them in shops? Who on earth would get on public transport without one?

80% of the punters using the trains on the sarf coast around Brighton.

And I'd have been really worried if they said it was the "Unicron" variant

[weeksy]

So we're back with having to wear face masks in shops and on public transport, and having to have PCR tests when (re)entering the UK ffs.

If this "Omicron" variant really is ultra infectious it's gonna rip through the unvaccinated like a hot knife through butter.

When did 'we' stop wearing them in shops? Who on earth would get on public transport without one?

80% of the punters using the trains on the sarf coast around Brighton.

And I'd have been really worried if they said it was the "Unicron" variant

Yeah, fuck turning into a unicorn

[irie]

When did 'we' stop wearing them in shops? Who on earth would get on public transport without one?

80% of the punters using the trains on the sarf coast around Brighton.

And I'd have been really worried if they said it was the "Unicron" variant

Yeah, fuck turning into a unicorn

Neither Mrs irie nor myself have been wearing masks in shops for weeks. Don't use public transport so don't know about that.

Previously posted BMJ research about masks etc. but seems that fingers didn't move under the words.

Suspect the WHO avoided calling it the "Xi" variant for fear of offending Xi Jinping the Chinese leader.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Suspect the WHO avoided calling it the "Xi" variant for fear of offending Xi Jinping the Chinese leader.

Seen this written in the Daily Mail too*. I suspect it is right, but I also reckon they would have done it for any major world leader who's name sounds like a Greek letter. Thinking China is "special" here is a bit tinfoil hat IMO. It's as much to avoid confusion as to avoid offence.

*love a bit of DM me, its better than most comedy

[Count Steer]

Suspect the WHO avoided calling it the "Xi" variant for fear of offending Xi Jinping the Chinese leader.

Seen this written in the Daily Mail too*. I suspect it is right, but I also reckon they would have done it for any major world leader who's name sounds like a Greek letter. Thinking China is "special" here is a bit tinfoil hat IMO. It's as much to avoid confusion as to avoid offence.

*love a bit of DM me, its better than most comedy

I thought it was going to be 'nu' but they thought it sounded like 'new'.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Apparently that is pronounced "nee" anyway. Who knew?Certainly not a long streak of maths and science teachers I've had

[demographic]

So we're back with having to wear face masks in shops and on public transport, and having to have PCR tests when (re)entering the UK ffs.

If this "Omicron" variant really is ultra infectious it's gonna rip through the unvaccinated like a hot knife through butter.

When did 'we' stop wearing them in shops? Who on earth would get on public transport without one?

Absolutely that^.
We might have stopped wearing masks in shops but I bloody didn't.
It's easy to fire a mask on and even if it makes no difference to me it might help the immunity compromised. Why wouldn't I do it?