Shades of a profoundly insidious Orwellian Chinese-style social credit system at work - fortunately it's been headed off at the pass before it managed to gain further ground.

The further left's position on this clearly hasn't been about justice, but revenge; and even worse, the attempt to close off areas of discourse they find unpalatable is downright sinister. So, who really are the villains and the victims in this scenario?

He wasn't cancelled. I'm sure he has the resources to cope with the ability to move bank accounts.  His freedom of speech certainly hasn't been curtailed.  Haven't heard so much from him in quite a while.  I don't have

Quote from: Matt2112 on July 26, 2023, 09:58:20 AMI don't particularly hold a candle for either of them; I will say though that GB News haven't been peddling the narrative that fires are "raging across Greece", or asserted Sardinia is experiencing temperatures of 47C while the BBC's own weather app has them at 32C, because the former measures the ground while the latter measures the air.

Bad faith reporting seems to be all across the political spectrum and it's a challenge to navigate a course through all the BS.

temperature there did pass 40C on Monday and Tuesday. 47C does seem to be an exaggeration although it's possible that Palermo might not be the hottest part of the island.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/@2523118/historic

Coutts is an elite bank, managing the accounts of the privileged, royalty and wealthy.  From a pr perspective they wanted to hand him over to their parent bank. Ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue at all, if it were a completely private organisation. The fact that its parent was bailed out by the British public means it should have considered that when it made its decision. There's really should have been nothing more to it than that. 

Where they really went wrong is incorrectly briefing the BBC of the real reasons why it chose to move his account and it's right that the CEO was fired when she was discovered to be the culprit.

Quote from: dom on July 26, 2023, 11:32:17 AMCoutts is an elite bank, managing the accounts of the privileged, royalty and wealthy.  From a pr perspective they wanted to hand him over to their parent bank. Ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue at all, if it were a completely private organisation. The fact that its parent was bailed out by the British public means it should have considered that when it made its decision. There's really should have been nothing more to it than that. 

Where they really went wrong is incorrectly briefing the BBC of the real reasons why it chose to move his account and it's right that the CEO was fired when she was discovered to be the culprit.

And the real reason they wanted to close his account was because they didn't like his politics.
"Pr perspective"? Who knew Farage banked with Coutts?

Absolute baloney. This is just another example of the sort of virtue-signalling, woke-pedalling nonsense washing through businesses today - fuelled by corporate cowardice in the face of the possibility of near-instant obliteration at the hands  of social media activists.
Show some courage ffs

Quote from: David L on July 26, 2023, 11:42:49 AM

Quote from: dom on July 26, 2023, 11:32:17 AMCoutts is an elite bank, managing the accounts of the privileged, royalty and wealthy.  From a pr perspective they wanted to hand him over to their parent bank. Ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue at all, if it were a completely private organisation. The fact that its parent was bailed out by the British public means it should have considered that when it made its decision. There's really should have been nothing more to it than that. 

Where they really went wrong is incorrectly briefing the BBC of the real reasons why it chose to move his account and it's right that the CEO was fired when she was discovered to be the culprit.

And the real reason they wanted to close his account was because they didn't like his politics.
"Pr perspective"? Who knew Farage banked with Coutts?

Absolute baloney

Good point, it really backfired on them.  I'm sure if they could go back in time they would leave well alone

The news that Trevor Rabin is releasing a new solo album in October.

Quote from: Matt2112 on July 26, 2023, 11:46:48 PMThe news that Trevor Rabin is releasing a new solo album in October.

Is 'Live in LA' any good? Shame there appears to be only one track from Wolf on it

Quote from: David L on July 27, 2023, 12:00:02 AM

Quote from: Matt2112 on July 26, 2023, 11:46:48 PMThe news that Trevor Rabin is releasing a new solo album in October.

Is 'Live in LA' any good? Shame there appears to be only one track from Wolf on it

Tbh I've never listened to it.

Can't Look Away is of course the quintessential Rabin album, although an argument might be made that 90125 through Talk are also his solo albums that happen to feature guest musicians who have been in Yes!

Just put a new rubber strap on my Vostok Amphibia. I have a thing for blue dial divers and the dial really pops on this one with the new strap.



Vostok are a bit of a cult brand, made in Russia (and before that, the Soviet Union). This one was acquired from there before the war, by the way.

Like certain Kalashnikov products they are crudely manufactured and not particularly accurate but dependable.

Slightly annoyingly the strap is 22mm but it looks like 23mm would fit better. But it'll have to do.

Motorhome has just passed the MOT

Bought the wrong hdmi cable from Amazon so tried to return it but it said I couldn't.. eventually got chatting to a human who said because of the nature of the item you can't return it.. but we'll give you a refund..  yes please👍

"Medical science is making such remarkable progress that soon none of us will be well" - Aldous Huxley

A trip to Suffolk for the weekend for an old school friend's landmark birthday; and in trying every train journey combination possible for the best ticket price I stumbled upon a "fare hack": there are two stations in Bradford, and booking one as the origin rather than the other meant I could travel in First Class on the LNER leg of the journey (Leeds-Peterborough and return) for only a few small pounds more than Standard, and it still gave the flexibility to travel out of either Bradford station.

Went on a boat trip from Ullapool round the Summer Isles. Lovely weather, warm and sunny. We had dolphins coming really close to the boat to show off, leaping vertically out of the water in some cases. Amazing.

Out of office is on and its hello Majorca tomorrow morning👍