UK tech companies are fairly unanimous in agreeing that the vote to leave the EU has been bad for them. This article in The Register identifies several who have changed their investment plans, thanks to all the little Brexiteers who pretended they knew what they were doing when they signed their name in the “Leave” box last month.
Memset [hosting company], which was planning UK expansion, is now considering the US and continental Europe.
Comtek [telecoms equipment manufacturer]… canned the move of a research team of 25 people from Northern Ireland to north-east Wales and may instead shift them to the Republic of Ireland.
Fantastic Services [app-based domestic services] has moved investment from the UK to Australia and increased its focus on online booking – the latter through its tech team in EU member Bulgaria.
Many others are watching what happens carefully. But not to worry, because everything is going to be ALL RIGHT.
The only other times we have seen this index fall to these low levels, was the global financial crisis in 2008/9, the bursting of the dot com bubble, and the 1998 Asian financial crisis.”
The difference this time is that it is entirely home-grown, which suggest the impact could be greater on the UK economy than before.
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the figures provided the “first major evidence that the UK is entering a sharp downturn”.
Lenovo joins Cisco, Dell, HP, and Asus in raising prices following the EU Referendum.
Of course, you mustn’t be worried. Just find a Brexiteer and have them assure you once again that “everything will be OK”. If you are looking for a computer, you may also want to ask the Brexiteer which vendor you should choose – it goes without saying that you must now avoid the likes of Dell, HP, Asus, Cisco, and so on.*
Helllooooo Stone Age…
* Your computer may have a label which says none of these names. Rest assured that INSIDE it probably depends heavily on them.
Not a day goes by without some new piece of negative financial or political fallout from the EU Referendum result. The side of the scales which contain the negative stuff is overflowing – the GBP has plummeted, and continues to do so; ALL the market experts predict uncertainty and negativity; science and technology is already seeing work dry up; and so on.
Let’s take a look at some of the idiotic comments from people who are simply too stupid to be allowed out unsupervised, and yet who acted all grown up and went to vote last month.
Olivia Prickett, fashion design intern at high couturier Zeynep Kartal, said: “I don’t think we’re broken. It’s turbulent, but it’s salvageable.”
I wonder if Ms Prickett ever realised that we weren’t broken in the first place, and that there was no turbulence from which we needed to salvage anything? So what, precisely, has voting to leave achieved?
The reporter comments:
All the people I met here who voted Out told me they are very happy with the decision. One man even sang for me of his happiness.
Her journalistic skills obviously don’t stretch to wondering why such a person was allowed to vote, that his opinion might be flawed, or that a month down the line his schadenfreude at being on the winning side might not be worth wasting typography on.
David Briers, 43, whom I met at a soup kitchen in Blackpool, also spoke positively. The new prime minister appealed directly to people like David when she said she was determined to make us one nation after the referendum. David supported the out vote because “it will bring more jobs to Blackpool”. Of Theresa May he said: “I think she might be pretty good.”
Here’s another one whose vote clearly had a similar material value to dried-on bird shit. He’s out of work, apparently uses a soup kitchen, and voted to leave the EU because “it will bring more jobs to Blackpool”. Once again, in the absence of any real journalism, one can only guess at his reasoning behind this amazing statement – but it doesn’t take that much effort to imagine that this sudden increase in available work will happen immediately after we deport all the immigrants who are taking jobs away from such honest people. And what about that deep analysis of Theresa May? “I think she might be pretty good”. Jeez.
There is one comment at the end of the article:
We won’t know for years what Britain will be like, post-Brexit.
Stupid, stupid bastards! You voted “out” because your tiny minds told you that come tea time the next day, all the foreigners would be on ships back to continental Europe, that we’d have installed cannon(s) along the south coast to repel any passing Armadas which might try to bring them back, and from now on no one who wasn’t British (and don’t get me started on your warped idea of what “British” means in terms of skin colour) would ever be allowed in again.
A month down the line – apart from the fact that you’re all desperately hoping the EU lets us keep everything we had before, but without having to pay for it – you’re all admitting that the damage you’ve done will take “years” – indeed, whole generations – to put right?
The country wasn’t broken. Now it is, and it’s going to take decades to crawl back up to the position it held pre-Brexit, still with the pro-Remain argument that – on our own – we might never manage that. But hey! Just chant the mantra “it’ll be all right” and stick your head back in the sand.
Katie Razzall is listed as a “special correspondent” on the BBC website. I am guessing that “special” in this sense means “unqualified”, because I can’t believe that someone who was qualified could have missed so many questions in her blatant and naïve attempts to side-line the opinions of 48.1% of the population.
WARNING: This is an old post which my no longer contain accurate information about the Part 3 test. It is still relevant, but some details may no longer be correct.
I’ve been watching a forum thread regarding the Part 3 test and dealing with crossing the path of other traffic. It’s amazing how something so simple can be made so complicated when so many people get involved and then refuse to budge an inch on whatever it was they said in the first place.
Take a look at the Part 3 PST Sheets, which I have made available on this site. Then note the relevant tick box labels, as follows:
So each of these PSTs has a tick box where “crossing” is marked. Now, the Part 3 test is hard enough – and complex enough – without examiners mixing and matching from all the PSTs as the whim takes them on the day. So much so that they don’t mix and match on a whim – it’s just that some trainers argue that they do, and this gets blown out of all proportion.
In theory, a candidate can only be marked against what is on the PST marking sheet. Furthermore, they only have about half an hour to cover each phase – barely enough to cover the essentials, let alone some made-up stuff inserted by the examiner.
Let’s take a look at the ADI 1 document – Guidance for driving examiners carrying out instructor tests. DVSA sometimes doesn’t do itself any favours (it’s aimed at examiners anyway), but what it boils down to is not just PST numbers, but exercise numbers which make up each PST.
Take PST 1. It contains exercise 1B for phase 1 and 10T for phase 2. Exercise 1B is “Safety Precautions on Entering the Car and Explanation of Controls” and the “B” means it is a beginner you’re dealing with (ADI 1 explains this on page 48 as of mid-July 2016). Exercise 10T is covered on page 51, and refers to “Dealing with Crossroads “ for a trained (“T”) driver. This is the important part:
This is a one-part exercise in which the PDI would be expected to deal with the points listed on the relevant ADI 26/PT. Time and conditions permitting the exercise should cover going ahead, turning right and left at all types of crossroads e.g. major to minor, minor to major etc..
You will note once more that the PST marking sheet has a tick box for “cross approaching traffic” on phase 2, and ADI 1 says that if time permits then all aspects of crossroads – including minor to major (i.e. emerging) – should be covered. So “crossing traffic” applies to emerging as well as turning major to minor at crossroads as far as exercise 10T is concerned.
For PST 2, exercise 11T is the one we want. The subject is “meeting, crossing the path of, and overtaking other vehicles”, and although ADI 1 doesn’t explicitly state it, the implication is that you are “crossing” the path of traffic that you’re “meeting” – or in other words, turning right from a major to a minor road. Remember this one, though, as I will discuss it further later.
For PST 3, it is exercise 7T – “approaching and turning corners”. The examiner is directed to use the following wording:
I would like you to instruct me in approaching corners, concentrating particularly on turning right and left into side roads, that is major to minor, assuming that I am at the ‘partly trained’ / ‘trained’ stage’.
The examiner doesn’t explicitly say not to deal with emerging – just to concentrate on left and right turns. Remember this one, too.
For PST 4, exercise 9T does not mention crossing traffic on the PST marking sheet for emerging from T-junctions. ADI 1 says much the same as it does for exercise 10T:
This is a one-part exercise in which the PDI should be encouraged to deal specifically with emerging at T-junctions emerging as distinct from turning right and left into a side road (which is dealt with in exercise 7). They would be expected to cover the main points mentioned on the relevant ADI 26/PT and, time and conditions permitting, emerging should be applied as many times as possible to the left and to the right at both open and closed ‘T’ junctions.
For PST 7, it is exercise 7P (“P” is for partly trained) – “approaching junctions to turn left or right” – which carries the same description as for 7T on PST 3.
For PST 8, exercise 11T – “meet, cross, overtake” – is used again (as in PST 2).
For PST 9, exercise 10P – “crossroads” – carries the same description as for 10T on PST 1.
For PST 10, exercise 11P – “meet, cross, overtake” – carries the same description as for 11T on PSTs 2 and 8.
What is clear from this is that not all exercises are equal. Some are, of course, but some most definitely aren’t – “crossroads” appears in two PSTs and specifically lumps entering and emerging in with the subject of crossing the path of other traffic; and both occurrences of “approaching junctions” hint that crossing when emerging may be an issue even if it shouldn’t be the main focus of the PSTs which feature it. Only one exercise – paradoxically, the one that’s actually to do with emerging from T-junctions – specifically implies that crossing traffic is not an issue which needs to be covered on the PST (although in real life it would be – and is – absolutely critical, since T-junctions are closely related to crossroads). It’s also worth noting that the section of ADI 1 which deals with the testing of LGV trainers, and which uses different PST exercises, directly refers to crossing other traffic when emerging, thus emphasising the importance of the subject.
The image I’ve used at the top of this article comes from a news item from 2010. A motorcyclist was knocked off his bike when a Porsche emerged from a side road into his path. The police are quoted as saying:
It appears the bike has been on the main road, the car came out from the side road, and they collided.
Over the years there have been numerous safety campaigns aimed at this precise scenario. It’s still part of the current THINK! campaign. There is no way in hell that emerging from a side road does not involve “crossing the path of other traffic”, and although it might not feature as the subject of someone’s Part 3, anyone who doesn’t cover it at T-junctions when they’re teaching real pupils ought to hand their green badge back.
However, getting back to the main subject, when someone takes their Part 3 test, the PST they have to deal with may contain an exercise which involves “crossing other traffic”. If it does, then that exercise will involve crossing the path of other traffic when emerging if it’s the crossroads one. It may involve an exercise where crossing other traffic while emerging might need to be dealt with if it is the “approaching corners” one (depending on the circumstances). If the PST is the one dealing with T-junctions then crossing the path of other traffic is not involved in the marking at all.
To be completely honest, I don’t think all PDIs are aware of these differences, and they assume that “crossing” is the same whichever PST it appears in. Going further, I don’t think all ADIs who provide Part 3 training realise it either, and I think that’s why some will claim that examiners are throwing in faults that they shouldn’t be, when all they’re doing is exactly what is required by the PST involved – and the circumstances at the time.
But here’s the rub – and remember how I said I’d refer to certain PSTs later. Anyone who is doing their Part 3 test is potentially less than an hour away from being let loose on real pupils. It is reasonable to suppose that they should be able to handle anything which comes up on the test since they’re going to have to do it if they have a green badge. Unfortunately, too many PDIs are completely wound up in scripts and set pieces which collapse completely if the examiner does something out of sequence. So if something fairly mundane – but not specifically part of the PST involved, like crossing the path of a car which is heading towards them as they emerge at a T-junction – comes up on the test, the PDI should be able to handle it. If they make a complete hash of it as a result of it not being a part of the predefined script they’re following, should they still pass their Part 3?
I was in Asda the other night doing my weekly shop. It was about 6.30pm, and I remember thinking to myself that I was a bit early and would have to put up with an elevated number of other customers (and all that that entails).
True to form, the entrance area (from 5m inside the store to the same distance outside) was performing its usual function as a place for people with trolleys to walk into and then stop dead, preventing anyone else from coming in or going out. The outer entrance area (Asda’s smoking garden) was filled with oiley, obese, and generally disgusting people chain smoking something they must have picked up after their dog had done its business. Naturally, it being a Friday, the pick-up/drop-off areas and parent/toddler bays, were full of Audis and 4x4s – each containing a swarthy, acne-ridden individual barely visible in the front bucket seat, cycling through endless dance tracks in an attempt to find the one most likely (in his dreams) of making everyone go “oooh! Look how cool he is” (in reality, everyone thinks “prick”).
Ordinarily, I would simply have wondered for a few minutes if the specimens in the Audis were actually in the car park for any reason other than to “be seen” – were they waiting for someone, for example? If so, were they going to be the first Audi driver in the history of the universe to be seen opening up the trunk and loading a pile of groceries into it? I might also have wondered where the smokers were going – were they waiting for an ashtray on wheels, driven by another chain-smoker, to pick them up and take them and their salad and baguettes back to the bricks and mortar ashtrays they live in? And so on.
Once inside, I’d probably have scowled at a few people as they blocked aisles or pushed trolleys around with no application whatsoever of the Supermarket HIghway Code. I’d almost certainly have wondered at the mentality of those who shop in Asda, and who are responsible for the presence of raw chickens placed next to the biscuits, fresh pizza on top of cases of Budweiser, empty crisp and snack packets on various shelves, and the sundry fresh and frozen items secreted in locations hundreds of metres away from where they should be. Had it been a particularly bad day, I’d undoubtedly have fumed at the number of children wearing “heelies” and running up and down in front of me. In fact, it was a bad day, because I had to contend with some 3 year-old brat on a bicycle as I walked towards the dairy aisle, a slightly older one swinging a trolley around in a circle in another, one jumping up and down in the beer aisle in front of two obese men (one of which I assume was her father), and – in the background the whole time I was there – a repeated, piercing scream from the spawn of some Earth Mother who probably thought that her kids should be seen and heard by everyone.
Then I saw this story on the BBC website. Kim Christofi owns a small cafe in Felixstowe, and she posted on her store’s Facebook page that she would step in if parents were “too scared to discipline their children”. She actually said it much better than that. Here is the actual Facebook text:
Can we make ourselves perfectly clear to all parents who are too scared to discipline their children about tantrum screaming. We will give you five lenient minutes to ask the child to stop screaming and then we will ask the child ourselves. If that means you too having a tantrum about our having to speak to your child and hurling threats about not returning – that’s really okay with us. We have a duty of care to the rest of our customers.
Absolutely spot on. But, as you can probably imagine, all the Brexit voters out there (yes, I’m assuming – but I’m probably right) didn’t like it one bit. As a result, Ms Christofi’s Facebook account has been inundated with trolls accusing her of being against autistic people, against disabled people in general, and all the other bad things that come at you from Facebook when you’re in the news.
Someone who goes by the name “Emma Watson” is a prime example of all that’s wrong with Facebook:
So the South Kiosk at Martello Park have had to close their Facebook page and I’m not sure she will have much business today or this summer.
This may have been a very silly error of judgement on her part, she obviously hadn’t thought this though or realised how vital things can go on Facebook.
It’s a shame she couldn’t just admit she made a mistake and apologise. Instead she made excuses and dug a deeper hole. I’m not excusing any vile responses but I can imagine their wa…s some extremely upset parents out there that responded in the heat of the moment, but I’m not sure you can blame them really. I don’t however think it was those comments that put her out of business. She really did that herself. It was her post that did the damage and even if people couldn’t comment and that post was shared far and wide the outcome would have been the same.
I hope she takes this time to reflect on this situation.
I don’t think they have closed their page. And I think their business has gone through the roof, because there are many more people out there who support what she has said than there are who disagree. What has happened is that – as usual – those who disagree have the biggest mouths and the lowest intelligence, and the South Kiosk’s Facebook page has been trolled almost to death by people like Miss (sorry, Ms) Watson. I also notice that some media outlets have representatives who are hounding Ms Christofi on Facebook, using very offensive language and Sun-style analytics of every word Ms Christofi says. Some idiots are even referring to physical assault having taken place – I can see no reference anywhere for that.
Let’s just clarify some things:
Ms Christofi wrote a comment about screaming kids in her café
she did not – at any time – identify them as autistic, disabled, or anything else
there is absolutely nothing else to add – that’s all she did/didn’t say
Unfortunately, some imbecile (and it’s hard to point the finger at one in particular) decided that an autistic kid screaming at the top of its lungs in a public area is somehow different to a normal one doing it, and is therefore totally acceptable. People like Emma Watson have orgasms over things like this. Ms Christofi’s most recent comment on the subject is:
For the last time, If you are bringing your children up to the kiosk then YOU need to keep them under control. If YOUR child is damaging MY business then I will take action.
Again, she is absolutely spot on.
If I go to the cinema to watch a film, I don’t expect to have anyone sitting next to me (or even to be within earshot) who is going to be screaming and running around, be it a kid or an adult. And it would make no difference if I subsequently discovered that the screamer was autistic – because if they were, and if they can’t keep quiet and still, then they shouldn’t be there. Exactly the same applies if I go to a restaurant or a cafe, or most other public venues.
Some morons are saying that tantrums are part of a child’s development, and ignoring them is one way of dealing with it. Actually, any decent parent would have done their job well enough by “ignoring” tantrums at home, so that public displays were rare. I didn’t do it when I was a kid because I knew I’d get a clip round the ear. Instead, public tantrums like these are the norm – the culmination of a me-me-me scenario being played out, where the kid has been spoiled again and again, but still wants more.
And far too many rubbish parents seem willing to label it as “autism”.
But let’s just close by saying again that Ms Christofi never mentioned autism. She only commented on badly-behaved children.
Note: Autism exists. The problem is that the symptoms of true autism overlap significantly with simple bad behaviour and poor upbringing. That ineffectual parents should latch on to autism as an excuse for their failings is perhaps understandable.
Australia has approached Britain for post-Brexit free trade deal talks. As you might imagine, all the little Brexiters have taken time off from nailing Union Jacks to their houses and learning naughty new words to say to immigrants, and added their input.
Reality check:
Australia is the 12th/13th largest economy in the world
its GDP is half that of the UK
more than 60% of its exports currently go to non-EU (and non-UK) countries
Australia could already export to Britain if it wanted to
Britain could already import from Australia if it wanted to
both of the above already happen
a free trade deal created explicitly as a result of Brexit would require lower import duties to be applied to make it worthwhile, which would cost the UK economy money
well, it would cost the economy money if we were likely to import anything like enough of anything we actually wanted from Australia
all the stuff we really need is either in the EU, or in countries who trade heavily with the EU
the UK doesn’t produce anything which other countries can’t get cheaper from elsewhere (except for kitsch like Cornish pasties and Devon Toffee)
the EU is a little over 20 miles away from the UK, and is connected by road/rail – it takes about half an hour to get there, and costs a few hundred GBP in fuel per lorry at the most
Australia is almost 9,500 miles away – it takes at least a full day to get there by air (at a fuel cost of about £5,000-£10,000 per hour), or a month by sea (using thousands of gallons of low grade diesel per hour, and emitting more pollution than several million cars)
the average Brexiter probably needs it explaining to them that these costs to the UK of importing stuff apply equally to the Aussies if they import from us (notwithstanding the plummeting value of the GBP)
No disrespect to Australia, but a trade deal with them would have a symbolic meaning only. It would be a “Brexit deal”. And let’s not forget the old saying about all your eggs in one basket – if we started to rely on Aussie imports, they’d be calling the shots against a country only a few per cent of its exports went to.
Cutting loose economically from Europe and turning to Australia would be about the same as cutting off your leg, sending it to Sydney, and expecting to still be able to play football!
According to this article, the price of wholesale gas has jumped after Centrica (who own British Gas) said it was closing a storage facility this winter. The facility holds about 70% of the UK’s gas supply.
And guess where the alternative storage is? The UK will be:
…reliant on storage on the European mainland
Anyone out there who voted for Brexit will probably need that explaining to them. You see, the “European mainland” is the very thing they voted to leave.
Oh, and don’t expect to read about this in The Sun or Daily Mail just yet. It will only become noteworthy to them later in the year when gas prices go up, at which time Europe will be directly blamed for the problem.
I’m running out of post titles for all this. I can’t just keep writing “you couldn’t make it up”, but… no, you really couldn’t. According to this BBC article, farmers are facing “anxiety” over Brexit and the distinct possibility of their EU subsidies being axed.
Well, excuse me, but farmers – certainly those that I have observed, and I have observed many – were approximately 100% in favour of Brexit (and that estimate might be a little on the low side). Those huge “LEAVE” hoardings in their fields was a tiny bit of a giveaway.
So, I can’t help thinking of a line from Lou Reed’s song, Perfect Day:
You’re going to reap just what you sow
And now, it’s harvest time!
Another thing I notice a lot when I’m driving around is the number of vans or construction sites with labels or signs declaring that EU funding paid for it.
In the case of the vans – white, of course – I wonder how the owners think they’ll manage without continued EU funding? Better still, how they’ll survive if they have to give it back? I mean, I’m sure that funding is paid out prospectively rather than retrospectively, so it wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to discover that some companies might have to refund all or part of it. Likewise, some start ups who were expecting funding might not now get it.
But, hey! Just throw another immigrant on the barbie and wheel the Union Jack up the garden flagpole, eh? After all, everything’s going to be “all right”, isn’t it? The Sun and Daily Mail say so.
Bank of England holds off on interest rate cut and sends pound soaring
They used this graphic to illustrate the phenomenon:
You have to bear in mind that The Sun is ultra right-wing, and was ultra pro-brexit. It spent the entire time leading up to the referendum twisting information, printing stories about immigrants and crime, and defaming anyone who aired pro-EU sentiments.
Please allow me to show you a factual graph representing GBP versus USD over recent weeks using real financial data sources.
The high point on the left is the pre-referendum price (over $1.483 to the £). The end of the graph marks the price at the end of trading on yesterday (the dotted line indicates $1.317 to the £).
Key points to note are as follows:
the £ is currently $0.166 lower than it was before the referendum
the current value of the £ is a direct result of the referendum outcome
the £ is currently down 11.2% from its pre-referendum value
its lowest point was 13% below the pre-referendum value
it is currently up about 1.8% from its lowest value
it hasn’t “soared”
If you look carefully, The Sun’s graphic is similar to the real financial data-based one – but not identical. There is a double peak centred around the 12th and 14th of this month, but there is certainly no level plateau around the 9th and 10th. And there is nowhere near as much fluctuation (fluctuation occurs over a day, but the daily figure quoted is the closing price). However, they have purposely only quoted data that makes the graph look good – like this:
This is just the end data on the larger graph I showed above. It seems to tell a completely different story, doesn’t it? And look what happens if you squeeze it – here’s the same part of the graph, but made narrower:
It really does look like it is “soaring” – but it is identical to the one above as far as the numbers are concerned.
This is the kind of manipulation The Sun excels at, and which it uses to control the minds of most of its readers. It’s one of the main reasons why we ended up with such a stupidly wrong referendum result – it’s what you get when you allow stupid people to vote on things they don’t understand, and allow dishonest people to advise them.
You have to bear in mind that The Sun is ultra right-wing, and was ultra pro-brexit. It spent the entire time leading up to the referendum twisting information, printing stories about immigrants and crime, and defaming anyone who aired pro-EU sentiments.
