paddyfool

Further thought sbout the 27 year old Mum trembling over a tremor: if she was willing to speak to a Sun journalist, does it not seem a tad unlikely that she'd be left/liberal enough for the Snowflake epithet?

A new record has been set this year for stormy weather in the Eastern Pacific - three Category 5 hurricanes, five Category 4s and many smaller storms have meant that we have now the most annual accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) in that region on since records began in 1971, pushing 1992 into 2nd place by a fair margin and 2015 into 3rd: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Pacific_hurricane_season The season isn't over until the end of November, so there's still room for the record to go higher. The joys of warming oceans...

Are you all right? I think you may need a break from the internet if this is how it makes you feel.

I think it's in the media's interest to try and make news stories as exciting and scary as possible. So getting scared quotes from an anxious young Mum of young kids who's likely just had her first earthquake experience ever, quite likely cherry-picking the most dramatic things that she said, is par for the course.

"Expenses" cover staff costs (locum GPs, salary GPs, practice nurses, healthcare assistants, practice pharmacists, practice managers, receptionists, etc,), the general running costs of the practice, accountancy fees and bank charges. http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/gp-topics/gp-contract-2017/18/will-gps-finally-get-a-pay-rise/20033961.article The reason the average earnings of GPs have fallen is the switch from the NHS employing GP partners to cheaper salaried GPs. Which is also part of the reason for gp partner expenses to rise, since they include the costs of those salaries.

One factor behind what docs are paid in the UK today, if you're genuinely curious, is that GP pay has actually been trending downward over the last decade: http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/gp-topics/pay/data-lowdown-have-uk-gps-really-had-a-3-pay-rise/20037395.article ("In 2006/7, all types of GPs on average earned £120,308, compared with £92,500 in 2016/17 – a reduction of 23%.") Just as public sector pay has been squeezed generally, with the pay freeze / below inflation rises in nursing, police, and teaching salaries etc. (Excepting only MP and ministerial salaries, of course).

- Most time over the year as one of the competitors with least points? - Coin toss? - Extra time? (Victory undecided until someone dies on one list or the other)

You'll have to keep waiting for another Spanish flu to significantly dent human population. Every big viral outbreak worldwide in the past couple of decades has been effectively contained and stopped - see the big West african ebola outbreak, SARS, bird flu etc. Drug resistant bacteria, otoh, may be a bigger threat, but would not lead to any sudden population dip so much as a gradual decrease in life expectancy. As for what Brexit will do to UK population; yes, a small proportion of the population are leaving, but they tend to be people of working age, or people with young families to worry about. Whereas there's likely to be a countermigration of the elderly from the south of France and south of Spain in the absence of healthcare access. Sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis, but as for your oncologist moving - how dare they! It's not like they're a human being with a life of their own, right? And as for the benefits system, it's utterly boned. The biggest chunk if the benefits spend is the state pension, and that expenditure only goes up and up and up each year. Plus it would be a brave politician that instituted a significant break on this rise, since pensioners make up a large and growing share of the electorate. @Nelson, If the only criticism you can level at my post is the source of one set of figures (which was picked as the most recent set of those figures, which every other recentish source broadly agrees with), then I don't think you really have much to say worth replying to.

All this raging at millennials... it's easiest to stereotype people if you are far removed from them. Thus it's easiest to apply negative stereotypes to "baby-boomers" if you're young, or negative stereotypes to "millenials" if you're old. Which doesn't stop it being a fundamentally bitter, mean-spirited, and self-deceiving way to talk and act either way. (Statement of bias: I'm too old to be a millennial, and much too young to be a boomer). As for the "secret cancer cure"" nonsense - cancer is not all one disease; it's a broad spectrum of different diseases of different cell types overpopulating the body in different ways. Anyone who did have a magic cancer cure would have the world beating down their door, and it would be ludicrous to imagine them hiding it. In any case, prevention is better than cure, hence why the HPV vaccine, smoking cessation, air pollution reduction, promoting exercise, preventing obesity etc etc are all good ideas, insofar as they are achievable. As for the claim that doctors are overpaid in the UK... have you seen how much they're paid in other countries (https://naibuzz.com/10-countries-highest-doctors-salaries-world/), and how few doctors per capita the UK has compared to other rich countries (http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Health/Physicians/Per-1%2C000-people)? For too long, we've failed to train nearly enough doctors or nurses, and with an aging population with growing health needs we need to both train more and continue to attract more to come from abroad. Never mind the additional occupational costs of the medical profession in indemnity, training, exam fees, and so on.

So this is looking increasingly plausible this round, with only 10 days to go... Also, to the two players who didn't submit a team this month: are you dropping out, or what?

Great article here (apologies for it being a couple of months old) about the halt in life expectancy rise in the UK and the USA, and the contrast with other high income countries: https://theconversation.com/improving-life-expectancy-used-to-be-the-uks-forte-now-its-falling-behind-101573

I should have stuck to making theme teams...

I'll have a punt that the pressure of now being the oldest does for Babiker Awadalla...

@John Key, First in one inverse pool, possibly first out in the other... fortune has been fickle with you indeed.

He's someone whose music I've liked a lot since I was introduced to his stuff at uni; and although it would probably be fair to say he's not that famous in the UK in general, he's got a pretty good following worldwide. One out of only about a dozen famous South Africans, and two South African musicians (along with Hugh Masekela) that I could name. Equally, for my part I haven't heard of a ton of the other people who get discussed on here. He just happens to be one that I know of and like. Incidentally, this little video is quite a fun one of one of his better known surprise backing dancers: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D0ZFS41yFqg0&ved=2ahUKEwj9tfbavt7dAhVJecAKHUuICcwQtwIwAHoECAgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1sgRDRUYI0Ay_Kjv8bQxmX

British-born South African musician, anthropologist, and social activist, in two bands (Juluka and Savuka), both of which were made up of a mix of black and white South African musicians in the days when that was more than a bit tricky to do. I particularly like the output with Savuka - joyous, energetic 80s cheese.

Just out of curiosity: if there was still a tie for pole position at the end of the year, how would the winner be decided?

Trami weakens to Cat 3, and changes course to threaten all of Japan.

The historical picture is that life expectancy in the UK was trending upwards nicely until about 2010, but has slowed down a lot since. The total growth in life expectancy in the UK between 2010 and 2016 was just 0.6 years, compared to an EU average rise of 1.1 years, with no rise at all between 2014 and 2016 in the UK; and between 2010 and 2016 the UK slipped from having the 11th highest life expectancy in the EU to the 15th highest, with Greece, Portugal, Belgium and Finland overtaking us on this metric. (Stats from Table 1 in this article). One thing that's worth noting about life expectancy is that it correlates quite well with quality of life; healthier, happier people tend to live longer, and few would argue that the UK has grown healthier or happier in recent years. On the contrary, we've seen rises in the prevalence of a range of issues, from obesity and type 2 diabetes to destitution and rough sleeping; and it doesn't look like things are going to get better soon.

I've seen Happy Gilmore, but that doesn't mean that I know who everyone in it was.

@Grim up north, Thank you for saying what I was thinking.

Death toll from Florence so far: 44 people, thousands of stranded fish, 5,500 pigs and literally millions of chickens and turkeys. Death toll from Mangkhut so far: 155 people in the Phillipines, no clear data from China. Mainly the damage from both has been economic due to property damage and other disruption and destruction: including about $20 billion from Florence, and a devastated agricultural sector in the Phillipines. Meanwhile, heading for Taiwan, a few outlying Japanese islands, and ultimately China, there now comes Trami, another Cat 5 super typhoon:

Ah, frig it. If anyone else does want to cheat, one more list won't make a difference now: The Wisdom of Crowds (based purely and mathematically on who was popular in September, outside of my original team): Gilbert (10 points) Nolan Rogers Flair Reiner Frates Vervoort De Havilland Lynn Jose Jose (1 point)  Subs: Stevens Pei

It would be only too easy to use this data to cheat and avoid any risk of a single death knock-out... I've already submitted my list, but I'll be keeping my cards face down for now ;-)

I respect your commitment, but would give you pretty long odds on that prediction. Personally, I'm betting on Bracknell.