Ulitzer95

Supposedly the Queen responds to all mail (with exceptions I imagine... any hate/inappropriate mail is presumably filtered out by a clerk first). Though I imagine it'd be some wait to get a reply. Reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons when Marge writes to Ringo and gets a response 2 decades later.

Difficult to say how much of the electoral success of SLabour in 2017 was down to Corbyn or even SLabour's campaign planning. After all, the ScotTories won 13 seats, and I don't for one minute believe that it was down to May or any genius ScotTory campaign plan, because I don't believe there was one. You seen the North Lanarkshire by-election results today? Both Labour gains. Marginal shifts, but still a significant moment. Can't remember the last time SLabour pulled off a double by-election victory in Scotland.

Americans likely watch things like The Princess Diaries thinking it’s a docu-drama inspired by our Royal Family. Being a Royal is not fun. It’s not all glitz and glamour and Hello magazine dress spreads for princesses. It’s really intense work set – made compulsory by the notion of “duty”, coupled with a hell of a lot of media scrutiny.

I wasn't interested in this Harry and Meghan shit until yesterday because I saw it as nothing more than tabloid fodder for folk with no lives, but I drew the line once I saw the clip from that Oprah interview. Meghan pointing the finger at the Palace and accusing them of "conspiring" against her by spreading lies (i.e. the bullying allegations which have just surfaced). I first heard about these stories 3 years ago, and I was shocked at the time that they were being kept under wrap. From speaking to at least 4 individuals who worked at the Palace, they all told me the same thing – she was spoilt, impatient, rude, dismissive and used to treat them like shit. She would often shout at them and the staff turnover was significantly high during the period of the Sussexes living in the Palace. People left on their own accord, or were dismissed because of her doing – babysitters, security staff, butlers and maids etc. Meghan and Kate were also at loggerheads, causing a rift between the two brothers. The reason why the allegations are now surfacing is because former (and perhaps current) Palace staff have seen the clip and thought "hey, wait a fucking minute, that is not what happened and you're playing of the victim card is totally unfair", and they've gone to the Press to tell their version of events, and expose her true personality. Oprah, has been carefully selected by the couple to perform the interview as she's pals with them. Attended their wedding and has history with Markle, thus she isn't going to ask them any tough questions and is only interested in telling their truth, not the truth.. The couple claim that they're escaping the limelight, and yet they continue to pump out their own stories in order to be centre media attention. What they actually mean is they don't want negative media attention. Looking on Twitter there seems to be swathes of gullible people, particularly young people, who genuinely believe that the couple are being relentlessly harassed and that they wished to disappear, completely evade the media and live happily ever after in obscurity. Some folk will honestly believe anything. Rant over. Sorry.

I know Chloe. I like her on a personal level but she's a Wet so not my cuppa politically. She had every intention of early retirement but then there was a snap election called in 2019 so she stayed. So I suspect she'll stand down before she loses her seat. The lack of incumbency will make it more likely to flip too I suppose. Not sure I agree with you on Scotland. Very hard. Look at what happened to the Scottish Labour vote in 2019. It crumbled away even further to the Nats. Now what I do recognise is the Nats have likely exhausted their potential pool of voters now. They can't chip away at the Labour vote even further than they have done, but it's a long way back for Scottish Labour. It'll take at least another decade.

Look at how spot on I was with that suggestion ^ #justsayin' Anyways, another prominent Serbian Orthodox bishop has died aged 83. This time Atanasije Jevtić (wiki), Bishop of Zahumije and Herzegovina and a close associate of the above mentioned Radović. The cause you ask? Well COVID of course!

Dick Sheppard (wiki) dead at 90. Stuntman in over 500(!) films including the James Bond series and The Italian Job (1969). Also held an incredible 18 Guinness World Records. Managed to get featured in their published editions every year from 1969 to 1996. The Sun obit. Mirror obit.

Indeed, though long gone are the days of Labour comfortably winning seats like Harlow. Alliance vote split maybe lost it for them but a change in demographics/voting behaviour amongst class has kept them out more recently. In the whole of the East of England region, there are 52 Tory seats vs. 5 Labour (and 1 Lib Dem – St. Albans). The five which Labour are all inner city and/or high concentration of student populations/ethnic minorities – Cambridge, Bedford, Luton N, Luton S and Norwich S. Not trying to go off topic to a broader debate about today's politics but Harlow is the perfect case study example of their problem – working class folk who want fuck all to do with Labour. They simply don't appeal to a great chunk of ppl down here and that is a serious problem for them going forward. Winning a GE for them is trickier now without Scotland, so when the vote share is stacked up against them 2 to 1 in places like Harlow, it's bleak. Not convinced Sir Keir Brylcreem has the answers to this problem.

Stan Newens (wiki) dead at 91. Leftie Labour MP for Epping (1964–1970) then Harlow (1974–1983) and MEP for London Central (1984–1999). Guardian obit. Telegraph obit. Some of his friends included:

Jimmy Spratt (wiki), DUP Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast South (2007–2015), dead at 69. Also a one-time Chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, having been a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer before entering politics.

The aesthetics on the outside are not important as you age. There are loads of cases of people looking absolutely cunted by the time they’re 70 and living for a further 20 to 30 years. The Duke has always been very sporty and in general active. His diet and healthcare will have been top notch for the last 70 years. And before that... well how you live before your late 20s generally isn’t that important in the long run. It’s how you live from your 30s onwards that’s most important.

He's also a walking bouncy castle who's approaching his mid-70s. His last release in the A Song of Ice and Fire series was in 2011 and he's still got two left. He's said that the next one may not be ready in time for a 2021 release(!), which gives me little hope that he'll even finish the series. Did he just get bored and decide to sack it off after HBO gave him a big fuck off cheque to create Game of Thrones? Yes. Does he give a fuck? No. Is he a walking bouncy castle who'll explode before he finishes his work? Probably.

And now nobody will ever find it in future because you've included both searchable terms, "accountant" and "Harry Pinsker", in the hyperlink. Does it have to be said a million and one times on here? – MAKE YOUR POSTS SEARCHABLE.

Hate to break it to you but the Nigerian Guardian isn’t a QO.

Death notice for Hollywood actress Joan Weldon (wiki), aged 90.

Aww, aren't you cute with your wee baseball cards. Like a child in a sweet shop (or a kid in a candy store seeing as you'll probably demand it be in 'Murican English).

We spoke about this only a few weeks ago. It's called terminal lucidity and its a recognised phenomenon with many theories about why it happens. Page on it here.

This point has been addressed before. Canadian Paul is still a very active user on Wikipedia and he's one of the main contributors to Olympedia.org. The site was launched not too long ago, presumably to bridge the gap in information on Olympians of the past, which is rather scarce online.

Plot twist: PB logs in, sees you've done this, sticks you on admin preview and you become the "fucker" who is "pissed off".

Because his actual age is 45?

@arghton, I think everyone on the Forum has a certain degree of anxiety with the search function given that it's not the best but I've learnt how to use it better in the last few years. 1) If you don't feed enough characters into it, sometimes it won't return any results. 2) If you type in something like Kenneth Kaunda, it may throw up 200 results of posts where ONLY the word "Kenneth" appears, therefore it's important to put searches with multiple words in quotation marks ("Kenneth Kaunda"). 3) In your searches, also try and account for spelling mistakes/alternative spellings which may have been used in posts instead. Sometimes less is more so a search for Kaunda would bring up relevant posts where users only used his surname as opposed to his full name. Obviously helps when there's a unique sounding surname but... 4) In the case of an individual where both the names are more common e.g. Johnny Johnson, then sometimes it helps by searching threads where you think they would've likely been discussed already. So e.g. go to the The Few/Battle of Britain thread then search "Johnson". It's by no means a perfect search function, it's actually quite flimsy, but if you just vary the ways in which you search then you'll quickly be able to work out who has threads vs. who doesn't.

Joe Altobelli (wiki), manager of San Fran Giants and Baltimore Orioles, dead at 88 from "natural causes".. Also a player for the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins.

Crossposting. Shinoda is one for the List of the Missed... once it surfaces in July. *hides*

A DDP pick in 2017 and 2018, but not picked this year. Well @drol, 1913 still has Boris Pahor and Carl J. Shapiro. What was that you were saying about westerners not having any staying power?