Current Affairs

Teachers are buying soap and toiletries for primary school pupils because of an increase in “hygiene poverty”, according to school staff.

A survey of 500 school staff in the UK suggests that nearly three in 10 (28 per cent) have seen children repeatedly miss school because of hygiene poverty.

The majority of teachers said they had seen children arriving at school in dirty clothes, with unwashed hair and unbrushed teeth over the past year.

Lidl does a litre of liquid soap/shampoo for £2. Everyone else does something very similar.

That is, it’s not money that’s the problem here. Unless we want to start calling it poverty of habit, poverty of culture, poverty of expectations – all of which would be anathema for all cultures are equal, right? – then it’s not, actually poverty. It’s also something not solved with money.

Jet flames ignited by fuel leak, investigation finds

Cause and effect the wrong way around there, no?

Four members of Britain’s richest family given jail sentences for exploiting servants
Hinduja family members accused of spending more on pet dog than on one of their staff during Swiss trial

Just never do know how to treat the servants.

Ths stupid person’s idea of a clever one:

An openly gay king one day could raise “constitutional issues” but would not be impossible, Stephen Fry has claimed.

The broadcaster and author, who is friendly with the royal family, suggested that the concept could be a possibility in the future if the issue of producing an heir was dealt with.

Speaking on the Just For Variety podcast, he said: “I think it would raise constitutional issues in terms of the heir.

“That’s the only boring nonsense about kingship, is that you’re supposed to have an heir, or as the horrible phrase goes, an heir and a spare.”

The heir thing is not a proble,. We’ve lists and lists of who gets to be next if there’s not a direct heir. Sometimes we’ve even used it – William IV to Viccie for example. He had plenty of kids just none of them were legitimate. They all became Dukes etc, but nis niece (?) Vivvie, Queen.

We know how to do this. After all, being gay isn’t the only reason for an empty crib and an institution that’s been running a thousand years will have worked out how to deal with it…..

Prince of Wales praises suicide charity as he opens new centre

It’s this modern world that’s weird. I had to do a little thinking here – so, this charity, is it pro- or anti- suicide? Only in recent decades would that be necessary.

Media freedom is declining across the EU and “perilously close to breaking point” in several countries, a leading civil liberties network has said, highlighting widespread threats against journalists and attacks on the independence of public broadcasters.

Right, OK.

Europe’s media landscape continued to be marked last year by heavy concentration of media ownership, inadequate rules on ownership transparency, and numerous threats to the independence and finances of public media, Liberties said.

Ah, that middle one. Press freedom apparently doesn’t mean just anyone gets to stand up and say. Only the right people, right?

“Much will depend on national governments and authorities, but the act means cases can now be brought before a European court that will rule on what media independence, surveillance of journalists and so on really mean,” she said.

European courts promote freedom, do they?

‘Time is running out’: can a future of undetectable deepfakes be avoided?

No.

Long answer: Hell No.

We’ll just have to adapt to it.

Guests at a lavish Italian-American wedding in a 15th century Tuscan monastery crashed through the arched ceilings as they danced the night away.

Some 40 revellers plummeted about 13ft as an almost perfectly circular hole opened up beneath them, landing amid rubble, dust and plaster beneath a grand Last Supper fresco.

The two newlyweds, Paolo Mugnaini and Valeria Ybarra, both 26, ended the night sat side by side in hospital beds recovering from the fall.

They were surrounded by other guests, all of whom were hospitalised. Everyone survived, although six reported serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Is that how it’s going to go? Or that’s the bad stuff done and dusted?

Back in January 2009, Israel had unleashed a shocking new stage of mass killing in the Gaza Strip, calling its ferocious bombing campaign Operation Cast Lead. It killed 1,400 Palestinians in 22 days; the number of casualties on the Israeli side was 13. That was the last straw for me, and after years of reticence I came out publicly in support of the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights, known as BDS.

So, how and when do we get Hamas to sign up to those same bits of international alw and universal principles of human rights? And what do we do about it if they won’t?

Britons work from home more than any other comparable economy but are still wildly unhappy. Nine in ten British workers lack enthusiasm for their jobs, a Gallup survey found this summer. Remote working was supposed to eradicate much of that misery, but instead it has proved to be lonely and a bit boring.

You mean human beings are social animals?

Gosh now, that is a surprise.

Anne Frank kindergarten will be renamed ‘to be more diverse’
German nursery said it wanted a name ‘without a political background’ but it comes amid growing concern at rise in anti-Semitism

Some people really do have tin ears, no?

Marvellous in the proper meaning, something to marvel at:

AI promises incredible benefits, but also terrible risks. It’s not luddism to rein it in
Sonia Sodha

How?

All you need for AI is some code and some computing run time. How can you – how can anyone – limit access to those two so as to rein it in? There is absolutely no way that that is globally possible. Therefore musing over whether we should do it is a nonsense.

Five cases of malaria confirmed in Florida and Texas
First diagnoses in 20 years in the US as the CDC issues an alert saying the mosquito-borne disease is considered a medical emergency

Pave the swamps!

Musk’s own trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, changed her name on her 18th birthday to disaffiliate from her billionaire dad, citing “Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”

She given up the money too?

A single tenant in a Montreal apartment block has halted a multimillion-dollar development project in a standoff that has focused fresh attention on the lack of affordable housing in major Canadian cities.

Bird in a rent controlled bedsit refuses to move without lots of compo. Well, play the system etc. This means 176 “luxury” apartments won’t get built.

So, as housing markets go, this means there won’t be 176 affordable places either. Because 176 richer households won’t be able to move up into hte luxury flats, leaving the less luxury ones for poorer people to move into.

This bird is the reason there are 176 homeless households that is. But, you know, play the game by the rules already set, she’s looking for compo.

Elon Musk wants to put chips in our brains – but will anyone let him?

People will cut their cocks off to get a bit of attention these days.

The ones you want to watch out for though are those who head for the blackjack tables as soon as they’ve got that chip. One use would be to make card counting much easuer……

Madeleine McCann detectives search reservoir visited by suspect Christian Brueckner
The search of the Barragem do Arade reservoir near Silves is set to last at least two days

British society needs all the help it can get
Social participation has plummeted, leaving young people lonely and disconnected — time for a volunteering revolution
William Hague

So, let’s roll back all the rules and bureaucratic costs that make volunteering such an expensive proposition.

The big question is whether we can ever brace ourselves for mandatory service.

How did I know that Billy Hague wasn’t going to say that?

Ms Reeves said: “At a time when families across the country face rising bills, higher costs and frozen wages, this gilded giveaway is the wrong priority, at the wrong time, for the wrong people.

“That’s why a Labour government will reverse this move. We urge the Chancellor and the Conservative government to think again too.”

She promised, however, that Labour would introduce a separate scheme allowing doctors to pay into pension pots tax-free, amid fears that hundreds of NHS consultants are considering early retirement.

These people, here, should not be allowed to save for their pensions because they’re bad people.

These people, here, should be allowed to save for their pensions because they’re good people.

Nowt like the rule of law, is there?

“This is incorrect. Experiments at WIV involved bat coronaviruses related to the original SARS-CoV, not SARS-CoV-2, and there is no evidence that any lab in the world had a virus genetically close enough to SARS-CoV-2 that is could be manipulated to become that virus.”

The Wuhan lab wiped its database of virii…..that dbase being where any evidence would be