MaidstoneFox

Give her a chance. Eddie Murphy did great in Trading Places and he was straight of the streets.

Interesting to see how this plays out. Trump is increasingly aware that this is it, in terms of his Presidency and is looking more to his legacy. Hence the reframing as a world-wide peace-maker.

I can't really add to this debate as I don't live in Leicester and only get up there a couple of times a year. You'll have a much better sense of how communities have changed and how quickly as well. All I can say is that yes I've seen the demographic change a bit but then I also grew up in Leicester, which was a still a very multi-cultural city then and that was and is something I liked. Of course it's very different going to a place a couple of times a year and looking at everything with nostalgia and fondness, compared to living somewhere day-in day-out. You'd probably think Maidstone is alright, whereas i think it's one of the dullest places in Britain.

Considering how many people work for and have worked for them over the years, statistically you are likely to get a few paedophiles. Some of these cretins worked for other channels as well. When I worked at the beeb, there was some gossip about a few people, but it never came out and hasn't yet. Obviously I can't mention their names here. However, I just felt there was an environment of upper class entitlement there, where the wealthy and famous got away with bullying, abuse and worse, some of which I experienced myself. I think things have been done more recently to address some of these issues, though its been a wider problem in media companies particularly.

It has been like that for quite a while though and growing up in Leicester I never felt it was affluent. I'd still be quite happy to move back to Leicester once the kids have grown up, but realistically it would be one of the wealthier, southern suburbs. If I'm being honest, in doing that I would barely notice the deprivation.

You could make the same point about Republican voter suppression in many red states. Biden won in 2020 by 7 million votes and the turnout across the board was much higher that year. Even in 2016, when it was widely considered to be a race of two unwanted candidates, Trump got 3 million votes less than Clinton. Here is a graph showing his current approval rating amongst Americans: So he is already lower than he was in 2017.

Bit niche, but Mikaela Shiffrin. I love a blonde in a ski outfit.

Yep, not sure I can see a place for Bashir in either of the first two tests, with the pace and bounce in Perth and the pink ball swing at the Gabba.

Well except aussies have now lost Abbott to injury and question mark over Hazelwood. But yeh, England more likely to be undercooked next Friday.

Part of their remit though is to produce popular programming and it also helps justify the licence fee. It's partly why they are still very successful at making the last remaining popular shows that families watch together, such as Traitors, Strictly etc. Also in terms of sport, there are lots of people who won't or can't pay for subscriptions and this gives them access to major sporting events. Cricket going behind a paywall in 2006 has seen a big fall-off in participation, so they are offering some access with their highlights packages there. I agree about their children's programming, which is high quality and I should add in BBC Bitesize as well which has been providing brilliant educational resources for quite some time. This is fantastic and something we should be proud of as a nation as it's highly regarded throughout the world. But the BBC produces or co-produces all sorts of quality content, some of which is very lucrative such as its dramas that are sold around the world, The BBC news website is one of the most visited news websites in the world.

He might be right. I worked at the beeb about 30 years ago in Shepherd's Bush and it was ruled by a male, upper-middle class, elite outlook. Certainly not diverse and radical and if you wanted that back then, you didn't go to work at the beeb. Having said that, it's a huge and unwieldy organisation with regional centres everywhere, so it's very difficult to completely control bias and stick to their remit.

That's astonishing. The 'state your name' gaff is like from an actual SNL sketch.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cx2d1el0462o Wayne White has lost his fastest 50 record.

Last two games in particular have been awful. Players look lost. Lack of goal scoring opportunities is pathetic.

Ricardo is 32 now. Well past his best.

Don't worry. Musk is going to take over the world anyway, with his army of humanoid robots.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I wouldn't say the end justifies the means of course and WW2 is an extreme example of human destruction. However, we are about to have four films made about the most influential music group in history. Would they have happened in Switzerland? I don't think so. So there's something about places of turbulence, conflict that produces great ideas and driven people. Is that a reasonable trade-off for a lack of cohesion and peace?

One could always reference Switzerland as an example in such matters, but to quote Harry Lime in the Third Man: " In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they has warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vici and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock". A lot of good can come from conflict and strife. America had a civil war for four years, but it led to the abolition of slavery.

Thanksgiving in 2 weeks. It's going to be a very unpopular government if the airports are still in chaos and Americans can travel to see relatives.

Yes, lot of nonsense spoken about this. The European Head of Goldman Sachs, was on Bloomberg this morning he said he expected tax levels to be frozen for an extended period of time, which would raise £10 billion from an expected £32 billion needed. He though the rest was most likely to be raised from a range of smaller sources such as an additional tax on gambling. Likely to be some reduction in levies on gas/electricity to help reduce bills, which when you think of it is quite the turnaround from 12 months ago when the winter fuel allowance was scaled back.

The Dems are digging in on this. Rand Paul predicted three weeks ago that they would roll over, but they haven't. One could certainly argue it is Trump and the Republicans fault for trying to steamroller such an extreme bill through without having the 60/40 majority to do it in the first place.

You can add: Physically past it players (Ayew, BDCR, Ricardo), who can barely play 1 1/2 games a week, never mind 3, meaning he has to keep shuffling.

Puts the hours in, to the extent that he lives at the training ground. But maybe it's too intense and needs a release.

More likely they will be frozen for longer creating more fiscal drag.