Joan Wright

@jaitchy @blaiklockBP How is it illegal and how did you find out whether it was halal or not?

@blaiklockBP I complained to my daughter’s school about mandatory halal meat and how it was illegal. To my amazement it was addressed immediately and the menus were changed. I was even told indirectly by a policeman parent it was not illegal. Damn there are some stupid around these days.

Below you will find my 4th email to this headmistress, who thinks she is above the law. She thinks I have a team and a complaints service - public sector thinking. I have always addressed her politely and formally. Since her school has had 56 days to reply to the FOI, I do not need to legally give her any more time. I did so as a matter of courtesy, as I wanted to check that she had received the previous emails. This is what she wrote back - I wonder who is being rude and threatening. 'Thank you for your email. As I’m sure you can appreciate, headteachers are extremely busy and have a very demanding role. Rude and threatening emails to anyone in my school or staff will not be tolerated. Please refer me to your manager and complaints service.' Catherine Barnard @RollesbyPrimary

@EODHappyCaptain British doctrine even more so. Even direct orders can be slightly bent if the man believes it better satisfies the spirit of the order rather than the letter of it. UK captain's discretion Vs US zero defect policy

I was in a foreign country training some of that country’s Soldiers on EOD procedures. One of them had a great idea…and then he didn’t do it. When I asked him why, he told me that his commander wanted it done a very specific way. I pushed back, and told him that his commander’s intent would be met doing it the way he wanted to. He informed me that if he didn’t do it the way specified, it would be a failure even if he succeeded. Stories like the above highlight why American NCOs are the gold standard. Commanders give a mission statement and intent and then let Soldiers figure it out. And they are really really good at figuring it out.

@Inventingfanneh @BjorkBrodern I'm glad someone got my joke! In all seriousness, it would actually be pretty cool to make some of the Lego kits from Duplo. The total volume would be eight times larger.

@BjorkBrodern @ToAllAndSundry 😂😂 probably my skill level tbf

That's a lot of high quality plastic parts really cheap. Lego has to be manufactured to perfect standard with tolerances at 0,002 mm. Then they have to be sorted, counted, packaged etc according to instructions. The set includes 8278 pieces, so that means it costs 12 cent per piece, excluding the cost for packaging and royalties to the Embracer Group who owns the merchandising rights via Middle-earth Enterprises. I don't think you could buy a plastic part to that standard at that price from any company on earth other than Lego.

@Inventingfanneh @BjorkBrodern Like a Duplo version?

@BjorkBrodern My only complaint is that it should be bigger.

@WhatYouThinkIT1 @Denethor22nd @WalkerMarcus @CptHastings1916 Amongst many others

@Denethor22nd @WalkerMarcus @CptHastings1916 He mentioned AUKUS as well, and this bell from a ship that spent WW2 in Australia. Humblebrag about being King of 3 different nations at once.

This is the single most genius diplomatic gesture I have ever seen.

@HopeNotHate68 @DanielJHannan With friends like that who needs enemies

@DanielJHannan The French are our only true friends and allies.

@CorvidDevoid @Hunt4O I like the old British phonetic alphabet. Apples, Butter, Monkey, Pudding, Queenie, Xerxes, etc

@Hunt4O This is the WW2 era one, right? I recognize Baker and Easy.

I stopped using the NATO alphabet to spell things out to people who have zero military, law enforcement or firefighting background. because one time I had to spell out something to an Indian migrant. When I got to the letter "I" and I said "India", the guy enthusiastically said "INDIA!" loudly and said I should support India more. Another time I have to spell out a word with the letter "H". I said "Hotel", the idiot asked me which hotel am I referring to. Finally, one time I had to go to an apartment that is designated the letter "A". I told the security guard "Block Alpha". He has no idea, which is stupid because all security guards in Singapore are required to know the NATO alphabet fully. I had enough of dealing with clueless people

@UteRob32976 @DrChrisParry People Like Us was great. I used to love it. If I try to rewatch (or relisten for the radio drama) I find it hard to dispel the thought of the 'unpleasantness'

@DrChrisParry That is Chris Langham, who was in the original cast of Not the Nine O'clock News, was the narrator in People Like Us, and was the first Minister in The Thick of It - among many other roles. And then ... well, I am afraid there was some, ahem, 'unpleasantness'.

Michael Palin told me at a dinner that they ran the scene first without the laughing, but that the actors playing Roman soldiers couldn't keep straight faces. They then incorporated the laughing elements, but the guys still couldn't contain themselves, apart from the guy with the pursed lips who was asked to play the scene up a bit.

@AndrewAcum @Jordan_W_Taylor I thought Brexit would help Britain and S. Korea work together without having to appease every EU member to make an agreement. I thought the two countries were on track to have an almost complete FTA within the next few years.

@Jordan_W_Taylor Did some work with the South Korean govt. They had identified that UK co.s were very good at inventing things but very poor at bringing them to market - which Korean co.s were very good at. They were trying to match up UK and Korean co.s to partner. Then Brexit happened.

From computing to space, Britain has an odd habit of innovating its way to the pinnacle of some developing field or other, only to get white line fever and pass the ball to someone else to score the winning try. Usually an American. It's happened so many times it's almost a running joke, and yet every now and then some company or genius pops up, hands the country a winning lotto ticket and asks if it wants to cash it in. Right now, the holder of the ticket is the global engineering company Rolls-Royce, which has just handed the government an absolute no-brainer of a decision… For you see, Rolls-Royce just developed a revolutionary nuclear power plant. It's not revolutionary because it's a fast reactor, or cooled by helium, or runs on thorium or anything fancy like that. It's revolutionary because it's designed to be easy to make, which is a common failing of nuclear plants. It's small-ish at 470 Megawatts, or half the size of a normal plant, but can fit in a tiny fraction of the footprint, is made of standardised easy-fit modular parts, all road transportable and is designed to be almost entirely factory manufactured, meaning that repeat runs bring powerful learner effects for centralised production facilities. And, given that the plant and surroundings fit into a space of about two football pitches once fully assembled, it can be pieced together by a single standardised production gantry assembled over the entire build site. This is the ‘Small Modular Reactor’, or SMR industrial concept, and intends to pass onto nuclear manufacture the opportunity for the same cost-reducing learner effects that grew solar and wind energy into global dominance. Will it work? Who knows, but let's look at Britain's résumé of problems: Overpriced construction, scarce and expensive energy, binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions and a need to electrify everything to achieve that, an over-reliance on random variable forms of energy generation (wind) with very little clean baseload, a dwindling supply of export champions… well you get the picture. All this plus the need to import lots of foreign expertise to fix problems. Lotto ticket!

@pegge49 @JonA2i Why strip parts from a commissioned submarine when the same class is still in production?

@JonA2i The DMP boats are in deep maintenance at Devonport. The reason for the ones being stuck for so long at Faslane really isn't known. Rumours say that Ambush has been stripped of parts to keep the others going & Artful has supposedly been almost ready to go to sea since last summer.

On a day when it seems that once more the service of a French SSN was required to cover the deployment of the UK strategic deterant, a reminder that the appalling availability of the Astute Class continues to be a real scandal at the heart of the MOD. @TBrit90 Status from 10/4/26

“For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. On top of this, they now learn that a one-way privilege is to be established by Act of Parliament; a law which cannot, and is not intended to, operate to protect them or redress their grievances, is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions.” #OTD 1968

@01Enzy @eigenrobot Interesting. What's it from?

@ToAllAndSundry @eigenrobot Naaah, he was an admirer of him. You like my twitter banner?

who was the greatest man of his age and are you french

@selentelechia My youngest has accidentally reinvented the metajoke by combining two knock knock jokes. It's very cute so we all laugh along but it does drag the thousands time

me: man why does my daughter repeat a joke over and over after it makes us laugh the first time me hours later: *does precisely that*

@SirNotAppearing @DrInsensitive It was one of many options the Iranians had if their lie about civil nuclear use was genuine

@ToAllAndSundry @DrInsensitive Sure. The UK could also do that but chooses not to for energy security reasons.

How to Understand the Enrichment Debate A crude but effective nuclear weapon can be produced in two steps: 1. Uranium enrichment that requires acres of machinery operating for years; And 2. Assembly that requires a garage workshop for a few weeks. Saying Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium, but not to build nukes with it, is saying we should allow Iran to perform the hard step we can detect, but forbid them to perform the easy step we can't detect. I hope I don't need to explain what they would do.

@SirNotAppearing @DrInsensitive If it's for civil use then you can simply buy it in already enriched rather than doing it yourself. Russia offered to sell enriched uranium to Iran if Iran stopped doing it

@DrInsensitive Sure, but isn't the key forbidding enrichment above a certain level, rather than none whatsoever?

@sworrall @TBrit90 @Desertfox1944er I expect it would run that risk. The rumour I heard was that it was the only way to maintain CASD as otherwise it would have to return to port

@TBrit90 @ToAllAndSundry @Desertfox1944er Nah. Would disclose itself.

Royal Navy & RFA status update. (With a requested key)

@TBrit90 @sworrall @Desertfox1944er I heard rumours that one had been resupplied at sea to extend its patrol

@sworrall @Desertfox1944er The dit is Vanguards hold 9 months of food.

@RoryCooney @ZynxBTC If you can't do it through work then open a personal pension. A few high contribution years (allowing for previous year's allowance too if necessary) will set you up well for the future

Now do me. 2 kids in child care and getting slaughtered in the worst bracket of all. I’m sure the telegraph are writing about me each time they do an article. I run an R&D team trying to innovate and develop new technology in the UK. The company has added many millions in tax revenue to the UK. The tax system is encouraging me to be disinterested in pay rises and more interested in cutting down to 4 days just to avoid crazy tax cliffs. I’m not because I’m passionate about what i do, but, it would make sense. I look around me and doctors are refusing extra hours, many of the most productive people I know in various industries are all saying the same thing. It’s just not worth putting the extra effort in to earn more. Multiply that across the economy. Shame no politician can touch it as people perceive a £100k+ salary as being rich.

The UK has a far flatter income distribution than the Communist Soviet Union. The UK take home minimum wage for working a full time job (40-hours) is now £22,555. At £100k salary, the take home is £68,558. That is a net income ratio of 3.04:1 We are now at the point where the wage compression and taxes in the UK means that the difference between minimum wage and a top 5% salary is a net income difference of only ~3x. In the USSR using the same comparison, this figure never fell below 5:1 It's actually even worse in reality because the person earning £100k in the UK often has student loans. Britain is nominally capitalist but functionally communist. China is nominally communist but functionally capitalist. Funny how that works.

@JamesTolsona @McFaul Access to Ascension island base? It's a joint British base anyway!

@McFaul We did. How do you not remember this?