Chris

@nicolouisex The whole main game seemed staged. No one could have got the word from the hints alone, it was designed to go the way it did. Ben was the only cast member who could have pulled off the agent role. Too many blindly following him - would have been better if someone had challenged.

I don't even remember his name because he's so unlikeable but WHY did the producers choose him to be the secret agent ??!!! He is SO irritating and arrogant he needs less screen time not more #geniusgame

@mayodweller @NateB_Panic Yes indeed. I am surrounded by normally intelligent people who are adamant that it is a cold. It defies logic.

@contempl8ive @NateB_Panic And it's got to the point you can't even mention covid. Friends 2yr old v sick (temp, chills, nausea etc), dad has it now. She is 12 weeks pregnant. I want to ask if they've tested, tell her to take extra precautions etc but I know it's a big no no, to them it's just a cold.

Absolutely so tiring to see such a depth of denial about the obvious fact people are sick more frequently than they ever used to be. Nothing has ever been more obvious but a conspiracy of societal silence rules

@gwladwr @jennyeverest1 @tigresseleanor You are now the go to account for Covid data. Her legacy lives on.

@contempl8ive @jennyeverest1 @tigresseleanor Eleanor certainly inspired and encouraged me...

@gwladwr @jennyeverest1 @tigresseleanor Life is short and she made a big impact.

@contempl8ive @jennyeverest1 @tigresseleanor twitter.com/tigresseleanor…

@benking01 Lovely pic but I am clearly a little tipsy - cannot see one fish jumping. Must get my eyes tested.

Watching fish jumping into the air upstream from #Totnes weir

@jennyeverest1 @gwladwr @tigresseleanor She was a force to be reckoned with. RIP

@contempl8ive @gwladwr @tigresseleanor We wondered why we hadn’t heard from her with the stats and then one of her family posted here x

@wiseconnector Dawn. A new start, a new day.

What's the FIRST word you see?

@jennyeverest1 @gwladwr @tigresseleanor I am shocked. No idea there was a problem.

@contempl8ive @gwladwr @tigresseleanor Yes - so sad xx

@777Go4 @Schnitzel63 Agreed

Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier, TOTP

@jennyeverest1 Still masking. I think I actually had Covid before Xmas. Took 4weeks to get over and no, I don’t want it again thank you. Ironically I think my brother brought it into the house with an asymptomatic infection. He was ok (vax).

@contempl8ive Still being cautious - very fed up with the lack of data. Hospital and GP appointments are very stressful - there should be better infection control in these settings. How are you?

Currently enjoying shouting into the void with no one listening!

@jennyeverest1 Glad it’s not just me! How are you doing?

@contempl8ive I’m here! Agree !

@Schnitzel63 I wonder if he knew that 25 years later he would be a key voice in the campaign to clean up Britain’s waterways. Love him.

Undertones - Get over you

@Schnitzel63 Great band, Terry Hall was a great frontman.

The Specials- You're wondering now, live in Colchester 1979

@Peston You would have thought he might have learnt from Truss and Kwarteng but I expect he has no clue who they are.

We just learned that the world’s most powerful person, Donald Trump, has a boss: the bond market. He may not have acknowledged this to himself, yet, but the global financial tumult he caused - and has temporarily eased - has locked him in a fiscal prison. Because, as I have been saying for 24 hours, he came perilously close yesterday to having caused such an extreme fall in the price of US government debt that it would have become prohibitively expensive for his administration to fund a large deficit - more than 6% of GDP - and also to refinance the almost $8 trillion of government debt that matures in the coming year (almost a third of America’s sovereign debt). The point is he is totally in hock to the good will of bonds investors. And when he announced his reckless roster of massive tariffs eight days ago he alienated them, because they feared he would tank the economy such that tax revenues would plummet and the deficit would balloon. So they sold US government bonds, Treasuries, and the yield on the bonds - the de facto interest rate - soared. Which is why Trump blinked, and put on hold the more extreme tariffs, except for the 140% on China, for 90 days. You might think the worst part of this is the uncertainty he has created for businesses and investors for the next 90 days. Since no one in their right minds would make a major US investment till the final tariff determinations are made. But the cancerous uncertainty is not the worst of it. The worst of it is he has shredded any respect that overseas governments and investors might have had for America’s economic and fiscal competence. Shades - you might say - of how Truss and Kwarteng’s unwise unfunded tax cuts undermined the perceived fiscal competence of the UK. But unlike Truss and Kwarteng, there is pretty much no mechanism for removing Trump. All of which means that bond and stock markets will remain fragile and volatile - fearful that Trump will regain his mojo and engage in some other fiscal extravagance. He has also handed a loaded gun to his perceived enemy, China, and his supposed ally Japan. This matters in both cases, because he is engaged in the mother of all trade wars with China - and Japan wants a trade deal with him that would see it escape mega tariffs. The loaded guns they have are their massive loans to the US government. Japan owns more than a trillion dollars of US Treasuries and China not much less. If they were to sell those bonds, or even if they chose not to refinance maturing bonds, that could be a disaster for Trump. Because it could cause another potentially crippling spike in bond yields. Here is the measure of Trump’s debacle. He may well have trashed America’s single most important financial competitive advantage, namely that investors have traditionally bought the dollar and US Treasuries at a time of economic and political uncertainty. No more - because he personally has become the world’s source of economic uncertainty snd anxiety. So, as I say he, is now in a fiscal prison. And if bond investors, including Japan and China, see him imposing tariffs or cutting taxes in ways they don’t like, they learned yesterday they have the means and power to stop him.

@1goodtern Great job. Without bees, we are nothing.

@Matt_Pinner Fun. But I have drunk slightly too much so really shouldn’t be doing this 😂

What's the FIRST word you see

@dave43law JFC. The system is a joke.

Michael Gove to receive peerage in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours thenational.scot/news/25081320.…