spoovy's comments

I'd disagree with the false sense of security line. Why would someone who cares enough to go to the effort of wearing a mask then go and not wash their hands? A positive correlation between the two seems more likely than negative to me. Also this argument is trotted out regularly by "experts" in the car manufacturing industry whenever new safety technology is invented and as far as I can tell is always proven years later to be bullshit. For examples see seat belts, air bags, traction control, ABS, AWD.

At least Fox wears it's bias on it's sleeve. The BBC is supposed to be --and claims to be-- impartial yet is very clearly not. It also has a huge audience across just about all platforms in the UK, and is totally unafraid of blatant lies in order to push its worldview. This is far more sinister than Fox's childish excesses.

This worries me to be honest. The mainstream media was clearly always spinning to us long before the internet came along, but at least when people broadly trusted the same sources they also broadly bought into the same spin, so at least there was agreement within the group and a degree of social cohesion as a result. The BBC and 20th Century Britain springs to mind.

This seems to be breaking down at a rapid rate though, when it's very hard to have any idea where people will stand on hugely important subjects such as climate change, geopolitics etc until you speak to them. People's opinions vary wildly seemingly based mainly on which sources they happen to trust.

The Churches clearly regretted selling after seeing what Prada did to their company (made it a parody of itself), so they now run Cheaney (a rival) and arguably make better shoes than Church's ever did. Still a sad story though.

Not sure what your definition of "traditional" is, but I don't recognise your description of UK banks at all. I joined Smile bank (Co-op) in 2001/2, and it was even then fully online and I never needed a bank card to manage my account. I've had accounts with several others since (inc. Barclays, Santander) and never needed a card with them either. The new generation like Starling, Monzo, Revolut et al are also incredibly convenient.

It's a mistake to assume all the investors in these schemes are naive or that they all lost money (particularly with the more recent schemes I would imagine). Many fully understand what is happening and know that if they get in early and out again before the music stops there is a very good return in it.

My dad, a working class man, must have bought my mum jewellery from Ratners in the 80s, because I remember this scandal and how genuinely furious he was. I remember him saying to me words along the lines of "of course we know deep down that it's crap, but it's all we can afford so we kid ourselves that it's not". Ratner saying out loud that it was crap was destroying people's private delusions, which is all some people have. It was idiotic of Ratner to say it and I don't blame the newspapers for printing it at all.

"The annual UN report also found that income inequality is rising in many of the countries where hunger is on the rise, making it even more difficult for the poor, vulnerable or marginalized to cope with economic slowdowns and downturns."

Why? That doesn't follow at all. Increasing income inequality does not mean that poor people are getting poorer or their lives are getting more difficult in any way. Political grandstanding from the WHO, which is a shame.

I'm European and I'd love to live in the USA; if I put the same effort in there as I have done here my quality of life would be so much better.

I've worked incredibly hard all my life in the UK (and I've been successful at work -- something I have to remind myself of regularly) and it's got me practically nowhere. I'm taxed to the eyeballs (this year I'll pay approx 70% of my turnover in taxes of one sort or another) and the cost of living is insane (the average house price in London is currently about £530,000). Unless you have wealthy parents and bought 10 years ago you can forget about ever escaping the rent trap.

Great public transport though eh! Er no actually. Rail services carry people crammed in like sardines in conditions that it would be illegal to carry livestock in, and reliability stats are terrible; I am regularly delayed by an hour or more. And I am forced to use the trains, because I don't own a car, as I don't have a parking space attached to my tiny rented 1-bedroom flat.

Free healthcare is great though right? Well, when a total of 500 million EU citizens are all entitled to rock up demanding 'free' healthcare whenever they like despite having never paid a penny into the system all their lives, and I have to wait 3-4 weeks to see a doctor, then no, it's not great actually.

Please, my US friends, do not believe the Julia Roberts films, or your friend's holiday snaps of Rome. We, the poor European people who do all the work, do not spend our days writing poetry and blissfully sipping premium coffee, we have it pretty sh!tty actually, and be grateful for your amazing country and the opportunities it offers you.

This isn't 'space' though is it; its low earth orbit. I wouldn't care if they'd fired it into intergalactic space but they didn't, they just added to our halo of orbiting garbage purely to grab some cheap publicity.