Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Killer Whale wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 8:25 am My old English teacher would have an absolute field day with that one. He'd spend half an hour deconstructing sentences, adding and removing punctuation and asking us to analyse the change in meanings, before gently leading us to the conclusion that the construction itself is the cause of ambiguity, and wholesale re-phrasing is required.

Do you remember if he mentioned having studied Latin? Of course, it's possible to be incredibly precise/ nitpicky without having studied a word of it, but often people like that have. As I have, and I like the sound of these lessons.

None of it did me much good in work, mind. Helped me get jobs, no doubt about that, but I then found myself slower at picking up the substance of the job than people who'd studied almost anything else.

I didn't ever study Latin but find the above fascinating, also. Usually with a political bent rather than a purely linguistic one, but still.

Studying a language radically different from English is very good for this, too. It's good for the brain and good for thinking both about meaning in your own language, and the contingency of meaning per se.

All, naturally, beyond the braying cretin.

Looks like Farage and Co. may yet see their vote splinter: spotted in the comments below a clip from Grange Hill.


Has anyone seen the latter hashtag out in the wild?

Coming as a surprise to no-one here

One out of every five people arrested after their participation in the 2024 summer riots has since been reported to the police for domestic abuse, the Guardian can disclose.

Police data released under freedom of information (FoI) laws shows that 21% of 949 people arrested for taking part in the violent disorder have been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence since August 2024...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... stic-abuse

Yeahbut worrabout the lefties?

Yug wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2026 12:17 pm Coming as a surprise to no-one here

One out of every five people arrested after their participation in the 2024 summer riots has since been reported to the police for domestic abuse, the Guardian can disclose.

Police data released under freedom of information (FoI) laws shows that 21% of 949 people arrested for taking part in the violent disorder have been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence since August 2024...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... stic-abuse

"PrOTeCT AR WIMEN AD AR CILDReN"

Yug wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2026 12:17 pm Coming as a surprise to no-one here

One out of every five people arrested after their participation in the 2024 summer riots has since been reported to the police for domestic abuse, the Guardian can disclose.

Police data released under freedom of information (FoI) laws shows that 21% of 949 people arrested for taking part in the violent disorder have been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence since August 2024...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... stic-abuse

Interesting, that percentage is half what James O'Brien was quoting at the time.

But was JO'B quoting figures from at the time - this seems to imply a post-rioting figure?

Yeah, I was going say this is post riot figures from those who were charged.

Sorry, that's what I meant by "at the time", James O'Brien was talking about people charged and his figure was forty something percent, I remember it clearly that he kept saying it was almost half. He was also contrasting it with the stats for the male population as a whole, if you took a random cross-section the number with a conviction for DV would be tiny.

Edit: My apologies, I had my figures muddled. The 40% figure J O'B was quoting was the number of arrestees with prior convictions for DV, whereas the 20% is the post-riot conviction rate .....as you all said. Sorry for being slow, it's too hot for my brain to function properly.

I see a son of Rupert Lowe got married earlier this week, with Lowe publicising the nuptials on his Xitter account. The trouble is that his new daughter-in-law is supposedly both of Jewish & Muslim descent, and you can guess how the bowels of the internet that would normally big up Restore reacted to reading that!

Spoonman wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 5:23 pm I see a son of Rupert Lowe got married earlier this week, with Lowe publicising the nuptials on his Xitter account. The trouble is that his new daughter-in-law is supposedly both of Jewish & Muslim descent, and you can guess how the bowels of the internet that would normally big up Restore reacted to reading that!

The odd one's alright.

Yeah. She'll be one of the good ones, especially if she's fit in an exotic kind of way. Go like the clappers, yer orientals, you know. Etc.

Money makes anyone respectable with that lot.

Killer Whale wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 5:43 pm Yeah. She'll be one of the good ones, especially if she's fit in an exotic kind of way. Go like the clappers, yer orientals, you know. Etc.

Just for reference...

How can I be racist when...

Absolutely deranged. Wigan is 95% white. The idea that wowen are in terror of marauding gangs of Pakistanis and Eritreans is laughable. I mean, at least say Bradford or something. Like how he lumps Reform in with the others, because Farage is really a liberal or something.

Call me a racist, I just don't like people who speak foreign languages, says Rupes.

Look on the bright side: Lowe and his fellow travellers are going to split Reform's vote.

They’ll make Reform even worse. Possibly Farage and Lowe do a deal.