Stive Pesley

That sounds crap for you - one of the problems does seem to be that building flood defences upstream only means more chance of flooding downstream (hence the Pentagon hasn't flooded before to my knowledge, even when areas near it have). You'd like to think they think all this through via simulation/prediction technology but then again...

Anyone else watched Shrinking on AppleTV? About a therapist who has a breakdown after losing his wife and starts to be brutally honest with his patients. Harrison Ford plays the elder partner in the therapy firm and is excellent in it.

In Derby there has been a massive "Our City Our River" project going on for around 10 years which has been been protecting as much of the housing in the city centre areas as it can. Huge flood walls on and around Darley Park, huge pumping stations in the River Gardens and Bass's Rec, manufactured floodplains, flow diversions etc

Again - with my experiences of large IT outsourcing firms contracting to provide IT solutions to customers, I can pretty much guarantee that the individuals in Fujitsu who will/may have been complicit will be long gone from Fujitsu. Managers in these places tend to last 2 years max before they merrily jog on to a new employer with a large pay rise, so demonising Fujitsu as an entity is somewhat pointless. Find those people, wherever they are now and have them explain themselves, and who ordered them to do what they did. Eventually the buck with stop with an insanely well paid "director" who didn't care at the time, just wanted his bonus. Get that guy in prison

I've not seen it, but I don't have to suspend my disbelief to imagine that could have happened, but it would be almost unthinkable to believe an IT supplier would be changing financial data in a customer's system without being pressured to do so by the customer, or that the customer would be oblivious. I suppose my point was that demonising fujitsu as the "bad guys" seems to be the latest angle being pushed but I'd be willing to bet that the Post Office management were equally if not more to blame

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67921298 "Calls grow for Fujitsu to pay for Post Office injustice" This doesn't sit right with me - and I feel weird sticking up for Fujitsu I do not and have never worked for them, but I have worked on large IT projects for government departments whilst at other large IT Service Providers If this was allowed to go live with these massive errors and bugs in it, then that's not Fujitsu's fault. Did Fujitsu do the user acceptance testing? Of course not - the clue is in the word "user". The Post Office would have been responsible for user testing and the sign-off to live The failure here is simply - "IT Outsourcing" - it doesn't work because the power dynamics are all skewed on both sides. The Post Office project managers responsible for delivering the system are being measured against and rewarded for delivering the system on time. As are Fujitsu. No one has any incentive to say "this doesn't work - we need to delay by 6 months". That way lies severe bollockings, reputational damage, missed bonuses etc etc This happens ALL the time, on pretty much every project I've ever worked on. Just that this time there were real and severe consequences on people's lives

That's certainly the extreme end of it, but more common is the casual sexism at play. As many on here have pointed out - there are good pundits and bad pundits. If you bring their gender into it - that is sexism, whether intentional or not. Even if you try and defend it with a typical line of "I can't be sexist against women - some of my wives have been women" etc

This is certainly a good point to reflect on Of those people who clearly have a problem with female pundits based on their gender - how many of you have had actual death threats for simply doing your job?

A drive-by shouting?

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/08/apple_iphone_16000_drop 😲

Hansen was only ever hired as a box-ticking exercise to ensure representation of Scottish pundits Ditto Lawrenson for Irish pundits Makes you sick eh?

No - obviously not, but I can look at the situation and have a guess. The women's game has had a lot more success than the men's game in the past few years, and unprecedented numbers of girls are taking up the game at grass roots level as a result. I think we can all agree that as a good thing, Therefore broadcasters would have to be pretty daft to not want to show a bit more representation in their coverage. Does that make it "box-ticking". Of course not. It is however a bit of a red rag to a bull* *sexist/misogynist

It's sickening to see the ruling classes suddenly take an interest in the victims of the Post Office Scandal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67905194 After all these years, now there is a TV show about it - which shows us dumb plebs what actually went on Perhaps someone should make a dramatisation about Grenfell, and see how quick they hold people to account for that one too

So you have hard evidence that it IS true? Hence your 100% insistence that you will happily stand by the assertation? I hope so - otherwise you just look a bit like a reactionary old bloke who holds intransigent opinions based on no evidence whatsover

There are good pundits and bad pundits - anyone bringing the gender of the pundit into the equation when identifying them as a bad pundit is unwittingly telling you exactly what kind of person they are

I don't think you missed much - we gave up on Season 4 as it just didn't seem in the same league as 1,2 & 3 Fingers crossed for Season 5 - the reviews are certainly better

Get off the internet Vickers and concentrate on the game

Loving this dim Radio Lancashire pundit - so far he has said "I don't see Derby as a possession based team" (cue the stat being flashed up that we have had 71% possession) and "I don't think NML is a natural finisher" (cue a beautifully taken goal for the wangmeister) 😂

Thing is - that very first series of Big Brother was astonishing, ground-breaking stuff - we'd never seen anything like it and it was captivating. But from that moment on, reality TV became self-aware and the magic was gone. All just scripted/guided performative crap by people craving careers in showbiz. The Traitors is not much more than a party game, and as my youngest lad pointed out - there has been an online video game called Among Us since 2018 that is pretty much the same but you can actually play it in real life with strangers if you're into that sort of thing

or on flixtor £0.00

Started watching Money Heist: Berlin last night, as we kind of really got into the original Money Heist series (in Spanish with subtitles - NEVER the dubbed voices). As a prequel it was a bit disconcerting as it kind of felt very familiar but wrong at the same time. Like putting your shoes on the wrong feet or something. Took me a while to get used to it but by the end of the first episode I was quite enjoying it. Will stick with it I'll also give my second recommendation for a 30 minute comedy to Fisk. Finished that at the weekend and loved it to bits. Some absolutely great characters

I'm all for equality, but if it means that men no longer get 100% of the jobs, then I'm out

Dunno - I only ever paid for Prime so I could get free next day delivery on stuff (and crucially - the painless returns process). To me the TV stuff is an extra. Haven't watched much on there, but do watch stuff occasionally. They claim that the ads will be minimal, so I guess I'll see how annoying it is when I next end up bingeing something on Amazon Prime. My guess is that it will have to be REALLY annoying to make be pay an extra £3 a month You'd think by now that the advertising industry would have realised that ads on streaming services are pointless. When watching something on All4 or ITVX with ads, the second they come on - people just pick up their phones and look at those until the ads are over

You have to feel for young master Luke On the one hand - he's suddenly found himself thrust into the spotlight and will doubtless end up very rich On the other hand - he can no longer get served in all those pubs he's been getting served in