Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[celedhring]

I can find a couple articles in - interestingly - the Spanish conservative press.

[Sheilbh]

I slightly wish English wasn't the global language because I'm fairly sure that UK politics and life etc are broadly similar to other especailly European countries in general. But because more people can read our media we expose the rest of the world to the crazier shit on a regular basis - like this 

[Josquius]

I slightly wish English wasn't the global language because I'm fairly sure that UK politics and life etc are broadly similar to other especailly European countries in general. But because more people can read our media we expose the rest of the world to the crazier shit on a regular basis - like this 

Plus it screws up our ability to learn languages.
I've always been jealous of the Dutch and scandis for this. Their language Is close enough to English that learning it isn't hard. Nonetheless they do have to open their mind to a foreign language to get anywhere in the world, even just to fully enjoy most big name films.

But yeah. I think that's a problem in the close minded British mindset that people just think language and media are culture.
America is a thoroughly alien place. The entire car focused approach to life is just unfathomable to most Europeans, even those who live car focused lives here. Then there's the religion and all...
North European countries are  very similar to each other.

[Zanza]

The evil government killing an innocent alpaca is just a juicy story to generate clicks.

[Sheilbh]

The evil government killing an innocent alpaca is just a juicy story to generate clicks.

Yeah - it's a great silly season story. Multiple plot twists on the way too to keep it going.

[The Brain]

If it's any consolation Sweden has yet to leave the EU or focus society on an alpaca.

[Josquius]

Got to be honest. This is the only place ive heard of geronimo. The news story is passing me by.

[Syt]

It seems like a typical summer story. In German we talk about the Sommerloch, or summer hole, when there's usually no major news stories, and trivialities (often animal stories) capture the public interest.

[Zanza]

By now, Der Spiegel has multiple articles on Geronimo, so obviously people are reading the story. 

[celedhring]

I didn't even know about alpacas until the Geronimo crisis, so I guess the drama has had an educational value.

[Sheilbh]

In strange animal updates - I think we're all relieved this has been fixed/issued:


Separately there's a big internal row in Labour HQ. Basically a lot of people who work for Labour are now threatening strike action. There's two big reasons. One is that Labour was very strongly "encouraging" their staff to go back to the office basically the second it became legal - lots of Labour workers have pointed out this isn't in line with most office jobs, with Labour policy or necessarily with health and safety regs. The other is that Labour have launched mandatory redundanciy consultations - they've lost state funding because they lost seats but also a few of the very pro-Corbyn union leaders have started cutting their funding too and Labour membership is down again as people who basically joined for Corbyn have started to leave. Combined it means Labour's finances are dodgy.

The thing that mainly annoys me about it is the hypocrisy of both main parties about covid/return to work. Labour's position is basically that WFH should become an employment right and no employer should force staff back into the office unless they've invested quite extensively in things like ventilation and covid safe protocols etc - unless, apparently, the employer is the Labour Party. Meanwhile the Tory Party have had various leading figures trying to encourage people to go back to work and basically want to end the preference for WFH etc - unless you're a Tory Foreign Secretary or PM in which case you can apparently do your job from a hotel.

I generally avoid being a pox on both their houses - but on this issue it feels fair

[garbon]

I didn't even know about alpacas until the Geronimo crisis, so I guess the drama has had an educational value.

[The Brain]

Alpacas are great, but I'm more of a guanaco enjoyer.

[celedhring]

I didn't even know about alpacas until the Geronimo crisis, so I guess the drama has had an educational value.

Yeah, if I saw a picture I would just have said it was a small llama.

[Sheilbh]

Not to leave out the adorable vicuna.