a younger Victor Meldrew but interesting - I hope - nice sometimes !
Somewhere up North
Joined January 2009
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NORBET retweeted
Son: Dad, I thought this was just a song about Vietnam.
Dad: Son, listen closer. It's about the sons of powerful men getting a free pass while everyone else's sons pay the price.
NORBET retweeted
Jamie Carragher said this Diaz goal against Chelsea is the best team you will never see in the Premier League history. Just watch😭. Agree?
NORBET retweeted
BREAKING: Barack Obama just ROASTED Donald Trump’s renovations of the White House in a way only he can:
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory.”
Trump is going to have a MAJOR MELTDOWN.
NORBET retweeted
🇬🇧 "Target tonight: Berlin!"
Hundreds of bombers. Hours over enemy territory. And no guarantee of coming home.
During World War II, RAF Bomber Command repeatedly sent its heavy bombers against the German capital. The offensive reached its greatest intensity in 1943–44, with Lancasters and Halifaxes forming the backbone of the attacking force.
Across 19 major raids between August 1943 and March 1944, the RAF Museum records 10,813 sorties, an average of roughly 570 aircraft dispatched per raid. About 9,560 reached the target area.
The bomb load totaled 33,390 tons, including at least five million incendiaries.
Ahead of the main force, specialist Pathfinder crews marked aiming points with colored target indicators. Radar helped them locate the city through darkness and cloud, but finding and marking the right spot remained difficult. Errors could scatter bombing across wide areas.
On November 22–23, 1943, a force of 764 aircraft was dispatched. Around 2,300 tons of bombs fell in just 30 minutes. An estimated 2,000 people were killed and 175,000 left homeless.
High explosives shattered buildings. Incendiaries started fires among the wreckage. Below, civilians crowded into shelters while firefighters struggled through blocked streets.
Above them, bomber crews faced searchlights, antiaircraft fire, German night fighters, and exhausting winter flights.
For the broader August–March offensive, the RAF Museum lists 625 aircraft lost, 2,960 aircrew lost, and another 987 taken prisoner. It records 10,305 deaths among civilians and military personnel on the ground.
Yet the destruction did not deliver the surrender Bomber Command had hoped for.
Follow @Vanguard_WW2 for the history behind the wartime footage.
CGI: Piotr Forkasiewicz.
NORBET retweeted
It's hard not to ignore the lack of quality in the final third, but that's what Alexander has to work with and he probably got the best out of everyone today. No player's effort or commitment can be questioned after such a hard-working and battling display lep.co.uk/sport/football/pre…
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Kaleb Cooper, the farm manager on Clarkson's Farm, worked out his own hourly rate from the farming side of his business and it came to fifty pence. He said so on a podcast. His books pay rather better.
Kaleb is not a television character. He is a working contractor who was farming in the Cotswolds before the cameras came and will be when they go, and he has done the sums that most farmers do in their heads and keep to themselves.
- Hourly rate from farming, by his own count: 50p.
- Hourly rate for the woman who stacks the shelf his wheat ends up on as a loaf: at least £12.71.
- Price of the loaf: about £1.40.
- What the wheat in it earns the farmer: about 10p.
- The farmer's profit on it, measured in 2022: 0.09p.
The whole chain is paid before the man who grew the thing. The supermarket takes its margin, the miller his, the baker his, the haulier his, the fertiliser company its, and what is left when the harvest has been through all of those hands is the farmer's. His share has been shrinking for decades, because he is the only link who cannot pass the cost on. He cannot hold out for a better price for long either. The seed, the fertiliser and the diesel were paid for months before harvest, and grain costs money every week it sits in the shed.
Selling direct is the one place it is different. A farmer who sells off his own farm, through his own shop, to a customer who drove there, keeps far more of the price. That is why Diddly Squat had queues out onto the road, while Clarkson's first year of actually farming the place made him a profit of £144.
Kaleb is in his twenties and has three children and is one of the best farmers in Oxfordshire, and his trade pays him about a 25th of the legal minimum wage. The country wants its food cheap, and it has got exactly that.
NORBET retweeted
by rights - thinking about it - when @RishiSunak took over from truss he should've launched immediate probe on covid pandemic economic mismanagement by @Conservatives (LOL...I KNOW) then when @KemiBadenoch becane leader she should have ORDERED @metpoliceuk to look into tory fraud
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1997’de Çin’in büyük bir derdi vardı.
Ülkede metro ve demiryolu projeleri hızlanıyordu ama doğru düzgün tünel açma makinesi yoktu.
Aradılar, taradılar, sonunda Almanya’da iki tane buldular.
Makineler ikinci eldi.
Almanlar iki makine için 700 milyon yuan istedi.
Çinlilerin pek pazarlık yapacak hâli de yoktu.
Parayı verip iki makineyi aldılar ve ülkeye getirdiler.
Ama mesele makineyi satın almakla bitmedi.
Kurulum için Alman mühendislerin de Çin’e gelmesi gerekiyordu.
Gönderilen her Alman mühendis için günlük 800 avro ücret istendi.
O dönem sıradan bir Çinli işçi yılda 4.000 yuan bile kazanamıyordu.
Yani Alman mühendis Çin’e geliyor, bir günde Çinli işçinin neredeyse bir yılda kazandığının iki katını cebine koyuyordu.
Çinlilerin canını sıkan asıl mesele 700 milyon yuan değildi.
Makine senin değil.
Teknoloji senin değil.
Bir şey bozuluyor, Alman’ı çağırıyorsun.
Parça lazım oluyor, Alman’dan alıyorsun.
Adam fiyatı ne derse onu ödüyorsun.
Çin bu faturayı unutmadı.
2002’de mühendisleri masaya oturtup sıfırdan kendi tünel açma makinesini geliştirmeye başladı.
Kolay iş değildi.
Bir makinede 30.000’den fazla hassas parça vardı.
Kesici kafası ayrı dert, hidrolik sistemi ayrı dert, kontrol sistemi ayrı dert.
6 yıl uğraştılar.
2008’de ilk tamamen Çin yapımı tünel açma makinesi ortaya çıktı.
Ama Çinliler için asıl mesele makineyi yapmak değildi.
Almanlarla aynı işi yapıp yapamayacağını görmekti.
2012’de kendi makinelerini dünyanın en iyi üreticilerinin makineleriyle aynı projelerde yan yana çalıştırdılar.
Sonuç?
Çin makinesi geri kalmadı.
Sonra Çin’in klasik hikayesi başladı.
Önce kendine yaptı.
Sonra seri üretime geçti.
Maliyeti düşürdü.
Sonra dünyaya satmaya başladı.
Bugün dünyada kullanılan tünel açma makinelerinin yaklaşık %70’ini Çin üretiyor.
25 yıl önce Almanya’dan ikinci el iki makine bulabilmek için 700 milyon yuan veren ülke, bugün dünyanın en fazla tünel açma makinesi üreten ülke konumunda.
Aslında Çin’in elektrikli otomobilde, bataryada, dronda ve şimdi insansı robotlarda yaptığı şey de bundan çok farklı değil.
Önce dışarıdan alıyorlar.
Sonra nasıl yapıldığını öğreniyorlar.
Ardından kendileri üretiyorlar.
En sonunda da senden daha ucuza sana satıyorlar.
Zamanında Almanlar kurulum için Çin’e gidiyordu.
Şimdi Çinliler kurulum için Almanya’ya gidiyor.
Çin’de yapamıyoruz, üretemiyoruz, zor diye bir şey yok.
Çin Devleti sizden bir makine geliştirmenizi istiyorsa yapmaktan başka çareniz yok.
Aslında Çin’in sanayi politikasını yüzlerce sayfalık raporlarla anlatmaya gerek yok.
İki tane ikinci el Alman makinesi bütün hikayeyi anlatıyor.
NORBET retweeted
Old soldiers use military training to smuggle £34million of cocaine into UK after using fishing boat to scoop it up in English Channel trib.al/mVqQm48
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🚨 The real threat to Man City isn't the Championship, it's what comes after
- In Valuball's relegation scenario, City can dodge the Championship's squad cost rule fairly easily (sell Haaland, loan some stars)
- The bigger risk sits in the Premier League's balance-sheet test on their return: liabilities can't exceed 80% of assets
- City's owners would have to cover a ~£300m cash shortfall from the relegation season, and HOW they do it changes everything
- Funding it with new shares could leave City around 59% liabilities-to-assets, comfortably inside the limit
- Funding it with loans instead could push that as high as ~82%, just over the Premier League's ceiling, before even counting squad market value
- So the actual jeopardy isn't surviving a Championship season, it's a financing decision made behind the scenes that could trigger sanctions years later
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When Sven-Göran Eriksson revealed in January 2024 that he had terminal cancer, the former England manager admitted there was one job he had always dreamed of doing but never had the chance.
Despite managing England, Lazio, Benfica and some of Europe’s biggest clubs, Sven had never managed Liverpool.
And having supported them since he was a little boy growing up in Sweden, it was something he had always wanted.
“I’m a Liverpool supporter.”
“I’ve always wished to be the manager of Liverpool.”
His love for the club came from his father, who had supported Liverpool for as long as Sven could remember.
When Swedish television began showing English football on Saturday afternoons, the family would gather around the television hoping their team had been selected.
“We always hoped they would show Liverpool.”
By 1979, Sven was managing IFK Gothenburg in Sweden and decided to write a letter to Liverpool manager Bob Paisley.
He wanted to visit Anfield and see how one of the best teams in Europe worked behind the scenes.
“They said I was welcome to come.”
Sven travelled to Liverpool, watched the players train and was invited into the famous Boot Room after a match.
“I remember the training.”
“It was very simple, very high quality.”
But one of the things that impressed him most happened while he was having tea with the Liverpool coaching staff.
Manchester United were challenging Liverpool for the title, and Sven was curious to know how their rivals had got on that afternoon.
They had been sitting in the Boot Room for about an hour when he finally asked.
“What about United, what did United do today?”
The Liverpool coaches looked at him.
“We don’t know.”
Sven could hardly believe it.
“Can you imagine that you are so secure of yourself like Liverpool were?”
“They did it their way, they didn’t care what others did.”
He went on to enjoy an extraordinary managerial career, eventually becoming England’s first foreign manager in 2001.
Then, in January 2024, Sven revealed that he had pancreatic cancer and had been told he might have around a year left to live.
During an interview about his diagnosis, he spoke about his lifelong ambition to manage Liverpool.
When Jürgen Klopp heard what Sven had said, he decided to make him an offer.
“He’s very welcome to come here.”
“He can sit in my seat in my office and do my job for a day if he wants.”
There was also a Liverpool Legends match against Ajax coming up in March, with Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and several other former players returning to Anfield.
Robbie Fowler helped get the conversation started about inviting Sven to manage the Liverpool team.
And soon enough, the club contacted him with an invitation.
“When they asked, I thought it was a joke.”
“Of course I will come to that.”
On the 23rd of March 2024, Sven arrived at Anfield to take charge alongside John Barnes, Ian Rush and John Aldridge.
Almost 60,000 supporters had filled Anfield, and when Sven walked out of the tunnel, the entire stadium rose to applaud him.
Then You’ll Never Walk Alone began playing.
Sven stood alongside the players as thousands of Liverpool supporters sang the song he had loved since childhood.
“I cried.”
“It was beautiful.”
But there was still a football match to manage.
And after all those years dreaming of taking charge of Liverpool, Sven found himself facing a problem at half-time.
Ajax were winning 2-0.
Sven made substitutions, altered the formation and told the players to give themselves more width.
The changes worked.
Liverpool scored four times in the second half, with goals from Gregory Vignal, Djibril Cissé, Nabil El Zhar and Fernando Torres securing a 4-2 victory.
Afterwards, Steven Gerrard was asked about the difference between the two halves.
“He changed everything at half-time.”
“He’s still got it, he’s still got the magic.”
“He made the difference.”
And when the final whistle blew, Sven joined the players on the pitch for another lap of Anfield.
Later, Sven was asked what the afternoon had meant to him.
“To sit on the bench for Liverpool was the dream all my life.”
“Now it has happened.”
He had managed some of the biggest names in football and led England at three major tournaments, but his final appearance in the dugout had been for the club he had supported since childhood.
“It was beautiful, absolutely fantastic, incredible.”
“A memory for life.”
#football
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