Mackle

Maybe things will not quite end up getting that far @murphaph - I think there are some in the Conservative party and some in the voting base, who would not be adverse to a unified Ireland if it allowed them to really diverge mainland Britain.   A lot of Conservative members and voters (South of the border) aren't really interested in The Union at all, in the sense that when polled a sizable amount would accept the break up of The Union as an acceptable price of Brexit. There is also a sizable number who would like to see the devolved parliaments disbanded and everything centralised under a (Conservative) Westminster Government - the sight of Nicola Sturgeon setting bespoke Scottish CoViD restrictions separate from then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock really stirred up anti-devolution feelings amount some Tory voters.    So Westminster can have an almost phony-war with the EU over the NIP, enough of the people say "screw this lets have a ballet to take control of this ourselves!" and that's it. Of course, what ministers seem totally oblivious to, is the real threat of violence. It's always something that is played down, or spun in to anti-EU sentiment. 

Gove is the Peter Mandelson of the Conservative party.   I think a lot of the public do look at him as a chancer, but in an endearing (to them) Mr. Toad of Toad Hall type character, or Rik Mayall’s cameo in Blackadder as Lord Flashheart (which certainly suits Johnson’s adulterous history), maybe even the Thomas Hughes / George MacDonald character of Flashman.    I have no idea what it will take for voters to turn against him, he seems to increase his lead in the polls every week (Lord Andrew Adonis thinks all it takes is for Tony Blair to return as Labour leader). 

Neil deGrasse Tyson said something along the lines of anyone can know enough about a subject to think that they are right, but the real challenge is to know enough about a subject to know that you are wrong 

  Guy Verhofstadt is always calling out Orban 

@MUinEU yes, but it's not an insignificant amount of people - Johnson's support in the polls is increasing, if anything more people are behaving like this instead of getting fed up with what is going on.

  I thought that AZ, J&J, and Sputnik were similar in that they were using inactive samples of the Virus?   Anyway, I am currently in a country which has used Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNtech and the belief here after six months of vaccination is that the Sinopharm vaccine is ineffective - everyone here in the UAE who has had the Sinopharm vaccine will be encouraged to have a booster after six months of their 2nd jab, or will be offered the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine in lieu of a Sinopharm booster.   Abu Dhabi is having a lot of issues - despite having a lower, more spread out population, and strict entry requirements when travelling in from the neighbouring emirates, Abu Dhabi cannot get their cases under control (they are back as of yesterday to shutting the road border with Dubai overnight, and conducting sterilisations of public areas whilst a nighty curfew is in place). Abu Dhabi is also predominantly Sinopharm. Dubai, which has fewer restrictions, is much more populated, and vastly more densely populated, is not having anywhere near the same issues; Dubai has been predominantly using Pfizer/BioNtech over the last few months.   Yes it's all anecdotal and not a very scientific way of looking at it, but the UAE has been using three different vaccines so some comparisons can be made.

  Yes. You have the likes of Michael Heaver and Mayer Tousi releasing videos daily telling people that Brexit is making Britain the fastest growing economy in the world, that wages and living standards are rising at an unprecedented rate, claiming that Brexit has already proven to be a seismic success, and of course lots of exposures of "remainer lies" (case in point, yesterdays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMW3EmT7ezM which cannot resist calling people who wanted to remain a pack of liars, and turning a £250M investment by SAP - which to a large software company is small fry - as a sign that German business are all behind Brexit Britain).   Looking at the latest set of polls, plenty of people are lapping this stuff up because Johnson is even further ahead. I think that the UK is in a similar situation to Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey; until these leaders decide that it's time to step down, it's impossible to get them out by other means.

  An estimated 1.2M British live in the EU, which is slightly less than the number of British living in Australia. 

  I'm not so sure that this would have made a big difference. The Brits that I have had the misfortune to meet in Dubai have been rabid Eurosceptics (a lot of the British diaspora here seems to be a younger version of the Brits in Spain - especially with the way they just take over certain areas like the Marina and Jumeriah Beach Residence, turning them in to British-themed enclaves, even having their own British-style curry houses because the genuine Desi restaurants don't taste like "real" curry and are also "full of foreigners").     Bit of a sweeping generalisation, but I would be very surprised if the majority of British people living in Australia, New Zealand, and the US, would have gone in to the referendum with a different view on the EU to the Brits living in their little bit of Old Blighty on the Spanish Coast, or the the ones here in Dubai.

At least lorry drivers (and people in the hospitality industry too) are getting a payrise. Maybe the UK will have Swiss-levels of salaries after 10 years 

I have to say that I did not expect to see this - BBC are reporting lorry drivers have had up to a 25% pay rise, and elsewhere I am seeing that there are raises of 4-18% depending on sector for other workers.

  Oh yes! Suggs was a childhood idol of mine 

  I used to be a season ticket holder at the Valley, and whilst I would sing along to the chants and cheer when Charlton scored a goal, I never regressed in to a tribal state but perhaps having an ASD helps prevent it. 

  I seem to recall the Germany vs Poland game in Dortmund a few years ago when Germany hosted the World Cup felt very hostile, probably not helped by Polish politicians demanding more reparations in the build up to that match.  

  Yes, so for example on my car if using the factory SatNav, arrows will be displayed inside the speedo on the dashboard and the map will be displayed on the stereo's screen, but when using CarPlay the Waze/TomTom/etc. map will only be displayed on the stereo's main display and not inside the speedo.