I'd favour Brett for a girl, Brett for a boy, but that's not very likely.

I hope newspapers like the Guardian and Independent will be checking government press releases and other announcements very carefully over the next couple days. There is bound to be something there far more newsworthy than "Pregnant woman gives birth to baby". It really is a joke of a system that means that this baby will already have been picked out as certain to become head of state (barring a sudden abandonment of fawning sycophancy from the British public) some time after I am dead.

Oh, and as for names, Kevin Wayne Rodney for a boy, Chardonnay Tracy Tiffany for a girl.

I hope newspapers like the Guardian and Independent will be checking government press releases and other announcements very carefully over the next couple days. There is bound to be something there far more newsworthy than "Pregnant woman gives birth to baby". It really is a joke of a system that means that this baby will already have been picked out as certain to become head of state (barring a sudden abandonment of fawning sycophancy from the British public) some time after I am dead.

 

All the sentimental claptrap about Lady Di has started too :/

 

At work this morning one of the directors (woman in her 50s) said "Diana will be so proud looking down from heaven"

 

Good job i was not eating i think i would have thrown up.

 

I am going to avoid all news channels and papers next few days

I hope newspapers like the Guardian and Independent will be checking government press releases and other announcements very carefully over the next couple days. There is bound to be something there far more newsworthy than "Pregnant woman gives birth to baby". It really is a joke of a system that means that this baby will already have been picked out as certain to become head of state (barring a sudden abandonment of fawning sycophancy from the British public) some time after I am dead.

 

The Guardian has already done its bit, in true Guardian fashion, by offering its readers a Republican version of its homepage, aka one which scrubs all royal baby stories.

I've said before that I don't mind having a practically powerless monarchy as I can't abide the idea of having a president. However I'll be trying to avoid the vast majority of the coverage - I'll be almost interested in the name given we're most likely stuck with this thing some time in the future but I couldn't give two shits about the weight, whether it was a Caesarean or if it has gills.

 

Saying that, it makes a change from the constant "it's really hot" stories.

Also, I love that this is what's currently more popular on the BBC News site:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-23403935

All the sentimental claptrap about Lady Di has started too :/

 

At work this morning one of the directors (woman in her 50s) said "Diana will be so proud looking down from heaven"

 

Good job i was not eating i think i would have thrown up.

 

I am going to avoid all news channels and papers next few days

It was that sort of fawning over the royals that first made me declare my support for a republic when I was about ten or eleven. As I got older, my argument became rather more well developed.

 

At least with the papers, you can just skip the pages of dross although I hope the Guardian will be more restrained than most. After all, what is there to say?

The Guardian has already done its bit, in true Guardian fashion, by offering its readers a Republican version of its homepage, aka one which scrubs all royal baby stories.

Unfortunately, it doesn't extend to the latest news ticker but I have abandoned the BBC website in favour of the Guardian for the duration.

It was that sort of fawning over the royals that first made me declare my support for a republic when I was about ten or eleven. As I got older, my argument became rather more well developed.

 

At least with the papers, you can just skip the pages of dross although I hope the Guardian will be more restrained than most. After all, what is there to say?

 

Yeah I wish the baby a healthy life from a human point of view but I just resent the fact that the baby and its family rule over us and live unrivalled luxury at our expense simply because of birth, at least a president even a ceremonial one is chosen by the people democratically and anyone stands a chance of being president in principle, I find it wrong on so many levels that this kid and its family are lording it over us simply because they were born to.

I've said before that I don't mind having a practically powerless monarchy as I can't abide the idea of having a president.

*.*

 

Yeah, I'm not mad keen on the monarchy at all, but it does annoy me when people seem to act as if getting rid of the monarchy would usher in a new golden age of equality when such an action would be symbolic at best for all the trouble and time it would take to get rid of them.

 

I AM enjoying the Guardian's republican homepage though.

Its a boy

So what announcements have been made on the day of the local election results? Here are few...

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/23...html?1400851472

 

To the surprise of nobody, they've done it again. Having forced the BBC to publish details of various employees' salaries the government knew that they had a good opportunity to slip out some bad news and that's exactly what they have done. They have announced that the increase in the state pension age to 68 will happen seven years earlier than originally planned. It will now happen in 2037.

As longevity seems to have stopped increasing along with the NHS response ability and increase in dementia, it can't be long before they put retirement up to match life expectancy. Old people making the decisions for all those younger people on the assumption that they will live longer than the current generations retiring earlier. I mean I was pissed off my state pension went up to 66 without asking me (labour government by the way) so I'm sure younger folks are besides themselves about it...

To the surprise of nobody, they've done it again. Having forced the BBC to publish details of various employees' salaries the government knew that they had a good opportunity to slip out some bad news and that's exactly what they have done. They have announced that the increase in the state pension age to 68 will happen seven years earlier than originally planned. It will now happen in 2037.

 

I'd be 72 by then anyway...

Didn't watch it, no interest in this ridiculous Royal Soap Opera...

 

What really pisses me off though is the way the Police acted about any potential "disruptions" by Republicans wanting to just go out and voice their protests... Pre-emptive arrests, exclusion orders and the break-up of a small demo by Gay Rights activists in Soho Square, which was actually outside the "Exclusion Zone"... It seems no one is allowed to have a difference of opinion at a f**king Royal Wedding....

 

Who's country is this anyway...? <_<

I know this is old, old news, but as this thread is near the top I will reply.

 

I totally agree with this and everything else being said in this thread. What the bloody hell hey?!, the thousands of police at this wedding in comparison to the 100s when the riots happened that year.... nice to see public safety so high up on the agenda!.

 

What makes the Royals think we should like them?, they are total parasites and everything they do takes over the rest of the news. We are entitled to an opinion and I dont like them. This is our country, not theirs and only theirs, everyone in a country is fully entitled to say it's theirs. Ever since this wedding, the media have been gushing over them worse than ever..... pictures of Kate shopping at Tesco, William supporting Aston Crapper, MSN reporting on even on trivial things such as somebody playing Lacrosse while we have to feed another one of their mouths.

 

I'm sick of it. When I was a kid, I loved the film "Airplane" and when it's star Leslie Nielsen died, it got a small thumbnail sized article, while those fu*k norks took up 99.9 percent of the rest of the two spread!.

Edited July 19, 20177 yr by LadyLea

All the sentimental claptrap about Lady Di has started too :/

 

At work this morning one of the directors (woman in her 50s) said "Diana will be so proud looking down from heaven"

 

Good job i was not eating i think i would have thrown up.

 

I am going to avoid all news channels and papers next few days

One of my "So called friends" at the time came out with the same Diana claptrap, she then changed her Facebook header photo to a Union Jack.........

 

Billy Bragg's song about that flag I then posted the YouTube link of on my Facebook feed, only for her to unfriend me cos of it.

The difficulty no-one in government seems to take into account when raising retirement age is that the system we have of employment is set up so that people retire at a certain age in order to vacate their jobs for others to take, and in the case of managers, for those under them each to move one step up the chain.

 

Making retirement age later, well and good, but then you have an extra year of a person who would have taken their job when they retired being out of a job, unless there are huge initiatives put in place at the same time to create new jobs. That's something we should really be focusing on as a nation. Instead of letting there remain a finite number of jobs for everyone to fight over, giving the result that some people will ALWAYS be unemployed and claiming jobseeker's.

To the surprise of nobody, they've done it again. Having forced the BBC to publish details of various employees' salaries the government knew that they had a good opportunity to slip out some bad news and that's exactly what they have done. They have announced that the increase in the state pension age to 68 will happen seven years earlier than originally planned. It will now happen in 2037.

 

It's not surprising state pension age will increase, it'd have to be done sooner or later given life expectancy increases. The way it's been announced isn't good though.

Edited July 19, 20177 yr by Envoirment