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Seems I may need to requisition the Junior Sootmonster as a courtesy car…..

Rather tend to agree. Seems to me that 50% of the population have spent far too much of history looking to be treated equally. And just as they start to get there (it is still anything but equal even in the UK - more so in some social groups than others - let alone the rest of the planet) a small but vocal and violent group of activist people, people who already have more specific protections than I or my women friends, come along and argue that some of those hard won womens' rights should be taken away. Hmmm. I'm not entirely sure what misgendering is, I've always just addressed individuals in the manner in which they chose to be addressed. But compared to many of the ills I see out on the streets of my city it would seem to be rather lower down the priority list for filling the statute books, courts and public budgets.

Perhaps not. I don't necessarily think she's doing it to dodge tax (I genuinely believe she thinks she is trying to do the right thing), but her particularly vocal activism achieves the same end: blaming a minority to distract everyone from the rich shafting everyone else. For what it's worth, I personally agree with yorkshire spam on this one. I work in children's mental health services, and trans children have the highest rates of death by suicide of any group we see (and these are kid kids, we had an 11yr old last year). The latest study I read (2022) found that 82% of trans children have considered suicide, and 40% have attempted it. When asked why, the single biggest factor in them wanting to end it all was a lack of societal acceptance (especially among family and friends). To dedicate your life to making these people's lives even shitter is just ghoulish. That's why people accuse her of 'literally killing trans people' as she put it in that article. Because the biggest driver in them killing themselves is people not accepting them...and she's gone out of her way to convince as many people as she can that we shouldn't accept them. Even if you think the entire thing is a fabrication and these people are deeply mentally ill...how does that justify trying to make their situation worse? And it's not helped by the fact that practically every argument brought forth about it is just transparently bunk. If a man wants to sexually assault a woman...they just do it. We see this plain as day in the crime statistics. They don't need to go through the rigmarole of pretending to be trans to get into a women's toilet...they just walk in. I work quite closely with sexual abuse services, and this is overwhelmingly the case in the work they see. If you've already decided you're going to sexually assault someone, do you really think you'd give a flying monkeys about using the wrong toilet door? In fact, that's not usually the way they do it at all, they usually abuse family members or people they have some sort of leverage over, hence why you see higher rates in places like the church or institutions. Oh, and if it wasn't already shit enough being a trans person you're 4x more likely to be sexually assaulted yourself than an average member of the public. Perhaps I need shooting too I figure that you're always going to have kids who try to cause havoc. In my day they'd be bunking off to smoke weed with the local pothead and set fire to the wheelie bins. Actually, who am I kidding. In my day they'd have been sectioned, put in a mental institution, and left to rot there for 40 years while everyone else carried on about their day. And my day isn't all that long ago.

Billy Connolly joke - after Steven Wright "My grandfather was a strange man. He had artificial legs....   .... and real feet"

As we say around these parts.... shite... I'll bet that must have been a surprise! Fingers crossed for a satisfactory outcome...

Bugger !!

In Norway at the moment and it shows that they are still quietly benefiting from the North Sea oil and gas bonanza. Having banked the funds.    they can even afford to keep the lights on at night. 

And now for something completely different! Thanks to Brexit, the benefits of the Schengen Agreement are available no longer to us Brits, and we must follow the new EU Entry/Exit System, which includes providing 'biometric' details, including fingerprints, on going in or out of Europe!   The RAC have published a 'help' page about it, at: EU Entry/Exit System (EES): all you need to know | RAC Drive  but even after reading that, I'm not clear if all this data gathering will take place at the border, or by post or email before you go. While the first is going to delay travel, the second would require prolonged exchanges.   Either way, make your plans in good time! John  

New parts arrived today. But….. …… this puts a different slant on things.  Failed yesterday evening whilst in the care of SM when the tail gate was slammed shut.  Root cause seems to be that the bolts holding the rear wiper mechanism, whose spindle passes through the glass, had worked loose so its weight was being taken by the glass.  Glass seems unavailable new through the normal aftermarket channels. Autoglass are on the case, but are saying dealer network only. This is unpromising as Audi have obsoleted pretty much everything for the C4 A6. They’ve not given up yet but I’ve a nasty feeling I’ll have to find another tailgate (not common!!) and probably paint it. Need a 4 seater car next week and this is the only one in the immediate fleet…… Arse!  Family luck really not great just now