Tar

There are those who say A R is tainted (tax issues over property), unsuited (in pretty much every way one can think of), lacking in gravitas, dignity and restraint (all Tories are s c u m) and something of a joke (those images of a pasty, flabby occupant of a rubber dinghy smoking a spliff).

I couldn’t possibly comment.

When I’ve just tapped on the tracking link?

Why doesn’t THAT just go straight to the relevant information?

Which, by the way, was the staggeringly useless ‘We haven’t got it yet’ message with nothing further.

Don’t bother supplying tracking if it’s going to be like this.

I wonder that the BBC dares to sound its own trumpet in this way.

Jimmy Saville. They were deeply complicit in a decades long silence that permitted him to carry on unhindered. What about THOSE victims? Where was the truth then?

Cliff Richard. They were wrong. Plain, flat-out wrong.

The government p aedo phile ring? They believed a men tally ill fantasist. Turned out they were also completely wrong about that, too. No verification at all while they were naming names and it took a long, long time before they stopped.

Refusing to cover the northern grooming gangs story until they had no choice, because others were, even though they were among the first to know about it. They STILL don’t want to cover this story.

The air strike on a Gazan hospital? They didn’t verify THAT. That turned out to be a Hamas rocket that went astray, NOT an Israeli missile. Very quick to be wrong, glacially slow to grudgingly admit the mistake. Suited their narrative.

The editing of the Trump speech. Not only are they believing reports they shouldn’t, NOT fact checking, but in that instance they were actually manufacturing a story.
Samir Shah’s apology for that rates as one of the greats when it comes to non-apologies…….

The BBC gleefully pursues the Andrew formerly known as Prince, but conveniently forgets Jimmy Saville, who enjoyed their silence and protection for so many years, so enough pious nonsense about safe guarding.

So you can’t trust this lazy, cut-and-paste approach to journalism. In fact one could scarcely even call it journalism.
If they don’t like it, they don’t cover it.
If the truth is getting in the way of a good story, they tell the good story.
If the story doesn’t support their agenda, they modify the story until it does.
If they are wrong, an admission of the fact has to be dragged out of them.
When they say there are lessons to be learned, clearly, time after time, it turns out they have not learned them.

The appalling arrogance that says only the BBC is righteous, in possession of the truth, in a position to determine right from wrong, fact from falsehood and that all other sources should be disregarded……

…..and they WILL not see it. Cannot see it. They talk about the Westminister Bubble, but cannot see they exist in one of their own, an awful combination of wilful, ideological blindness and a sly furthering of an extreme agenda that cares nothing for journalistic integrity.

I own a Fujifilm X-T1. I was hoping to be persuaded by what I saw, and to some extent I was, but:

I love the look of the XE5, but no weather seals? And the body on the cable in the shop looked scuffed around the top plate. It looked easy to scuff. A price of £1299? Might as well buy the X-T5.

But the X-T5 is a big, brutal looking lump. An ugly design in both black or silver. Larger and heavier than my graphite finish X-T1, which is a much prettier design.
This camera will need a grip making it larger and heavier, moving away from small and light in a way I don’t much like.

The boy in the shop didn’t know if the X-Pro3 was discontinued and whether or not it would be replaced. I don’t want to waste time in a high end photo boutique with clueless sales personnel.

Conclusion? If it had been weather sealed the X-E5 would have been of interest. The cameras were very expensive. Build was good, but it wasn’t extraordinary; That it wasn’t extraordinary was quite evident.

The arrangement in the store meant I could not insert my memory card and shoot a few frames, nor could I use my own lens (doubtless if I’d asked…..) but the aforementioned salesman put me off. That kind of pointless interaction wastes time and grates on the nerves.

I think I’ll hold on awhile longer with my X-T1.

Frankly, if Fuji keep on like this I may drift away to a Panasonic LUMIX S9 mk2 or something of that kind. I’ve been waiting a long time for something better and increments don’t interest me.

We didn’t particularly wants it, my precious.

Maybe I’m getting old.

And all you are talking about is the Scottish whiskey industry and adult illiteracy?

Have you taken leave of your senses?

Coming from Ebay following a link you first have to tell them not to track you, then tap in your post code, then the information you find is worse than useless.

Evri’s site is slow. Why, when you have a link from your purchase on EBay, do you then need to input your post code?

All this takes time, is the opposite of fast, informative and convenient.

Evri is returning to the bad old days of, what was it, Hermes?

Starmer knew EXACTLY who Lord Mandelson was from the very beginning.

Now he’s throwing him to the wolves (pity the wolves) to divert attention from his recent Iron Man event in China, a kowtowing marathon that exceeds even David Cameron’s record.

Yes, Mandelson should go, but so should the Prime Minister, for epic hypocrisy.

The Andrew formerly known as Prince is pursued to the ends of the earth……

…while the Roth erham gr oom ing ga ngs will never see the inside of a prison cell.

Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the BBC…….

This is like throwing a toddler into a shark tank.

Is there anyone out there who believes Starmer could negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag equipped with a chain saw?

He got nothing. We all know it.

But what will he have given away?

The family silver?

The keys to the kingdom?

This was done behind closed doors. We may never know.

Needless to say any deviation from a fairly extreme left wing orthodoxy is instantly removed from the listings.

There is no appeal in these cases, regardless of what Trust Pilot claims.

If one does dare to question this fully automatic, criminally lazy process then an even lazier, even more criminally lazy response comes through 4 or 5 days later suggesting your language or tone made others feel ‘unsafe’ or ‘disrespected’, and wasn’t ’inclusive.’

This is typically signed by an apparently human operative giving the impression that the entire process has some sort of human oversight, but it is painfully apparent that is not the case AT ALL.

Trust Pilot is not, therefore, a neutral or disinterested arbitrator.
It has a distinct and quite obvious bias which goes some way beyond moderating obviously unreasonable or potentially abusive reviews.
Interesting, though, that an A.i. can have a bias. Is this programmed? Or based on what the digital dunderhead deduces to be a majority view based on that idiots paradise the World Wide Web?

Either way, reviews of a certain persuasion are removed with a sinister rapidity that is genuinely an affront to free speech and obscures the stated mission statement of Trust Pilot, that is to inform potential customers and clients of the reliability and trustworthiness of products and services offered out there in the real world (as opposed to the far left digital playpen the Trust Pilot crew apparently live in).

Often wildly inaccurate and slow to update, but the layout worked very well and was easy to see at a glance.
But they’ve been tinkering. Bored-in-the-office monkeys changing things for no particular reason.
The new look is worse. We dislike it intensely - it isn’t a matter of getting used to it, it’s worse.
It used to be possible to have several locations stored, but now only 3 as we discovered a few days ago and it appears this isn’t a glitch, it’s a newly imposed limitation.
This is the BBC all round. Hopelessly illiterate in the digital world, slow to react, behind the pack and always making a poor service worse whenever it possibly can.

We have switched to the Met Office App. Also free, and already, quite obviously, much more accurate and dependable - over the past 3 days it was right and the BBC was wrong.
It doesn’t forecast as far ahead, but then the BBC weather inaccuracy was legendary, so this is probably wise.
Graphically we don’t love the Met Office display, but may get used to it (I think we will).

Why oh why is the BBC so damned hopeless? The cack-handed amateurism is an embarrassment. If ever one needed evidence that the entire edifice has been captured, hollowed out and devoured by lazy BYTs whose central philosophy is ‘good enough’, then this is it.

Good communication. No nonsense.

Or it would be if the Prime Minister’s fit of patriotism wasn’t so uncharacteristic (and likely short-lived).

I suggest if there was really a desire to do something for our armed forces, especially given we may need them soon, then ending all these enquiries would be a good start.

I bought the original X-100. When the market was swimming in 16 and 18 megapixel cameras this little 12 mp compact thumped the lot of them especially in low light and for focussing accuracy.

It bucked the mindless megapixel race which, even then, was beginning to lose credibility.

Megapixel count is NOT an accurate measure of actual resolution.

Like Canon’s full frame 5d d-SLR, the affordable version we all wanted never arrived.

Fuji has jumped on the megapixel bandwagon. I own and use an X-T1 and twice I’ve borrowed an X-T5. It feels cheaply made. It’s larger and heavier. The images look no better, and in some ways worse than those from my X-T1.
I am obviously not going to buy such a camera.

Fuji’s medium format cameras are much too expensive.

Now I’m looking at Panasonic’s LUMIX S9. In many ways a horrible camera - also cheap build quality, no viewfinder and not much in the way of decent, affordable glass - but it out-resolves the best X series and is far better in low light, plus it is small.

Fuji has lost the plot.

Photographers want a better camera.

Not more bells and whistles. Not higher megapixel counts. Not larger and heavier cameras. Not higher prices and lower build quality. Made in China AND more expensive? GTFOOH.

For chrissake do one of the following:

A/ Make medium format digital more affordable.

B/ Embrace full frame.

C/ Use lower megapixel count sensors in X series aiming for lower noise/better dynamic range.

Something has gone badly wrong when a 40 mp sensor doesn’t clearly, comprehensively thump a 12 mp sensor.

A better camera.

Is that so very hard?

Much as I love to see Starmer running scared…..

….I know a s——T when I see one.

Trust Pilot’s human staff appear to be young, ignorant and lazy - they just rubber stamp A.i. decisions without reading the offending reviews and send bland form letters if anyone objects.

I suggested, for instance, that Liz Kendall and the Labour Party couldn’t care less about apps or safe guarding - they are merely using that as cover for an attack on X.

They are absolutely terrified of Elon Musk.

Pointing this out breaks none of Trust Pilot’s precious rules, yet the review was instantly removed.

Yet another argument against A.i.

A.i. is, it seems, far, far left…….

They are terrified of the platform which reaches far, far too many voters.
These bold defenders of free speech are desperate to shut it down.

Apps have nothing to do with it.

Nothing to do with any app.

Everything to do with the fact the Labour Party is very, very afraid of Elon Musk.

The BBC barely mentioned them until 8th January.

10 days!

Not only is this an appalling failure of an apparently world wide news service……. …….an excellent example of the BBC’s regular habit of omitting uncomfortable subjects/difficult topics……. ….yet another example of how the corporation has, to use current terminology, been ‘captured’ by zealots who may or may not be members of m ino rit y groups……. …..and finally has found itself paralysed with indecision because it no longer knows how just to present the news in a clear, balanced and unbiased fashion, but instead has to decide what kind of ‘spin’ to put on it (if it presents important world events at all); This results in delays in reporting that would be intolerable to REAL journalists and makes the BBC the last port of call for anyone really wanting to know what is going on in the world, if the public still feels they can truly trust a word the BBC has to say these days.

It is not the job of a news service to spin, flavour or colour their reporting; Nevertheless this is EXACTLY what the BBC does, all the time, morning, noon and night.

Discussions about whether or not the BBC is biased are the province of the incurably unhinged. The bias is naked, evident, impossible to ignore, there in every breath they utter and none of this is going away.

Charmless corporate operation staffed by BYTs, a menu that is difficult to read, inadequate seating, small portions and an insistence on card only.
Full breakfast looks like a starter.

It IS good to know, however, that it isn’t only the National Trust who can ruin a well-run cafe overnight…….

Lord, how we miss the Brownlow operation over by the Monument. Now that was a cafe done well.