What happened on 30th May 2023 - with your comments in the Web

On Tuesday, horrible 'toxic' caterpillars had spread across the UK. They can cause rashes and asthma.

Brits are being urged to look out for a 'dangerous' species of toxic caterpillar that can cause itchy skin rashes and asthma attacks. The 'oak processionary' is an invasive species of caterpillar that strips England's native oak trees of their leaves and poisons humans, horses and dogs. Experts warn that the species is most active during the summer months, so the public should be on the lookout for their huge communal nests of white silk.

This news is even more scary than last week monkeypox. For many people from South of Europe had their own unpleasant experience of interaction with those insects and try to warn Brits.

"They're rampant in Spain at this time of year but are called Processionary Caterpillars, they live in pine trees and conifers Very dangerous for dogs & asthma sufferers. Haven't seen any since I moved back in the UK though."

 "Dog owners need to be especially careful that the caterpillars do not grow on their own garden tress or when walking the dogs in parks with oak trees as when they start a procession if dogs try to lick them they are at grave risk of dying very quickly without veterinary intervention. Here in Spain they grow on pine trees their processions are in March and April each year and are well known to dog owners."

"Trees in southern France full of these quite awful things don’t let your pets hear them they can die, they are got rid of normally, and make a line like a long snake when in the ground to deter predators Just keep well clear." 

Some of Britons, however, blame newcomers for all new pests.

"More bloody immigrants from overseas creating havoc with our native flora and fauna.. Just like the horse chestnut leaf miner which devastates horse chestnut trees over the summer reducing their leaves to a brown crisp mess. " 

Some give rather useful advises though.

"Put sticky rings round the trees to catch them as they come down to pupate. "

Also on Wednesday, Londoners and visitors of the capital suffered from disruptions in tubes related to train strikes. New disruption is on the cards for public transport users, with rail strikes set to go ahead this week.

There are currently three national rail strikes scheduled by the ASLEF and RMT unions:

• Wednesday, May 31 (ASLEF)
• Friday, June 2 (RMT)
• Saturday, June 3 (ASLEF)

As with all strikes, negotiations can lead to things changing very rapidly, so check do check with National Rail or the Union websites for the latest information.

 

 

There are first passenger victims of these actions:

"Oh for fuck sake. This is the second time I half to get to Gatwick when there's a strike. Last time I had to get an Uber at 11pm and had no idea the strikes were on."

"London is massive and some people commute up to an hour or more just to get to work while living here, so delays do have significant impacts. It's not either/or: we should all want both national rail and inner-city transport to function properly and workers to be paid properly."

"London's public transport is incredibly busy and people are very reliant on it. Less than half of people in inner London have access to a car. In Manchester, it's 75%."

Yet, comments by residents of other UK cities were a bit irritated and downvoted by Londoners:

"Oh dear. Not to sound harsh, but when London complains about delays to a train service that normally runs every 2 minutes or so to travel a distance they could have walked anyway they get a taste of the travel issues 87% of the UK have to deal with daily.

Edit: queue the London centric downvotes."

"London is of course a densely populated, but the majority of the UK doesn't live or work in London.

If you moved parliament to Grimsby, you'd find it would magically get the most investment.

It's all well and good saying both not either or, but look at all the rail upgrades and links that were planned for everywhere else outside of London and then cancelled. How can everywhere matter if nowhere outside London matters?"

On Tuesday, once again, the BBC was criticized for trying to “skew” the independence debate after it published an article platforming young people’s views on the issue – without disclosing that the majority of the interviewees have run for election under Unionist party banners. 

It comes after the BBC published a story on its website on Tuesday afternoon under the headline: “Scottish independence: Is it still a priority for young Scots?” Three young people were interviewed in the piece – “SNP member” Luke Smith, “Labour supporter” Amy Lee Fraioli, and “Conservative member” Euan Blockley.

The BBC article failed to mention that Fraioli is a Labour staffer at the Scottish Parliament who in the 2022 local elections stood for the party in the Cambuslang East ward.

 In fact this article appeared to be full of manipulation, vagueness, and ambiguity.

If the main reaction at the BBC article was: "How the f*ck they managed to find a young Tory - Lol. That must have taken some effort so they can make a show of "balance"

Edit: Holy crap - he was a f*cking Tory Councillor!"

The National piece was met by readers with other emotions:

"A very old person now once told young people We won’t be fooled again. Doesn’t matter Who it was. The Beeb should listen up if they want credibility."

"When will people realise that the BBC 'skewing' a debate isn't news? It's their normal approach to things."

""Blockley, 25, said that there had been a wave of nationalism after the 2014 independence referendum, and added that voters are now motivated to remove a "very bad SNP government" But it was nothing like the "wave of nationalism" that swept through England in 2016 and still does, especially in Blockley's toxic and xenophobic separatist party that ripped us out of the EU against our will. Scottish voters have never voted for his party in almost seventy years, perhaps Blockley could explain just exactly how we can remove a very very bad Tory government?"

"John Pilger stated that the BBC was the most effective government propaganda system in the developed world. He was correct."

"I'm wondering why didn't they include a Scottish Green party member in their line-up? That would actually have allowed them to claim balance. Except it seems that they really don't care."

"BBC network, supposedly serving the whole of the UK ignores Scotland and presents independence as something bad far too often. It's mirrored by BBC Scotland, but the latter also seems to be staffed by a redtop-styled, sensationalist seeking team of so-called journalists who just don't get how to do impartial programmes." 

On Tuesday, we've also learned that more Brits ditch subscription streaming services due to prices rising.

Data from audience research body BARB says the number of UK households subscribing to at least one streaming service has fallen. Again.

BARB’s Establishment Survey has found 19.08 million homes had access to a streaming video-on-demand service during the first three months of the year. That’s 67.4% of homes. But the figure has fallen 1.7% from 19.42 million at the end of 2022. In early 2022, almost 20 million UK homes had access to a subscription streaming service.

The survey found Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video were the biggest losers, while NOW and Apple TV+ could still record gains in subscriber numbers.

Winners and losers

(Quarterly comparison Q1 2023 v Q4 2022. UK homes with access)

• Netflix: 16.96 million homes 🔽 DOWN 1.1% from 17.15 million homes
• Prime Video: 12.90 million homes 🔽 DOWN 1.7% from 13.12 million homes.
• Disney+: 7.14 million homes 🔽 DOWN 1.9% from 7.28 million homes.
• NOW: 2.03 million homes 🔼 UP 8% from 1.88 million.
• Apple TV+: 1.91 million homes 🔼 UP 13% from 1.69 million.

This raised a discussion among the Redditors, wondering why piracy is back now:

"In the last few months we’ve cancelled Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV and Now TV Entertainment. Prices just kept going up and there wasn’t enough quality content on most of them to justify it."

"The worst part is paying for some services but then knowing there's great shows on the services you haven't paid for. Unless you can afford all of them you'll be missing out on something"

"With so much content divided by individual providers, they've gone the same way as computer game launchers... with (almost) every franchise requiring its own subscription.

And it's about as popular amongst gamers too, who generally hate the launchers and find them fiddly, slow and a chore to work with. At least those are free mind you."

 "Steam, Spotify and Netflix used to be pretty much all you needed, and mass piracy kind of went away for a while, now it's back, I wonder why?"