parchedpeas

I imagine Baroness Mone would agree with you. Opinions differ. Here's what ChatGPT thinks of your reply. The emphasis is mine: The relationship between the UK and its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies is complex and nuanced. It's not entirely accurate to say that these jurisdictions exist solely to enrich the UK economy. These territories and dependencies do have financial sectors that often operate with lower tax rates and more lenient financial regulations. This can attract foreign investment, some of which might make its way back to the UK's financial sector, especially the City of London. However, it's an oversimplification to say that UK taxpayers would have to pay a lot more without these jurisdictions. Critics argue that tax havens can facilitate tax avoidance and evasion, thereby reducing public revenues. If companies and individuals are not paying their fair share of taxes because they are moving assets to these jurisdictions, then this could actually place a higher tax burden on ordinary UK taxpayers. So, while there may be economic benefits, there are also ethical and fiscal issues to consider. Anyway, I'll not derail the thread and I'll let you all get back on with beating up on the little people who make mistakes / try it on.

And it's all relative, isn't it? Are any of you crying about the UK taxpayers that are fleeced by the very existence of the Isle of Man and its business model? Didn't think so. Could be argued that you're all complicit in a very similar game. £30k is small fry. Stop punching downwards.

Liverpool fans look at the Premier League era and pray for a similar cancel-culture to be introduced.

Sorry, not sure I was clear and that must explain why you replied with a list of general-isms and softened your position from "no-go area" to "not no-go areas as such". So, back to it: where is the place that you have family that you (and, I assume, they) deem is a "no-go" area? You ask me if I travel and say "that it's easy to sit in the Isle of Man and believe that such reports are fanciful". Is it not also possible to ask if you travel? And if the answer is yes, then you can tell me where you've been where you've seen these "no go areas" and if the answer is no then I could easily respond that it's easy to sit in the Isle of Man and believe that such reports are true. The reason I ask is simple - you either know that this place exists and you can point me to it, or you're simply repeating stuff you've heard / read on the internet and pointing at a few other places such as Oldham (last census: almost 8 out of 10 people were White British) where there are issues of poverty but where, since the mills closed, there has always been issues of poverty. I don't expect I'll get a response. I never get a response.

Where is this place? Where is the area that has been "taken over"?

Power differentials since the dawn of time. See Ireland, Catholicism, MPs , Scouts etc. But, just like terrorism, Tommy's Paypal Patriots only get chippy when there is brown people involved. Suppose it's easier to monetize those ones.

Look at the other videos she posts. Here she is telling us that two women who were pelted with coins and harrassed by a group of boys because of their sexuality (the courts words, not mine) were not eing targetted because of their sexuality - basically she's just calling them attention seekers There are loads more videos there - including lots supporting Tommy Robinson. So basically another entitled right-wing shill. The type that probably callers herself "Christian". I make no comment on the Stu Peters thing, because I like him. But this is not your best example in his defence, Gladys. edit: Just for fun, I've attached her Twitter where she defends Milo Yiannopoulos, Katie Hopkins and Alex Jones. So on that basis I'll add this: if you are agreeing with this woman, you are siding with views shared by people like that. If that's where you want to be - fine - but know what you are doing and know who you are.

I won't start a new thread and I'll end this exchange with this, but consider the word "mainland" here on the Isle of Man. Its use and interpretation tells you an awful lot about the person who is using it and the reasons they are using it and their own interpretation of it, and their own expectations of how its use will be received. There is no "right" definition of it, and people can use and repurpose it to either assimilate with locals, or to antagonise them. The word and its definition don't belong to anybody - the context it is used in and the reason it is chosen are all that matters, not only the word itself.

Of course language has value, but it is subjective so it can never be right or wrong. Whether you comply or resist the societal lanugage "norms" is part of the communicative function. Accepting and defining one correct English is as much a political statement as deviating from a standard is. In short, relax and embrace the difference.

You can't destroy something that isn't owned. Language is a function, not an object. If words need to be torn to pieces so that language can function then that's what will happen. And that's a good thing.

Basically this. When you wonder where all the money goes, and how life this year is a little bit worse and a little bit harder than it was last year you just need to look at the grandstanding arses that crave the attention of a DAILY briefing so that they can attach their own personal 'thoughts and prayers' to the words that could have been printed on a side of A4 and sent in a fax. The whole collaboration between layers of unnecessary "national" governance and layers of unnecessary "national" journalists is an afront to real life. They both exist to enable each other, and they are doing it at OUR expense. Would life really be much worse if we abolished both? edit: to add, I've come across as one of the dastardly "libertarians" in this post. I'm not. We need more redistribution and more funds put back into the people of the island. This charade at the top just sucks money out of the system that could be doing a lot - an awful lot - to make our actual lives better.

Hating on teachers is so lame. They have to work with the dregs that you lot send them.

Music education is not about teaching instruments (although that is perhaps part of it). It's about teaching a love of music and exposing people to different styles that they may not have heard elsewhere. It's about showing the form and the structure of the music, how it works and why it works. It's not and should not be simply trumpet lessons. It's infintely more important than remebering facts to regurgitate. We can't do much else right over here, why don't we double down in music and make our kids the best in Britain? We're hardly spitting out brain surgeons are we?

I do admire your defence of the station, Stu, but this is such a patronising statement and so divorced from reality. There is some tremendous content on youtube and in podcast form that people are serving up basically for free. The idea that we couldn't outsource the creation of great content and save money is for the birds. Look at the way that tonnes of telly is being produced during COVID19 - people are literally broadcasting from their living rooms - Global and Bauer doing the same. The world is changing to accommodate the new reality and I wonder if it even needs to change back afterwards. You don't need sit sit on Douglas Head to introduce a record by All Saints and reminisce about the 90s. And I'm not sure you need £1 million quid to do it either.

If you gave me £3 million quid to produce 3 years worth of radio, I'd bite your hands off. 12 hours of content @ £100 an hour (7am-7pm), 365 days a year costs £438,000. Kids are making this stuff in their bedrooms, now. For clicks and ad commission. Are you telling me we can't tempt a few Manx kids to knock out some programming for the "nations station", even if we offer them £100 an hour? Of course we can.

The gains from doing business here are getting fewer and fewer. I'm not going to say the "B" word. But you know the rest.

She's not seeing the end of an airline here, she's seeing an opportunity to build a new bridge to Liverpool.

The TT is one of the biggest gay festivals in the country already. All those repressed men. All that leather. Surely this is just the next logical step?

The revamp makes a better case than I ever could for funding the news / public service element separately and allowing it to be taken by anyone who wants to take it. Do we really need to be paying for the other stuff? But - and there's a huge but - that doesn't mean we should reduce the cash available to pay for Manx / Cultural content. If anything, we should be looking to increase the amount available. Production costs for audio have never been lower - it can be done to a good standard in a kids bedroom! - so four kids from the Isle of Man College, each given £25k a year to go and make some Manx stuff, with a producer sitting over them on £35k would produce more speech 'radio' and more cultural content than the current arrangement does. And if a liberated Manx Radio - now operating on the same basis as 3FM - wanted to take that content, then it could use it for free. For £200k you'd have replicated the radio output and you'd have £500k to spend on other stuff. The problem is - as we see in the railways - people won't kill the sacred cows that really should be killed.

And when they die? Then you'd be on here saying "why didn't Manx Radio grow their listener base". The way to do this - without wanting to be boring over and over again - was to leave the radio to tick over as it was and to expand into content such as podcasting and video. They've started, but it's all a bit half-arsed.

It's pretty painful stuff to listen to, though. The kids don't really have much to say and the interviewer does not really know what to ask.

Why does the boy Brindley always get the kicking on here? Looks like the change came in after the new MD showed up!

Just want to clarify that further up thread, I wasn't saying Manx Radio was rubbish - although bits of it are not at all to me taste - I was saying that the report by that woman was rubbish.

It's rubbish. From pretty much start to finish.

You moan when they don't sound Manx and then you moan when they do.