mike carey

Oh, so you did, I had thought the subjunctive mood was prohibited in the US by federal law.

It's a well to remember that the article in the OP refers to population-wide statistics for syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. As interesting as this conversation has been, and as important as raising the factors that have been discussed is, what MSM do or don't do is going to play a minimal role in these statistics. I suspect that was what @Kurtis Wolfe was alluding to in his terse comment about maths. I noticed that one of the examples used in the article was the huge increase in congenital syphilis, that is an infected mother passing it on to a new-born child. I only read through the article once but there was no reference to STIs other than the three on which the article was based.

It was 'staged', as he was running he was following a car that was projecting the target position of where he needed to be to stay on a two-hour pace. He also had several teams of multiple pace-makers running with him. They weren't co-competitors but rather they were there purely to assist him..

Exactly, it has demonstrated that the idea that it couldn't be done in under two hours was wrong, not that two hours had any special significance. Interestingly (to me) when this was discussed in the Sunday morning sport panel here, one of the panelists noted that at the Athens Olympics in 1896 the race was won in 2 h 58' 50" and that was over 40km (25 miles). The current distance is that of the 1908 games, where it was the distance from Windsor Castle to the spot on the track in front of the Royal Box at White City Stadium. The distance wasn't standardised until 1921.

There was an interesting segment on the news last night (and it was on the public broadcaster so there's almost certainly no commercial spin to the coverage). 5G is just starting to roll out here and so far it's only in a small proportion of the major metropolitan areas. If you're looking to upgrade your device you need to consider when the service will be available, not only where you live but also to places you might visit regularly. I'm sure the device would be able to maintain a connection on a legacy network, but there is less reason to upgrade if half the time it'll be using 4G. One point the segment raised that I had never considered was the example of Korea. There, they found that data rates on 4G improved significantly when 5G became available because all the heavy users upgraded leaving more capacity for the rest. It becomes a question of whether you actually need the higher speeds or if it's just a sort of cyber dick measuring contest.

Good question, I logged out of RM and it still was inaccessible. Never seen that before.

Regional accents are not inomprehensible to other people in the UK. Anyone who cannot be understood widely would not be employed. The broadcasters know what they are doing.

That's one way of putting it. RP is still a thing, it's just not the only voice that is heard on the BBC. Bad grammar and enunciation are separate issues but accepting regional accents is an acceptance that they are a valid representation of the way British people speak. Sir Michael Parkinson never lost his Yorkshire accent and he was more authentic for keeping it. A homogenised American standard accent seems now to be more a requirement in the US than RP is in the UK. In this country, the ABC has gone from all-white and male presenters on radio and television, speaking in something close to RP to a diversity of voices and faces, and the ABC hasn't lost any of its heft as a serious broadcaster.

Nonya food is one of the delights of life.

Even if it is standard in a given version of English, I'm not sure that it can be called 'correct' rather than just 'standard', especially if other pronunciations are 'standard' in other versions of the language.

Try saying oo-ich quickly and see how that comes out.

An Irish drag queen. He alter ego Rory O'Neill usually has a less 'forced' enunciation. Her initial notoriety was brought about by a short speech she made at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. She was later a prominent campaigner in the Irish equal marriage referendum.

It's not a separate syllable, it's more, as @bostonman said, an aspirated sound, as if you were starting to say an h sound and switching to the w sound before you finish the h.

The Oxford Dictionary site has it without any h sound at the front, and that's how it is spoken in Australian English. The initial h is often present in Scots and Irish usage, I've noticed it in particular in Panti Bliss' speech (her enunciation is usually somewhat exaggerated). Your question referred to the wh- question words, and while [hwile?] it applies to which, what, where and whither, I've never heard it used in who.

IIRC it was reported that she said it when they were being interviewed together, although I haven't seen the interview.

There is a reasonably outspoken conservative Australian senator whose wife was quoted as saying their marriage has been so successful because they are both in love with the same man.

Sorry, I thought for a moment about using the word, but remembered there had been a discussion here of words for those devices, so decided to use my words!!!

Noting @tassojunior's comments, and also the possibility that at FLL there may be gay attractions rather than gay resorts, FLL may be a good choice for a long weekend in Feb. PSP is a small airport and cheap flights may be harder to find, and if you are thinking of going there in April it may be better to chose somewhere else for February.

These sorts of contaminants can appear in first world water supply systems. In 1998, Sydney had an occurrence of cryptosporidium and giardia in the water supply. It's not clear where it came from, but possibly from cattle or sheep farms in the catchment areas. People were advised to boil water, public bubblers were turned off. There were no known cases of infections but it created a public emergency nevertheless, or more to the point a political emergency.

I would have put a smiley face on this, but that would have detracted from the the sadness that you had to say it.

Completely understand that a lakeside winter is one of the driving forces for your decision, and April doesn't answer that question! That said, if you can afford the trip along with whatever other travel you are undertaking, you shouldn't be concerned about your shyness. There are very social restaurant and poolside meetings, some part of the 'formal' agenda and some [as the international political meetings put it] in the 'margins', or just impromptu afternoons or evenings out. The two resorts I have stayed at (Canyon Club [cheaper and a little 'tired'] and Inndulge [more expensive and that shows]) have a free light breakfast served by the pool that is a great opportunity to meet other guests, and both of those two have a substantial number (up to 10 each) of forum members as guests for the weekend.

Yep, when QF started flying SYD-DFW they used a 744, that worked outbound but they had a technical stop in BNE on the return flight. 788/9 would work, they begin BNE-ORD with that equipment next year and already fly PER-LHR,

A delightful view of the Indian Ocean!

Qantas seems to have a few heavy routes where it uses the A380s. SYD/MEL to LAX, SIN, HKG, SYD to LHR and SYD to DFW. I suspect the pax like them. Going heavy on premium cabins may well keep them profitable.

Totally unrelated to where the thread has gone, this about whether the A380 will continue to fly in Qantas colours (spoiler: it will). https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/australian-fashion-food-and-design-feature-on-board-upgraded-qantas-a380-fleet/ The type seems to be continuing to fly with a number of carriers. A friend of mine is flying to London from the US in premium economy on a BA A380 next month