Tom de la Mare

Could a match be any more Spursy?

The chosen ones: Government appoints six KCs to support Treasury Devil Attorney General Lord Hermer KC has appointed six silks to a new panel known as the Attorney General’s Senior Treasury Counsel Group. The six KCs will support the Treasury Devil, Blackstone Chambers’…

Treasury Imps? www.thelawyer.com/the-chosen-o...

Superb…

‘Always the coolest, calmest man in the room’: friends and film-makers remember Robert Redford Everybody loved Robert Redford. Directors and co-stars including Ralph Fiennes, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Judd Hirsch, Norman Reedus and F Murray Abraham explain why

Wow. As a triangulating set of comments on a man's best character (when he had so much to be conceited about, or worse), this takes some beating. What a man. Enough to bring a tear to the eye. More like him desperately needed: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

For any NGO that is upset it may be well worth getting a waste guru (not me, as haven’t done a landfill or waste case for about 10y) to have a good pick over!

Leachate is horrid stuff, particularly as landfills have less and less organic material. As a waste product there would need to be licensed handling, waste transfer notices, licensed disposal etc.

I don’t know the answer off the top of my head, but I suspect there is either an EA policy and consents authorising this (in which case it may be challenged by JR) or there are not, in which case, leachate being “waste” for the relevant regs, there may be potential criminal consequences.

What is the point in regulating leachate in a landfill permit (v strict control because of the dangers it poses to human life and environment if it escapes) only to allow it to be mixed with sewage in a plant that cannot treat its pollutants & then spread on land, only to leach into the watercourse?

Thousands of tonnes of toxic landfill liquid added to sewage and spread on English farms Exclusive: Leachate is tankered to treatment works where it mixes with sewage and industrial effluent

This story, if true, is a disgrace: www.theguardian.com/environment/....

The failure to provide a duty solicitor., who if worth their salt would have sorted this out, is a sadly common if egregious failing after legal aid cuts…

Man carrying home his gardening tools arrested by armed police in Manchester Samuel Rowe, who was returning from allotment, seeking to overturn caution for possession of offensive weapon

“First they came for the gardeners, and then they came for the carpenters” etc, etc. This is plainly ridiculous: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Lots of stand outs but I thought Leah Williamson was superb - not a foot wrong in the actual match. Even her saved penalty was decent producing a great save. Carter and Bronze also brilliant. Bronze also wins the “clearly most fun at a party award”.

Beautiful, admirable daylight robbery!

“She was a blonde who thought the law was cool, she studied it at Harvard Law School” etc etc. Did @barristersecret.bsky.social live tweet it?

Jonathan, not kind. Not kind at all.

U2? Easy listening/MoR Dad rock! One word you don’t use with them - taxing.

Finally something I can agree vigorously on with JRM.

Alf Dubs and Jacob Rees-Mogg: citizenship stripping is fundamentally unBritish Shamima Begum made grave mistakes. But she is our responsibility and no one else’s

Every word of this. www.ft.com/content/dcc4...

If anyone deserved to discover they had an original Magna Carta right now it is Harvard.

Jeeesh, that’s some potent bat shit.

And I thought you would have gone down the “gooseberry, raspberry” route…!

Blackfriars is pretty hard to beat for stations with views from the platform. Where else would you nominate?

I cannot argue with that. But it reflects most consumer behaviour I fear. I mean “Yellow tail”.

That, and BC.

Prohibition as a natural experiment? I do agree that the distinct taste profiles of whisky, whiskey, bourbon and rye bring a very distinct following given the stylistic segregation. But 200% tariffs is a hell of a SNIPS test…

Agreed, on English volumes.

And a competition economist would say they were fully substitutable FWIW within the broad categories of wine, beer and spirits and arguably beyond.

You are right but equally you could say the same of pretty much all alcoholic drinks, wine in particular. It is I suspect a niche point for those that care (I do) who are a relative minority of consumers.

Scotch at the expense of Irish whiskey in the US and at the expense of bourbon everywhere in the EU we can agree on?

Last point definitely agreed. Some are not so small these days. And some are owned by the French….