Toad in a hole in the UK is a vastly different dish of sausages baked into a Yorkshire pudding

This is only if you are a British national. Admitted I only scanned through the OP’s post, but I didn’t see anything other than a comparison with the French system.

What are defining by ‘universal’ though? Universal across ALL humans? Well clearly no because there are tribes which have isolated traditions and beliefs surrounding particular things that we find revolting.

Even if there was something that EVERY group of humans found reprehensible, there are still going to be individuals that will do it.

I find it hard to believe that they will be receiving anyone larger than a glorified PT boat. Certainly nothing larger than a frigate.

Of which there are plenty of that class up and down the Danube.

There are other ways into the Black Sea…

Edit: rather than just downvoting, why not consider that the Danube exists and is plenty of patrol boats/frigates based up and down it by Ukraine friendly nations.

Have you been paying attention in the past 5 years?

Didn’t happen in a vacuum though, did it.

Do not confuse me saying that with sympathising with Hamas. It is possible to recognise that both sides have bloody hands, and have done for decades.

Exactly.

It’s not nerves, but ligaments and tendons that are linked, in basic terms.

What I know is that there isn’t a microscopic teapot between earth and the sun.

The movement of what appears to be BTR4 across the Dnipro is interesting.

BTR4 is generally considered to be one of Ukraine’s most capable platforms, but very thin in number. They were thin in number at the start of the 2022 invasion and suffered what seemed to be heavy losses despite their effectiveness. Who remembers those videos showing the thermal screens inside a vehicle absolutely massacring Russian infantry and pounding their armoured support? Those were from a BTR4 in Mariupol.

Their deployment in this fashion is really good to see as it means that Ukrainian commanders either feel that they’re going to be successful in strengthening and widening their bridgehead or that they’ve been able to ramp up production and are able to afford the losses of the type by risking it in these types of high risk missions. Or both.

This isn’t necessarily a message to transgender people as individuals, but more a message to their followers that they cannot use their religion as an excuse for their bigotry and ignorant hatred.

Just because it may not make a difference overnight it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a step in the right direction.

It’s a native feature in W11 now.

Yes. This is a inflammatory headline purely to try and push an agenda.

There was literally a poll a couple of months ago that showed something like 80% of Ukrainians were in favour of not having elections.

Not to even mention that Ukraine is under Marshall Law, and per their laws disallows elections. And don’t even get me started on the entire premise of running elections in a country where a quarter of the landmass is under enemy occupation and the logistics of getting votes from 100s of thousands of deployed troops and the serious security concerns of the election itself from Russian attacks.

In my opinion Newsweek have just outed themselves here and the question is for who?

Awww how sad.

You need to take the time to regulate. If you don’t then it just ends up in a meltdown at best, and a total shutdown at worst.

And I’m sure everyone would rather you just swerved a social event that deal with that. I know for me, at least, I’m utterly done mentally and emotionally for a couple of days after a shutdown.

I will hopefully assume your wife knows that you’re autistic and your needs. Just tell her that you’ve gone none-stop for two weeks and that you’re at critical point for regulation. If you can, might be worth taking sick leave from work.

Whilst the arrival of F16 and Grippen will help, it isn’t going to be some magic bullet wonder system that will win the war for Ukraine.

They have been rocking HIMARS for about a year at this point, Lepoards, Challenger2, Bradley, Patriot, Gepard, Excalibur etc from their allies. Not to mention the home grown/home developed systems that have achieved parity and even arguably surpassed the Russian Naval impact from the Black Sea. And yet they’re still at the point where they’re pretty much at an attritional grind. Russia has done well to adapt to much of these systems and tactics, using the last winter as an example of where they shifted focus from trying to gain ground to simply holding what they have (a-la Germany following the strategic failure of Op Michael).

I will steadfastly support Ukraine and strongly believe that Russia absolutely needs to be stopped and shown that their Imperial actions cannot be allowed. But we also need to be realistic and realise this isn’t as easy as we want it to be. That Russia aren’t the complete drooling fools that we want to believe them to be.

The autumn in Ukraine this year has been unusually dry from the reports that I’ve heard, so it depends entirely on whether that continues through to and throughout the winter.

This is something that I’ve been thinking about and came to the realisation of the last couple of months.

And this is exactly what Russia’s objective was after the disaster of last year. Politically and strategically is the best they can hope for. Drag it out and Ukraine’s allies and the world will get tired and stop caring. They’ll stop supplying weapons, and sanctions will soften, maybe even start leaning towards supporting or feeling sorry for Russia. Something that were already seeing with Slovakia cutting all aid to Ukraine and taking a ‘war is bad, negotiate peace’ stance that is a blatant and thinly veiled Russian supportive line. Which is funny since their new govt is Russia leaning.

US are also starting to waver recently with the whole House Speaker débâcle. And Poland/Ukraine relations are a little frosty at the minute too.

That’s before you even talk about the Russian strikes on the Ukrainian/Romanian border that are being almost ignored in relation to their severity. Or the Russian mining of the Black Sea. Or Russian missiles flying paths over Maldova on their way to Ukraine. It’s a piss take. And only a matter of time unless the world pulls its finger out.

Autism is where I think that this get difficult, and where I think a lot of the responses might miss.

Gaming is really seems to be a ‘specisl interest’, especially if it’s one game in particular. And taking that away without any replacement isn’t good, since it’s what your brain needs to self regulate. It’s not so much an addiction as nicotine or alcohol can be, but more like food, or hydration. You need a method of regulation.

If you’re worried about the effects of gaming specifically, then the only thing is to find another special interest that grips you in the way that games/that game does. It sounds like you have an idea already on what that might be. All I can say is that you should try and throw yourself into it head first!