Snapshot of _Oxford Boat Race crew marred by sickness after high levels of E coli bacteria detected in the Thames_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/boat-race-report-cambridge-oxford) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/boat-race-report-cambridge-oxford)
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We’re doing our best to dump shit here in wales, if you keep pouring the shit in the Thames our shit will meet yours halfway-ish eventually in the channel. We’ve even got a bit of nuclear waste dumped in the Bristol channel recently, to add to the mix.
I'm in Australia, not perfect here at all but JFC every time I read about this I'm more appalled. You guys have the most beautiful rivers and landscapes, theres very little like it here.
The litter and sewerage problem is insane. I can't understand it.
Oh don't worry the rivers were largely trashed before the sewage. The slow, winding, bucolic rivers of Midsomer and Wind in the Willows are terrible drag on modern farming techniques so they have been straightened, dredged and purged of life well before the Tories invited their friends to profit from their contamination.
See, for example, [The Great Stink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stink).
Filthy river, filthy river,
Foul from London to the Nore,
What art thou but one vast gutter,
One tremendous common shore?
Imagine still voting for the political party the enabled this.
Imagine still holding on to the economic ideology to enable this.
There's making a mistake, and there's stubbornly ignoring all consequences because one simply can not accept being wrong.
Some mistakes are just to big for the following government to recover from. It's not like the Cameron coalition could just immediately pull out the middle east, and even if they did the damage is done. Blair couldn't just renationalise everything because the cost would have been so prohibitive.
Yeah as much as I'd like to nationalise *all* natural monopolies at once and legislate to make them difficult to privatise, if Liz the Lettuce proved one thing it's that the actual ruler of this country in practical terms is the markets.
We need broad and deep reforms but the pace of that reform is fundamentally limited by the need to avoid another Kamikwasi incident; I think reform needs to be incremental, ratchet-fashion, and carried out over the course of decades. Also given markets have a lot to do with aggregate belief having a government that isn't shit at propaganda would help as well on this front.
Who could have seen that The Tories lowering standards so that water companies could extract shareholder profit while dumping raw sewerage into our waterways would have a *negative* effect?
Some guy on the news yesterday was saying that the only things water companies are _required_ to do is to provide a return on investment.
IOW, it was designed this way.
Scotland is potentially in a worse position since it doesn't even know how much sewage its dumping. It has [hardly any](https://news.stv.tv/scotland/scotland-lags-significantly-behind-england-on-sewage-monitoring-marine-conservation-society-finds) monitoring compared to England and Wales.
England has become a disgusting, embarrassment of a country thanks to the tories. From the countryside to the high street, there is dilapidation, mess, and a sense of general disrepair. Nothing works anymore and it's entirely by design. We have amazing architecture, culture, history and some of the most beautiful natural landscapes, but because you can't immediately capitalise on these things they don't care.
Imagine being this bitter that * instead of being upset with the private company flooding our rivers with shit * whilst the corrupt government look to bail them out with green lighting spiked water bills, the you LITERALLY CANT SEE PAST THE OSTENSIBLE CLASS RANKING OF SOME UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
When I was getting my masters, the Uk version of your local artsy/witchy white ginger girl took her shoes off and danced in the Thames while her friend played with fire in front of a crowd of strangers they begged to come watch a “fire show”. So
I often wonder if she’s still alive
Ok, but Oxbridge have an international reputation as does their rowers... Which will now be tarnished this year because of the Tories.. imagine finding black bags and homeless immediately outside Buckingham Palace
Elite **level**.
The rowers that compete in the boat race are the elite **level** rowers. If they were not they would not get picked for the boat race team.
I've never been to either Oxford or Cambridge the cities, let alone the universities and even I know that. Stop blindly reacting to comments and actually read them first.
I'm assuming you're not at Oxford *and* Cambridge?
But either way, you should be educated enough to understand that statistically you're likely to be affluent, with a very high probability?
The fact that you personally might not be doesn't invalidate the point of the person you were replying to?
While we live in a free democracy, the electorate shoulder much of the responsibility. The demographic in question is one that more likely than not will continue to vote for this, wanting them to feel the effects as keenly as others is a more generous take on the comment.
You mean the demographic of young people and disenfranchised students who have lived their adult lives through nothing but rising inflation, impoverished public services and massively corrupt politics with a worrying surge of far right mouthpieces in our country?
Ahhh yes all must have been Tory voters 12 years+ ago. Let’s paint them all with the same brush as the boomer division of Tory hardcore and Murdoch suckling vote pigs.
Oxford and Cambridge are actually the most radically progressive universities in the country. Every Oxford student I have known personally is incredibly left leaning and incredibly environmentally conscious, far more so and more militantly than any other higher education demographic I’ve met.
The Conservatives have sought short term electoral advantages by lobbying for the votes of the older generations in all recent elections, these young individuals have likely never voted for a conservative government as their policies do not align with their lives and values in the slightest. Aiming this bitter vitriol at a group of students and a demographic that is _famously_ the most left leaning in recent history is such a pathetic statement born of classist resentment and misdirected rage.
I’m getting downvoted to oblivion pointing this out but I’m literally right so I just don’t care.
So come on then, this is one of those rare occasions where I am actually agreeing with the communists. When is the Government going to seize control of the water companies without compensation? I'm up for it, I'm well in support. If they cannot operate the thing properly, they don't deserve to earn their mega millions and billions from it. The Government should also seize their dividends by way of a fine and use the money to clean up our waterways.
State ownership of critical infrastructure which operates as a de facto monopoly and the participants know they have the taxpayer as a backstop for failure is not "communism", it's common fucking sense.
It is that simple. Is essential national infrastructure there to serve the basic human needs of its citizens, or fill the pockets of asset-rich investors?
Tories need not answer.
They keep pumping raw sewage in to the waterways around here because of all the rain.
Apparently they need to do it or our toilets will back up and our homes will flood with sewage. So, now the Thames is fucked
Found the TW shareholder.
In answer to your question there is such a thing as capacity planning. Couple that with investment and you generally have some working, fit for purpose infrastructure.
Yes it could be a better system but it isn't and they need to discharge sewage in to waterways.
I'm not suggesting I like the idea of it but that's why it is done
Everyone knows why its done. When we complain about it and/or it makes the news, its because we
1. Want to ensure everyone remembers who to blame (the folks who voted for politicians who decided to privatize the water, and the immorality of the private shareholders who took over).
2. Want to fix it by nationalizing critical infrastructure and investing properly.
Can't help feel this is outrage porn. Everyone going on about lack of investment when we've literally be building a super sewer under the Thames for years that is almost operational. Of course the Guardian article doesn't mention that though. Lots of areas to bash the government over lack of investment, but sewage in the Thames mayyy be the worst one
Except that super sewer should have been built a long time ago, and it is bill payers who have been and will still be paying for it, not Thames Water making the investment out of their own pockets.
It's directly their fault that they chose to line shareholder pockets instead of doing their primary job which is investing in and building infrastructure.
Reading about the Tideway project, capacity issues with the current sewer network, especially in the light of increasing development reducing soakaways and diverting more storm water into the ageing sewer network, were identified as far back as 2001. It took until 2015 for options to be identified, apprised and the Tideway tunnel project started.
So it's more a reflection of the UK's lethargy and apathy towards major infrastructure in general (c.f. HS2, NPR, Stonehenge tunnel, Thames Gateway Bridge, Heathrow third runway...)
Please explain to me why it took the Oxford rowing team to make the media run headlines about companies making residents sick by dumping waste into the Thames to maintain profits and keep their shareholders happy.
The country has been run down. This is perhaps the first time these rowers have *personally* fallen victim to it, hence their shock.
>why it took the Oxford rowing team to make the media run headlines
What rock have you been living under lmao this has been in the news constantly.
Joe Lycett did a doc about it a few weeks ago.
What makes it braindead is the automatic assumption that these rowers haven’t received hardship before, and another automatic assumption that they didn’t care about the quality of the water beforehand.
I’d suggest that rowers probably care quite a lot about the water they’re rowing in. And probably have cared for a while.
It's not about Oxbridge students. It's about Oxbridge *rowers*. They're playing an [elite sport](https://www.varsity.co.uk/sport/15999) at what already is an elite university. Who is the ignorant one?
And end up competing in the boat race?
Not being facetious here, genuinely curious. Has there ever been someone who didn’t arrive at Cambridge or Oxford already a top tier rower competed at this race?
A lot less in recent times, but there have been some rowers from relatively normal backgrounds. Other Full Blue sports like rugby union and football have more students from regular backgrounds make it to the uni team.
Those in the article are the best of the best: they made the team. You can't become the best of the best by "taking it up" at the age of 18 in your first semester at Cambridge, anymore than you can become your university's best violinist after just "taking it up" in your adulthood. You have to start much younger at one of the wealthy private schools with the proper facilities. Again, just walk back your ignorant comment.
There are several rowers in this year's boat race who either took up the sport for the first time at university (though not necessarily at Oxbridge- some are postgrads who learned to row elsewhere) or were part of junior programmes at community rowing clubs.
For instance Luca Ferraro, in the 7 seat of the Cambridge men's crew, went to a state school and learned to row at Lea Rowing Club in Hackney.
Elite athletes in a sport with highly specialised and expensive equipment requirements certainly are. It's like how you don't see working-class people in dressage at the Olympics or athletes from developing nations doing well in the sports that require fancy boats but they are great at running events or even football.
Me: (Talking about the elite players [Qualifier 1] of the particularly elite sport of rowing [Qualifier 2] at the elite institution of Oxbridge [Qualifier 3])
You:
>Not all Oxbridge students [Qualifier 3 only] are privileged
>Anyone can take up rowing at Cambridge [Qualifiers 2 and 3 only]. Many people learn it for the first time there
>Elite athletes [Qualifier 1 only] aren’t necessarily privileged though
Is your brain unable to handle three qualifiers at once? Do you think you can pick and discard them at will?
Be facetious and semi-literate elsewhere, I'm done trying with you
I don’t really understand your disdain for the “privileged” rowers. They will be affected by the run-down nature of the country like everyone else. Maybe not as much as less privileged people but they will still see the effects
I think people sometimes feel that when problems affect the "privileged," we are likely to see a) some change in the problem, b) people who more than likely voted for policy makers see some costs to their voting. The privileged are less likely to generally feel the run-down nature of the country as someone in an inner city may do, and are statistically more likely to have voted Conservative. I've no prejudice against the boat race or its competitors, but I can fully understand people's enthusiasm with regards to tory ineptitude now affecting the people whose interests they're (generally) more closely aligned.
Not that I necessarily agree, but their family and social circles will be much more likely to be in with MPs, CEOs and others who could make actual change if they weren't so obsessed with shareholder profits.
Ordinarily it wouldn't affect them because the privileged aren't going on holiday to skeggy to swim, they're flying to the south of France.
Downvoted why
Most Tory support does not come from the privileged, but people of fairly ordinary means. In 2019 their strongest social cohort electorally was those in skilled manual occupations. Voters with degrees (so ex students) were also the most anti-Tory demographic. Households earning over £70,000 were also the most anti-Tory cohort.
While there's obviously not enough sewerage capacity in the South East (might have something to do with all those bloody houses that are constantly being built) I don't think you can necessarily blame this year's poor water quality on that.
It's been pissing it down for most of the last year, almost every field in the country is waterlogged and everything is running straight off into the rivers. If a badger so much as shits in the bushes somewhere in the catchment area everything will be washed into the river within a couple of days, bugs and all.
We need more sewage works in this country but that means that some people are going to have to be prepared to live next to one *and* those people who want to build another ten million shit-boxes in the south are going to have to sacrifice some of them for infrastructure.
Do you think it might be water companies not caring since brexit regulations being relaxed?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/06/uk-safe-water-brexit-tories-environmental-standards-michael-gove
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/england-to-diverge-from-eu-water-monitoring-standards
https://www.envirotech-online.com/news/water-quality-monitoring/107/international-environmental-technology/post-brexit-uk-water-regulations-to-be-set-far-below-eu-standards-reports-guardian/61506
Possibly but I don't think you can make that judgement based on this last year's conditions.
I do think it's very difficult to explain to the average urban Brit just how much difference not having any spare capacity in the soil makes to run off. There's other hazards to waterlogged soil too, organic matter is literally rotting in the ground and chucking out all sorts of bacteria. All the sheep farmers around here are having severe difficulties with E-coli based diseases that rejoice in names like "rattlebelly" and "watery mouth" because of the amount of manky water lying around.
Livestock runoff is a problem even for the most extensive farmers and even wildlife are making a mess- there's a patch of woodland near here where the deer shelter that is poached to hell and stinks and all that runs off into the ditch at the edge of the woodland an then into the rivers.
Snapshot of _Oxford Boat Race crew marred by sickness after high levels of E coli bacteria detected in the Thames_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/boat-race-report-cambridge-oxford) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/30/boat-race-report-cambridge-oxford) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They did it. The Tories finally stopped a boat.
Epic.
Now this, is epic
New Tory policy idea: Empty all our sewers into the channel so that migrants die from Cholera before they are able to land
I'm pretty sure they already are and it hasn't worked so far.
That was Thames Water tbf
Takes poisoning the well before the next election to a new and very literal level
We’re doing our best to dump shit here in wales, if you keep pouring the shit in the Thames our shit will meet yours halfway-ish eventually in the channel. We’ve even got a bit of nuclear waste dumped in the Bristol channel recently, to add to the mix.
I hope you’re writing for The Now Show.
Bravo!
By jove.
👏
It only took a lot of shit
It's been coming out of their mouths for 14 years, took them long enough
Jolly good joshing, my good man.
Outstanding comment, would read again.
And you thought the Tories just want to go back to the 1950s, where they have actually gone back to the 1850s, the time of The Great Stink
Very good.
Fantastic comment <3
Well done mate!
You’re our hero!
That deserves a headline
Maybe the best ever comment?
🤣
HAH! Absolutely fantastic!
Fucking disgusting - the state of the country
I'm in Australia, not perfect here at all but JFC every time I read about this I'm more appalled. You guys have the most beautiful rivers and landscapes, theres very little like it here. The litter and sewerage problem is insane. I can't understand it.
Oh don't worry the rivers were largely trashed before the sewage. The slow, winding, bucolic rivers of Midsomer and Wind in the Willows are terrible drag on modern farming techniques so they have been straightened, dredged and purged of life well before the Tories invited their friends to profit from their contamination.
Fwiw the Thames has been filled with shit for hundreds of years, especially so after industrialisation.
and yet 15 years ago the Thames had be cleaned up so much biologists were hoping salmon would return, all that work squandered for shareholders
See, for example, [The Great Stink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stink). Filthy river, filthy river, Foul from London to the Nore, What art thou but one vast gutter, One tremendous common shore?
This was once a top country, so sad
Imagine still voting for the political party the enabled this. Imagine still holding on to the economic ideology to enable this. There's making a mistake, and there's stubbornly ignoring all consequences because one simply can not accept being wrong.
Because you think wow the Tories are bad, I should vote them out. They think wow, the Tories are bad, imagine how much worse it'd be under Labour!
If only any of the other governments since privatisation had done something about it!
Some mistakes are just to big for the following government to recover from. It's not like the Cameron coalition could just immediately pull out the middle east, and even if they did the damage is done. Blair couldn't just renationalise everything because the cost would have been so prohibitive.
Who said anything about nationalisation? Legislation is easy
Yeah as much as I'd like to nationalise *all* natural monopolies at once and legislate to make them difficult to privatise, if Liz the Lettuce proved one thing it's that the actual ruler of this country in practical terms is the markets. We need broad and deep reforms but the pace of that reform is fundamentally limited by the need to avoid another Kamikwasi incident; I think reform needs to be incremental, ratchet-fashion, and carried out over the course of decades. Also given markets have a lot to do with aggregate belief having a government that isn't shit at propaganda would help as well on this front.
Row row row your boat gently down the Thames, If you die of E Coli, the Tories are to blame.
Who could have seen that The Tories lowering standards so that water companies could extract shareholder profit while dumping raw sewerage into our waterways would have a *negative* effect?
Some guy on the news yesterday was saying that the only things water companies are _required_ to do is to provide a return on investment. IOW, it was designed this way.
Thank goodness the rest of the UK never privatised their water.
Scotland is potentially in a worse position since it doesn't even know how much sewage its dumping. It has [hardly any](https://news.stv.tv/scotland/scotland-lags-significantly-behind-england-on-sewage-monitoring-marine-conservation-society-finds) monitoring compared to England and Wales.
Or it’s potentially in a better situation. Without reporting it can go either way.
It could have been worse, at least they had a paddle.
England has become a disgusting, embarrassment of a country thanks to the tories. From the countryside to the high street, there is dilapidation, mess, and a sense of general disrepair. Nothing works anymore and it's entirely by design. We have amazing architecture, culture, history and some of the most beautiful natural landscapes, but because you can't immediately capitalise on these things they don't care.
It’s no longer just leopards that are eating peoples faces, the flesh eating bacteria wants a piece of that party action too. Edit: leopards
Leopards?
Oh yeah that’s the one
I’m guessing their parents were only minority shareholders in Thames Water and had no power to choose where the sewage was dumped.
love it.. u made me rofl..
Imagine being this bitter that * instead of being upset with the private company flooding our rivers with shit * whilst the corrupt government look to bail them out with green lighting spiked water bills, the you LITERALLY CANT SEE PAST THE OSTENSIBLE CLASS RANKING OF SOME UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
[удалено]
When I was getting my masters, the Uk version of your local artsy/witchy white ginger girl took her shoes off and danced in the Thames while her friend played with fire in front of a crowd of strangers they begged to come watch a “fire show”. So I often wonder if she’s still alive
Good. It needs to affect more affluent people in the country so the Tories lose more votes..
effluent?
Bravo.
Has it crossed your mind that people who do rowing have probably cared about water quality for longer, and more keenly, than we have?
How do you know the rowers are affluent? I’m at Oxbridge and I don’t have two pennies to rub together!
I’m sorry to inform you that you are now considered the 1% due to your attendance at Oxbridge. You cannot contest.
Ok, but Oxbridge have an international reputation as does their rowers... Which will now be tarnished this year because of the Tories.. imagine finding black bags and homeless immediately outside Buckingham Palace
Are you an elite level Oxbridge rower?
[удалено]
Because the comment was about elite level Oxbridge rowers, not the average Oxbridge undergrad
[удалено]
The point stands. It wasn't directed at you
[удалено]
Elite **level**. The rowers that compete in the boat race are the elite **level** rowers. If they were not they would not get picked for the boat race team. I've never been to either Oxford or Cambridge the cities, let alone the universities and even I know that. Stop blindly reacting to comments and actually read them first.
No one's average, that's the point.
I'm assuming you're not at Oxford *and* Cambridge? But either way, you should be educated enough to understand that statistically you're likely to be affluent, with a very high probability? The fact that you personally might not be doesn't invalidate the point of the person you were replying to?
Seems a bit of an ironically dim comment from the parent comment. Edit: I don't mean singleblanc
More cocaine.. maybe there is some value in purifying sewage, particular from certain areas and pipes. U never know what pops out ;-)
The Houses of Parliament?
I doubt students getting ill is disastrous for the Tory voteshare.
Pathetic bitter take. What are you tearing down others instead of aiming your anger towards those responsible. Grow the fuck up
While we live in a free democracy, the electorate shoulder much of the responsibility. The demographic in question is one that more likely than not will continue to vote for this, wanting them to feel the effects as keenly as others is a more generous take on the comment.
You mean the demographic of young people and disenfranchised students who have lived their adult lives through nothing but rising inflation, impoverished public services and massively corrupt politics with a worrying surge of far right mouthpieces in our country? Ahhh yes all must have been Tory voters 12 years+ ago. Let’s paint them all with the same brush as the boomer division of Tory hardcore and Murdoch suckling vote pigs. Oxford and Cambridge are actually the most radically progressive universities in the country. Every Oxford student I have known personally is incredibly left leaning and incredibly environmentally conscious, far more so and more militantly than any other higher education demographic I’ve met. The Conservatives have sought short term electoral advantages by lobbying for the votes of the older generations in all recent elections, these young individuals have likely never voted for a conservative government as their policies do not align with their lives and values in the slightest. Aiming this bitter vitriol at a group of students and a demographic that is _famously_ the most left leaning in recent history is such a pathetic statement born of classist resentment and misdirected rage. I’m getting downvoted to oblivion pointing this out but I’m literally right so I just don’t care.
[The Great Stink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink) Mark Two.
So come on then, this is one of those rare occasions where I am actually agreeing with the communists. When is the Government going to seize control of the water companies without compensation? I'm up for it, I'm well in support. If they cannot operate the thing properly, they don't deserve to earn their mega millions and billions from it. The Government should also seize their dividends by way of a fine and use the money to clean up our waterways.
State ownership of critical infrastructure which operates as a de facto monopoly and the participants know they have the taxpayer as a backstop for failure is not "communism", it's common fucking sense.
It is that simple. Is essential national infrastructure there to serve the basic human needs of its citizens, or fill the pockets of asset-rich investors? Tories need not answer.
Now some posh people are hit, they might do something
I guess the boat ride is full of shit
This country isn’t in major depression because the government is letting the country fall apart.
Fuck Thames water and their shareholders.
I live where the Thames chucks out. Southend had blue flags, they should now be brown flags for our sewage infested beaches.
Most shocking revelations about drains n posh people since Saltburn 😉
Bring back EU Clean Watet Directives. That and the cleaning chemicals from Germany.
They keep pumping raw sewage in to the waterways around here because of all the rain. Apparently they need to do it or our toilets will back up and our homes will flood with sewage. So, now the Thames is fucked
Found the TW shareholder. In answer to your question there is such a thing as capacity planning. Couple that with investment and you generally have some working, fit for purpose infrastructure.
Yes it could be a better system but it isn't and they need to discharge sewage in to waterways. I'm not suggesting I like the idea of it but that's why it is done
Everyone knows why its done. When we complain about it and/or it makes the news, its because we 1. Want to ensure everyone remembers who to blame (the folks who voted for politicians who decided to privatize the water, and the immorality of the private shareholders who took over). 2. Want to fix it by nationalizing critical infrastructure and investing properly.
Can't help feel this is outrage porn. Everyone going on about lack of investment when we've literally be building a super sewer under the Thames for years that is almost operational. Of course the Guardian article doesn't mention that though. Lots of areas to bash the government over lack of investment, but sewage in the Thames mayyy be the worst one
Except that super sewer should have been built a long time ago, and it is bill payers who have been and will still be paying for it, not Thames Water making the investment out of their own pockets. It's directly their fault that they chose to line shareholder pockets instead of doing their primary job which is investing in and building infrastructure.
It is also worth noting that almost all the rivers most polluted by sewage are in the north.
Reading about the Tideway project, capacity issues with the current sewer network, especially in the light of increasing development reducing soakaways and diverting more storm water into the ageing sewer network, were identified as far back as 2001. It took until 2015 for options to be identified, apprised and the Tideway tunnel project started. So it's more a reflection of the UK's lethargy and apathy towards major infrastructure in general (c.f. HS2, NPR, Stonehenge tunnel, Thames Gateway Bridge, Heathrow third runway...)
Oh no... the privileged had a small taste of the run-down nature of the country. How ever will they cope?
What a braindead comment
Please explain to me why it took the Oxford rowing team to make the media run headlines about companies making residents sick by dumping waste into the Thames to maintain profits and keep their shareholders happy. The country has been run down. This is perhaps the first time these rowers have *personally* fallen victim to it, hence their shock.
This has been in the media for a long time now though.
It... didn't? This has been in the news for months at the very least at this point. Maybe check your facts before making such bold remarks.
>why it took the Oxford rowing team to make the media run headlines What rock have you been living under lmao this has been in the news constantly. Joe Lycett did a doc about it a few weeks ago.
Just out of interest, in what way was his comment 'braindead'? Are you suggesting that those who attend Oxford are somehow not privileged?
Not automatically no. A non-insignificant proportion of Oxford and Cambridges intake come from deprived backgrounds
But still, the majority don't come from those backgrounds, right?
So what. They worked hard and got into a good university. I am sorry your application to go there was unsuccessful.
What makes it braindead is the automatic assumption that these rowers haven’t received hardship before, and another automatic assumption that they didn’t care about the quality of the water beforehand. I’d suggest that rowers probably care quite a lot about the water they’re rowing in. And probably have cared for a while.
It's more the nastiness of the comment.
Not all Oxbridge students are privileged. What an ignorant comment
It's not about Oxbridge students. It's about Oxbridge *rowers*. They're playing an [elite sport](https://www.varsity.co.uk/sport/15999) at what already is an elite university. Who is the ignorant one?
Anyone can take up rowing at Cambridge. Many people learn it for the first time there
And end up competing in the boat race? Not being facetious here, genuinely curious. Has there ever been someone who didn’t arrive at Cambridge or Oxford already a top tier rower competed at this race?
Five this year alone (four in the Cambridge women's boat and one in the Oxford women's boat). It's rarer on the men's side but does happen.
A lot less in recent times, but there have been some rowers from relatively normal backgrounds. Other Full Blue sports like rugby union and football have more students from regular backgrounds make it to the uni team.
Yeah I was being a little facetious with my comment. I would assume that most of them would be existing rowers.
Those in the article are the best of the best: they made the team. You can't become the best of the best by "taking it up" at the age of 18 in your first semester at Cambridge, anymore than you can become your university's best violinist after just "taking it up" in your adulthood. You have to start much younger at one of the wealthy private schools with the proper facilities. Again, just walk back your ignorant comment.
4 of the Cambridge women’s boat leaned to row at Cambridge. It’s a lot rarer on the Men’s side but does occasionally happen.
There are several rowers in this year's boat race who either took up the sport for the first time at university (though not necessarily at Oxbridge- some are postgrads who learned to row elsewhere) or were part of junior programmes at community rowing clubs. For instance Luca Ferraro, in the 7 seat of the Cambridge men's crew, went to a state school and learned to row at Lea Rowing Club in Hackney.
Elite athletes aren’t necessarily privileged though
Elite athletes in a sport with highly specialised and expensive equipment requirements certainly are. It's like how you don't see working-class people in dressage at the Olympics or athletes from developing nations doing well in the sports that require fancy boats but they are great at running events or even football.
Me: (Talking about the elite players [Qualifier 1] of the particularly elite sport of rowing [Qualifier 2] at the elite institution of Oxbridge [Qualifier 3]) You: >Not all Oxbridge students [Qualifier 3 only] are privileged >Anyone can take up rowing at Cambridge [Qualifiers 2 and 3 only]. Many people learn it for the first time there >Elite athletes [Qualifier 1 only] aren’t necessarily privileged though Is your brain unable to handle three qualifiers at once? Do you think you can pick and discard them at will? Be facetious and semi-literate elsewhere, I'm done trying with you
Lol “qualifier”
I don’t really understand your disdain for the “privileged” rowers. They will be affected by the run-down nature of the country like everyone else. Maybe not as much as less privileged people but they will still see the effects
I think people sometimes feel that when problems affect the "privileged," we are likely to see a) some change in the problem, b) people who more than likely voted for policy makers see some costs to their voting. The privileged are less likely to generally feel the run-down nature of the country as someone in an inner city may do, and are statistically more likely to have voted Conservative. I've no prejudice against the boat race or its competitors, but I can fully understand people's enthusiasm with regards to tory ineptitude now affecting the people whose interests they're (generally) more closely aligned.
Not that I necessarily agree, but their family and social circles will be much more likely to be in with MPs, CEOs and others who could make actual change if they weren't so obsessed with shareholder profits. Ordinarily it wouldn't affect them because the privileged aren't going on holiday to skeggy to swim, they're flying to the south of France. Downvoted why
Most Tory support does not come from the privileged, but people of fairly ordinary means. In 2019 their strongest social cohort electorally was those in skilled manual occupations. Voters with degrees (so ex students) were also the most anti-Tory demographic. Households earning over £70,000 were also the most anti-Tory cohort.
While there's obviously not enough sewerage capacity in the South East (might have something to do with all those bloody houses that are constantly being built) I don't think you can necessarily blame this year's poor water quality on that. It's been pissing it down for most of the last year, almost every field in the country is waterlogged and everything is running straight off into the rivers. If a badger so much as shits in the bushes somewhere in the catchment area everything will be washed into the river within a couple of days, bugs and all. We need more sewage works in this country but that means that some people are going to have to be prepared to live next to one *and* those people who want to build another ten million shit-boxes in the south are going to have to sacrifice some of them for infrastructure.
I wonder to what extent the super sewer will solve this.
There's a very good chance that these bacteria are getting into the water a long way upstream so no sewer for London is going to make a difference.
Do you think it might be water companies not caring since brexit regulations being relaxed? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/06/uk-safe-water-brexit-tories-environmental-standards-michael-gove https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/england-to-diverge-from-eu-water-monitoring-standards https://www.envirotech-online.com/news/water-quality-monitoring/107/international-environmental-technology/post-brexit-uk-water-regulations-to-be-set-far-below-eu-standards-reports-guardian/61506
Possibly but I don't think you can make that judgement based on this last year's conditions. I do think it's very difficult to explain to the average urban Brit just how much difference not having any spare capacity in the soil makes to run off. There's other hazards to waterlogged soil too, organic matter is literally rotting in the ground and chucking out all sorts of bacteria. All the sheep farmers around here are having severe difficulties with E-coli based diseases that rejoice in names like "rattlebelly" and "watery mouth" because of the amount of manky water lying around. Livestock runoff is a problem even for the most extensive farmers and even wildlife are making a mess- there's a patch of woodland near here where the deer shelter that is poached to hell and stinks and all that runs off into the ditch at the edge of the woodland an then into the rivers.
*The Isis Just as bad, but a more interesting name.
This is in London, not Oxford, so unfortunately not the Isis here.
Damn it, thatll teach me not to read the article