The Virtual Vicar

This little she shanty from Mark and Pete is an original work about the lovely British fishing Industry and the promises of the British government about said industry on the occasion of Brexit. Fishing was one of the final sticking points in the post-Brexit trade talks. While fishing is a tiny part of the economy on both sides of the Channel, it carries big political weight. Regaining control over UK waters was a key part of the Leave campaign in 2016. Now that the new UK/EU agreement - on trade and so much else - has come into force, what does it mean for fishing? What's the deal in a nutshell? EU boats will continue to fish in UK waters for some years to come But UK fishing boats will get a greater share of the fish from UK waters That shift in the share will be phased in between 2021 and 2026, with most of the quota transferred in 2021 After that, there'll be annual negotiations to decide how the catch is shared out between the UK and EU The UK would have the right to completely exclude EU boats after 2026 But the EU could respond with taxes on exports of British fish to the EU or by denying UK boats access to EU waters

Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, at a low key inauguration ceremony outside the US Capitol in Washington DC. Mr Biden said: "We've learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile, and at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed." Whilst dubious in its provenance this statement also as vague as platitude. Mark and Pete look at the possibilities that Joe Biden might be a good president of the US. Or not.

What is the future of money? A man who threw away a laptop hard drive containing bitcoin he believes is now worth about £210m wants his council to let him search for it in landfill. James Howells had 7,500 bitcoins, a virtual currency, on the hard drive, which he mistakenly threw away in 2013. What does this mean for the future of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

The education secretary Gavin Williamson was unable to explain how students will be awarded exam grades this summer and threatened teachers with inspections. The confusion came as heads around the country reported primary schools being inundated with children despite the national lockdown, and urged parents to be hone stabout whether they are really key workers and need the emergency provision. Speaking in the Commons, Williamson said it was “time to trust teachers, not algorithms”, and that school-based assessments would be used to award GCSE and A-level grades to avoid a repeat of last year’s exam disaster. But in the same breath, Williamson urged parents to report teachers they thought were failing to meet the government’s new targets for three to five hours of remote learning each day, and said inspectors from Ofsted would be called in to investigate their complaints. Mark and Pete delve into the murky depths of the government's ineptitude. Boris Johnson 'extremely cautious' on when England's schools will reopen Read more School leaders were left frustrated by the lack of support or detail in the statement over how to prepare staff and students for assessing A-level, GCSE and BTec grades, coming after Boris Johnson admitted schools could have to continue remote teaching beyond February.

UK business leaders warn that the Brexit red tape 'tidal wave' will dampen the UK's prospects as it comes out of the transition period of leaving the EU. But that is almost the least of the issues.

2021 could be bad and I mean really bad. Mark and Pete here go through predictions for 2021 by analysing trends in business, politics, religion and culture from 2020. It could be worse. But there is a bright spot a possibility of redemption. Listen to the whole episode, or skip to near the end to find out.

Happy #Christmas everybody! Here's a funny festive feast of humour from your favourite friendly curmudgeons to ease you into the Yuletide season. Don't give up, keep the faith, have a giggle. Yours, Mark and Pete. Jingle Bells 7 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Predictably, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla warned on Tuesday that people who don’t take the Covid-19 vaccine will become a “weak link” that allows the coronavirus to spread. Bourla, whose company is in late-stage testing for a potential inoculation, said he understands the public’s concerns about vaccines, which are being developed in record time. He said Pfizer will only request authorization from the Food and Drug Administration after data shows that its vaccine is safe and effective. But should you take the vaccine? Mark and Pete have the answers.

Online shopping has grown massively within the last ten years, with more and more consumers opting to update their homes, wardrobes and pick up gifts from the comfort of their own homes. This digital uprising has obviously had a huge impact on the lives of High Street shoppers and businesses alike. Departments stores such as the long established Debenhams are closing down, what comes next? Mark and Pete have the answers.

"I have never made any pretence of my opinion that the post coronavirus recession in the UK is going to be ghastly. However, events of the last few days have forced me to reconsider that opinion. I now think that calamitous may be a better description. I want to keep this blog to manageable scale so let me set out the short form of my reasoning. The UK was already forecast to run a deficit of £370 billion this year. The deficit for the following three years was forecast to exceed £100 billion each year by the Office for Budget Responsibility." How has the British Government created such a mess?

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of two men killed in the volcanic eruption that destroyed the ancient Roman city of Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago. The find was made in a dig carried out during the coronavirus pandemic, the Italian culture ministry said.

The home secretary, Priti Patel, has avoided the sack despite a Cabinet Office inquiry reportedly uncovering evidence of bullying within the Home Office. Priti Patel broke the ministerial code, but was it justified? Mark and Pete have the answers. MARK AND PETE PODCAST EPISODE: markandpete.com Boris Johnson has said he continues to have "full confidence" in Priti Patel following a report concluding the home secretary had "unintentionally" breached the ministerial code in her behaviour towards civil servants. The report's author, Sir Alex Allen, has quit after the PM rejected his findings. Here is the summary of those findings that has been released by the government: The Ministerial Code says "ministers should be professional in their working relationships with the civil service and treat all those with whom they come into contact with consideration and respect. The inquiry concluded that Patel broke the ministerial code of conduct, but the prime minister, Boris Johnson, ignored the findings and ruled that she did not break the code. As a result, she will not lose her position.

Australian researchers say the discovery of a two-million-year-old skull in South Africa throws more light on human evolution. Neo-Darwinian evolution is just a theory, on Mark and Pete we are strong believers in creation being by God. The skull was a male Paranthropus robustus, a "cousin species" to Homo erectus - a species thought to be direct ancestors of modern humans. The two species lived around the same time, but Paranthropus robustus died out earlier. Mark and Pete look at the reasons for disappearance of this species and what it has to teach us about the evolution of Homo Sapiens today.

The polls were inaccurate. Again. When we say “polls” here, we're not talking about the actual process of voting in an election, I am referring to very expensive surveys that ask about a thousand US adults who they will vote for. ournalists, supposedly chastened by a 2016 Trump win that they did not see coming, were going to be very cautious this time around. No more flailing New York Times needle. No more decimal places on FiveThirtyEight’s homepage - instead, a cartoon fox in glasses explaining to you what voters might do. And yet countless articles were still written over the past few months predicting that a Biden win was more likely than a Trump win, and so a lot of people are shouting online and offline because they have been caught by surprise. Because yet again, somehow, they trusted the polls. Why? What about EU polls, they didn't fair any better. What is the future of the polling industry, are pollsters history?

And so we are back to square one. With hospitalisations for Covid-19 rising again, it feels as if all the sacrifices we made have only pushed the problem into winter, just as the models predicted, and that we have to do it all again. It is as if lockdown is our natural state and the last two months have been a curious aberration. There is a sense that a government desperate to avoid history would rather be seen as trigger-happy than tardy. But this is not a carbon copy of March. We are in stronger position and, I hope, have learned a few things. To move forward, we must begin by accepting three facts.