Best Of

I think people's brain chemistry gets changed by their environment. People who live in cities become more comfortable living cheek by jowl, people who live in the countryside get used to solitude and find excessive interaction intrusive and even threatening. Like MelonB I am an urban dweller and of course my garden is massively overlooked and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm lucky to have a garden at all. I will squeeze into the tiniest spot on the tube. I don't mind graffiti. I don't notice litter. I'm sure if I was used to a more solitary kind of living I would find a city like London quite alarming, but I like being surrounded by people.

I'm like you - lived all my life in large cities - but moved to a village a few years ago to be with my (since April) wife. I miss cities, but less than I expected: I'm not sure it's unusual, but I don't really care whether passers-by can see me or not, so it just comes down to having to go further for films, plays, etc. And of course in London it can take an hour to go anywhere in particular...

It's the unknowns I miss after leaving London. Chance encounters can really affect a life and you get a lot more when around many millions of people.

https://x.com/i/status/2001630453238002003

Read what you will from that

Is that full Welsh GE polling or a sub sample?

Posted by Election Maps

I ask my question again. Is it a sub sample? Stuart Dickson used to get into hot water for posting regional sub samples. Apologies in advance if it is not a sub sample.

Looks to be full fat: https://nation.cymru/news/reform-holds-11-lead-over-plaid-cymru-in-westminster-election-poll-as-centre-left-vote-fragments-in-wales/ I can't find the tables though.

Tables: https://github.com/jaclarner/Cardiff-YouGov_Dec25

Blog post from the Cardiff University commissioners: https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wales/general-election-voting-intention-centre-left-fragmentation-and-the-reform-uk-challenge/?share=print&nb=1

I am more confused now than I was after your earlier post which seemed to clear things up.

? Cardiff University (well… people from their Political Science Dept.) commissioned it from YouGov. They have, for whatever reason, decided to put the tables up on GitHub rather than on the proper YouGov site. I have no idea why.

Cardiff University are a pretty rum organisation. Oh wait that's where I went...

My photo for the day illustrates what’s possible, and also the tremendous NIMBY pressure that will face councils at every step.

This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.



I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.

Presumably you saw the planning application etc? From what I can see it wouldn’t be ideal for the extra storey to have a balcony which directly overlooks your garden? You might be fine with this - I probably wouldn’t (not that I have a garden!). Moving somewhere already overlooked is one thing. Becoming overlooked later-on is something else.


As long as these developments are designed properly there’s no reason to be upset as your neighbours evidently are.

No more nude sunbathing , will be lines of pervs with telescopes scanning all the back gardens

I knew Ayrshire is a bit of a micro-climate, but...

I'm impressed.

My photo for the day illustrates what’s possible, and also the tremendous NIMBY pressure that will face councils at every step.

This is a building project literally in (well, behind) my backyard. They’re taking an old low rise building and adding a few storeys to it.



I think it looks nice and will fill in what was previously a rather large and incongruous gap in the roofline. And this is just the sort of dense urban milieu where we should be encouraging infill. All the neighbours are outraged and depressed by it and letters regularly go into the council.

Presumably you saw the planning application etc? From what I can see it wouldn’t be ideal for the extra storey to have a balcony which directly overlooks your garden? You might be fine with this - I probably wouldn’t (not that I have a garden!). Moving somewhere already overlooked is one thing. Becoming overlooked later-on is something else.


As long as these developments are designed properly there’s no reason to be upset as your neighbours evidently are.

I really don’t understand the overlooked thing in dense urban settings. I’m already overlooked in the garden by all my neighbours, and overlooked at the front by the houses opposite: we’re on a terraced street. The density is part of what makes it a friendly place. Why is being overlooked from the opposite direction a problem?

Don't try to apply logic to NIMBYism. You'll see people arguing passionately about destroying the character of a dilapidated car park on brownfield land, opposing grain stores in grain fields, suddenly becoming experts on rare bats and newts in their area, whilst, of course, always being in favour in principle of whatever is proposed, just not here.

I think people's brain chemistry gets changed by their environment. People who live in cities become more comfortable living cheek by jowl, people who live in the countryside get used to solitude and find excessive interaction intrusive and even threatening. Like MelonB I am an urban dweller and of course my garden is massively overlooked and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm lucky to have a garden at all. I will squeeze into the tiniest spot on the tube. I don't mind graffiti. I don't notice litter. I'm sure if I was used to a more solitary kind of living I would find a city like London quite alarming, but I like being surrounded by people.

That said, the good burghers of Brockley are on the whole champion NIMBYs too, as my local case study shows.

I don’t blame them - they’re engaging (usually) in rational economic behaviour if they see a threat to the value or saleability of their property - though I disagree, if anything densification should boost the desirability of the area, especially when it replaces ugly underused buildings. The issue is the planning rules which positively encourage objections.

I've never understood the vitriol that NIMBYs get. It's perfectly rational behaviour from private actors - and deeply authoritarian to impose the state's will on those individuals.

Like anything else, get the incentives in the right place and the problem disappears. The switch to renewables would have happened with much more support in rural areas if there was a YIMBY bonus - get people actively bidding for pylons and turbines. Massive discounts on energy or council tax.

Why is it the state imposing its will on individuals in an authoritarian way when it agrees to permit building a block of flats on the land next to somebody's house which they don't own, but it is not the state imposing its will in an authoritarian way when it refuses to permit somebody to build a block of flats on land they do own?

There are multiple different parties here with different interests and opinions, and the state has a role here in setting the ground rules, mediating disputes, and balancing local and wider concerns. It can't please everybody, but that doesn't mean it's being authoritarian when it hands out a decision.

(I don't inherently disagree with the idea of fixing incentives or providing local inducements: that's just being pragmatic and trying to get more people on board. But it's entirely reasonable for the government to sometimes make choices in the wider interest even if there is local opposition.)

I don't mind if the state imposes it's will sometimes - that's one of the necessities of governing 70 million people. I'm just pointing out that NIMBYism is often a perfectly rational response. It's not evil or something.

(There are some good counter examples on here though. Sometimes it is just people being twats)

Sometimes, acting twattishly is extremely rational behaviour.

(Whilst planning laws don't help, and the new ones should be an improvement, the other issue is the asymmetry of the fight. Objectors are more numerous, often have loads of spare time, and can write down any old nonsense. Councils have fewer staff and heaven help them if their standards slip below perfection.

Also, NIMBY objectors all live in one area, which gives them a lot of electoral power. If you told me that the real point of council reorganisation was to get rid of "local, responsive" (easily bullied into taking bad decisions) district planning committees, I wouldn't be surprised.)

Just down the road from me, objectors to a cycle bridge over the Thames have succeeded in driving up the cost so much with the delays they’ve imposed via successive court cases that the original contractor has pulled out altogether. Presumably because they don’t expect to be paid the increased costs.

So, despite losing every single case in court, the objectors have succeeded in preventing the building of the bridge, all for the the cost of about £20k in legal fees. The cost to the local council has been much higher I believe.

English Heritage admits promoting ‘nonsense’ theory about Christmas
Charity apologises over widely discredited theory that Roman Empire repurposed sun god festival
...
In a now-deleted post on X, the social media platform, on Wednesday, English Heritage wrote: “Why do we celebrate Christmas on 25 December? It was celebrated by the Romans as the birth of the sun god, Sol Invictus. After the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, it was changed into a Christian holy day, and parts of the winter festivals were brought together.”

The claim is widely discredited among historians, because the evidence for Sol Invictus being celebrated on December 25 appears later than the first records of Christians saying Christ was born on the date.
...
In the early 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome and Sextus Julius Africanus dated the birth of Christ to December 25 by adding nine months – the term of a pregnancy – to March 25.
...
A spokesman for English Heritage said: “We quickly realised we got this wrong and deleted the posts.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/17/english-heritage-promoting-nonsense-theory-christmas-jesus/ (£££)

Sol Invictus was I believe a cult propagated by late-Empire pagans to counter Christianity.

Mithras's birthday was also 25 December, and I am not sure who decided the Incarnation happened on 25 March. The fact that Christmas llis 6bmonths after Midsummer probably has more to do with it, as a popular midwinter festival

Mithras' birthday was not on the 25th (the god from which the Mithraic cult derived was in any case not 'born' in any classical sense, but rather emerged from rock). The idea it was was due to a confusion with - ironically - the Sol Invictus cult.

The reason 25th December was fixed on as the day of Jesus' birth is because it was believed in the late Roman Empire that people died on the same day they were conceived. As Passover for the relevant year (which they wrongly thought was 33AD) was on the 25th March, they made that the Feast of the Annunciation and added nine months to get the date of Jesus' birth.

Hence why medieval Christian calendars started the new year on March 25th.

Bit more on Mithras here if you're interested:

https://historyforatheists.com/2016/12/the-great-myths-2-christmas-mithras-and-paganism/

Brum City council being roundly having the piss took for their tweet about their brand new ‘Hostile Vehicle Bollards’

😂😂

https://x.com/yisraelchaiadam/status/2001575244939534433?s=61

Why?

They look to be a good idea for protecting pedestrianised areas and allowing commercial deliveries through.

New for this season at Leicester City matches are portable anti vehicle devices, maybe in response to the Liverpool incident.

Because a vehicle can't be hostile. A problem in driver-related violence reporting (deliberate or not) is that most media suggest "a car has hit and killed a cyclist", rather than "a driver of a car".

I agree that this helps mitigate the impact of a Paul Doyle situation.

Presumably you feel the same way about reporting of -say- gun deaths?

Yes, actually. The gun nuts aren't wrong when they suggest that it takes a human to do it, and I think the fact so many Americans seem to think shooting people is reasonable is as much of an issue as the guns themselves. Some self-defence laws are just mad - they've actually codified this attitude.

Otoh, I also believe we should treat road safety like we do aviation safety. I'm certainly not keen on jailing people for mistakes unless they are particularly egregious (I think lengthy driving bans are better). Mitigate human error as far as possible - 20mph limits, regulate out large SUVs/pick-up trucks, better physical protection for cyclists, LTNs etc.

This is one of these areas where I tend to agree, but at the same time you need to understand *why* the justice system is as it is.

A driver is in control of a multi-ton metal box that is driven at great speed, resulting in a lot of kinetic energy. If said metal box comes into contact with a human being, there is a high chance that human will be severely injured or even die.

There is only a small chance of any individual act of -say- surfing the web while driving results in disaster. Which means the criminal justice system ends up punishing people very harshly when it does, because otherwise there is only a very limited deterrent effect.

Agree with that.

Though, weirdly, our justice system does consider a driving ban a very harsh punishment. Exceptional hardship rules see drivers with 30+ points driving around - that is a demonstrably dangerous individual to be on the road given detection rates.

It was even the case for Paul Doyle, in a city where 40% of households don't have access to a car.

PB cooking update.

Yesterday I went on a long cycle, and after getting back had a strong desire not to go to the store, and also -given the particularly hilly route I'd rode- for some pasta.

So... I put some spaghetti in a pot to boil (with a little olive oil and lots of salt).

While that was cooking I heated some olive oil in a pan, and put in one clove of thinly sliced garlic, and another 2-3 crushed cloves. Once those were getting a little fragrant, I chucked in a spoonful of capers. I then grabbed a little can of the nicest tuna I could find, and chucked it in with the capers and garlic. I then kept this on a very low heat and broke the fillets up somewhat.

When the pasta was al dente, I drained all but a cup (or maybe a little less) of the water, and put it in with the garlic, olive oil, capers and tuna, and mixed it well.

I then headed off to the fridge again, found some parsley, chopped it, and dumped it in with the pasta.

Very simple, really. The only expensive bit was the tuna. But even that is only $7 on Amazon if bought as part of a pack of 6. (Tonnino yellowfin tuna fillets in olive oil.)

Wife and children declared it deilicious.

Tonight I'm doing a tortellini soup.

Mm! Very reminiscent of our supper last night - fried aubergines and onions and courgettes with hot smoked salmon and an egg broken in, served with pasta and cooked samphire. Normally we have capers but we'd run out!

But yours is still simpler. Definitely worth a try.

You want simple ?

My recipe for omelette in a paper cup.
Microwave a knob of butter for 1min to melt it. Add coarsely chopped watercress and three eggs; stir.
Microwave at the medium setting for 2min 20 sec (may need experimentation for your particular microwave).

Surprisingly good.