Russians claimed that they had destroyed a barge with Ukrainian troops that was supposed to land at #Zaporizhzhia NPP. It's funny, but in the video they published, isn't a barge, but a pillar of a bridge that Nazis tried to build in 1943 during the German occupation of #Ukraine https://twitter.com/InnaSovsun/status/1570083294506516481/video/1
That just shows how seriously they are taking denazification.
The Latvians blew up the large Soviet memorial in Riga, to commemorate their "liberation", last week.
Yet tear down statues commemorating slavers in Britain and gammons start going on about "woke".
It is much harder than it first appears for non-thick people to answer the question, How thick actually are thick people? Your assistance with calibration is much appreciated.
Colston was statuified because he tried harder than 99.5% of his fellow traders, to make things right, by making uge charitable donations. He was also an employee, his boss being Charles then James II. There's statues of both in London, but the dickless posho Londoner Herberts who did Colston's statue, simply lacked the balls to tackle those.
Russians claimed that they had destroyed a barge with Ukrainian troops that was supposed to land at #Zaporizhzhia NPP. It's funny, but in the video they published, isn't a barge, but a pillar of a bridge that Nazis tried to build in 1943 during the German occupation of #Ukraine https://twitter.com/InnaSovsun/status/1570083294506516481/video/1
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
He’s bang on, in this case
There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc
Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity
Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
This can be taken too far.
Bath, Winchester, York, Salisbury are beautiful. Oxford and Cambridge in the middle, but the outskirts are ghastly.
It's as much about new build as restoring old build.
And our countryside is largely glorious, green, beautiful and clean.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
This can be taken too far.
Bath, Winchester, York, Salisbury are beautiful. Oxford and Cambridge in the middle, but the outskirts are ghastly.
It's as much about new build as restoring old build.
And our countryside is largely glorious, green, beautiful and clean.
There's nothing like it I've seen anywhere else.
The English (or British) countryside is truly special, and weirdly taken for granted.
That’s why I’m so insistent about the green belts even though I recognise they impose a significant planning cost.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
Seville has got plenty of pseudo-American bland, and chunks of properly grim, but they're mostly on the outskirts.
One of the pieces of "luck" Spain had was to be properly broke during the 1950s and early 1960s. They couldn't have done much remodelling of their cities, even had they wanted to.
And now, we are more likely to realise that kind of urban living is pretty damn agreeable, even if you have to do without cars.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
Amen, brother, amen. Preach!
I’d be quite happy if every single planning application had to go to King Chaz for approval. Because he is entirely right
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
The entirety of Bath is UNESCO.
Bath, and Durham, which is similarly lovely to walk around the centre of, most likely escaped some of the worst effects of the vast due to the steepness of the terrain in several places.
Russians claimed that they had destroyed a barge with Ukrainian troops that was supposed to land at #Zaporizhzhia NPP. It's funny, but in the video they published, isn't a barge, but a pillar of a bridge that Nazis tried to build in 1943 during the German occupation of #Ukraine https://twitter.com/InnaSovsun/status/1570083294506516481/video/1
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
Amen, brother, amen. Preach!
I’d be quite happy if every single planning application had to go to King Chaz for approval. Because he is entirely right
You trust contemporary architects to improve on them?
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
He’s bang on, in this case
There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc
Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity
Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
The entirety of Bath is UNESCO.
Bath, and Durham, which is similarly lovely to walk around the centre of, most likely escaped some of the worst effects of the vast due to the steepness of the terrain in several places.
In the case of Bath it is that same steepness which prevents fuller pedestrianisation: some of the city’s prettiest squares and streets are traffic jams.
Tom Bevan @TomBevanRCP The bad news for John Fetterwoman: 68% of voters say their main concerns are the economy, inflation, and gas prices. Only 13% say abortion.
Tom Bevan @TomBevanRCP However, the good news for Fetterman is that 5% more voters trust him on economic issues than Oz.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
Amen, brother, amen. Preach!
I’d be quite happy if every single planning application had to go to King Chaz for approval. Because he is entirely right
You trust contemporary architects to improve on them?
There's an interesting debate ....
Providing they can do a half decent imitation of Charles Barry, all good.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
I agree with your diagnosis, but jot your prognosis. Reduce cars in city centres and you'll see a dramatic change surprisongly quickly and easily. The problem with many 70s/80s pedestrianisation schemes (see Market Street,Manchester) is that too often they went along with some truly horrible architecture alongside the street. But pedestrianise while preserving the architecture (see Briggate, Leeds) and you end up with a very pleasant urban environment. This is the future for Deansgate in Mamchester, which will tie into the successful streetscapes of St. Anne's Square and New Cathedral Street and Hanging Ditch. You don't even need particularly beautiful streets to do it. Adequate streets will do it. If you're ever passing, I urge you to experience Fishergate in Preston as an example of what could be done with a city centre.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
The entirety of Bath is UNESCO.
Bath, and Durham, which is similarly lovely to walk around the centre of, most likely escaped some of the worst effects of the vast due to the steepness of the terrain in several places.
In the case of Bath it is that same steepness which prevents fuller pedestrianisation: some of the city’s prettiest squares and streets are traffic jams.
Pretty much the whole of central Edinburgh should be pedestrianised - Queen Street to the Uni, Holyrood to the Castle.
Astounding. If he won POTUS he would surely be the poorest president…. Ever? Maybe the poorest leader in the entire world
How refreshing. A 43 year old candidate with no money. Not another trillionaire 78 year old
Who was the poorest ever British PM? I bet even Major was worth more than £250k just by owning a property
Churchill.
Who then made about £50m (in today’s money) from his The Second World War.
But he was at the time in debt.
Churchill was being paid a decent rate when he was doing articles on the Boer War in 1899 - £250 a month plus all expenses. That is 14k a month in our time. He was 25.
Just seen Van der Leyen speech to the EU Parliament. What a performance. My word makes Liz Truss look a very poor version of a leader. Why did we leave the EU, remind me, because frankly I do not know. It has left us an outsider looking in with envy.
The really sad thing about the Queen’s death is the lack of global coverage of the absolute beating Ukraine 🇺🇦 are giving the Russians.
This is huge, it feels only Sir Laurence Olivier should commentate on it.
The other piece of news is that, apparently, the details of the energy bills help for businesses has not yet been worked out and it could be November before details are released. Which will be too late for many.
Not. Good. Enough.
Liz Truss, just not good enough.
Our office closedown starts next month.
@IshmaelZ do you still think I was wrong to post last week, Truss government are not yet ready to announce their plan to parliament? I posted correct, They were not ready last week, Arguably they didn’t share their plan last week. They just gave promises. Without the detail that turns promises into reality, without being able to cost it, publish cost with an exit plan, payment mechanisms, start finish dates, show risk management and due diligence etc, is it even a plan or just Johnsonian BS?
Number 10 doubles down on this lateness today with spin that the business element is from 1st October - kinda misleads businesses won’t get money in October 2022 just back dated to then. Did number ten say this October or just an October? Anyone like to respond with “but this Tory government and Treasury have only had just over a week to come up with a plan” 🤦♀️
Can't rememeber, it seems a lifetime ago. But for consumers, now the actual kWh cap is known, that's pretty much it, is it not? I agree it's pathetic to have no details for small biz. You would hope that the current pause on everything would give the govt time for some really constructive work.
They should cancel the conference. She is shit at that sort of thing anyway and it will wrong foot SKS, whereas contrariwise it will wrongfoot her if he does it first.
They should cancel the conferences not matter how good or bad Truss is
It is an affront to democracy for the present timetable with extended periods of when mps are not sitting and has to be changed
Arn’t party conferences good for party democracy and what’s good for party democracy feeds in to helping UK democracy good n strong though?
Every delegate to the Tory conference can ask questions how Truss enormous borrow and spend plan is going to work in a debate on it, and have a vote on wether they like it or not. Otherwise we would be no different than the old politburo’ in Soviet Union wouldn’t we?
The conferences can be slimmed down and anyway in this climate they need to be in parliament doing their job
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
The entirety of Bath is UNESCO.
Bath, and Durham, which is similarly lovely to walk around the centre of, most likely escaped some of the worst effects of the vast due to the steepness of the terrain in several places.
In the case of Bath it is that same steepness which prevents fuller pedestrianisation: some of the city’s prettiest squares and streets are traffic jams.
Pretty much the whole of central Edinburgh should be pedestrianised - Queen Street to the Uni, Holyrood to the Castle.
Labour 10% and 12% ahead in the two latest polls just out I see.
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
So if nobody and nothing moves for 2 and a bit years its nailed on
It's a shame that you-might-know-who's obsession with you-might-know-what means that he can't tell us where swingback theory is pointing.
My guess is that, unless Truss can manage a decent boomlet that doesn't go sour pretty soon, she will struggle to turn this around enough. Remember that 2013 to 2015 were fairly good years for the UK economy. Then something happened.
Boris Johnson surely the poorest leader in the whole world
Look, this is the room for the five-minute argument. If you want to start a ten-minute argument, then you need to go to room 221B and ask for HYUFD.
I might join them. It is bound to be more interesting than the undertaker's waiting room that is PB this evening...
Got any funeral plans Beverly?
I have buried one relative recently and have another terminally ill.
Ah very sorry to hear that. Apols for flippancy.
It's just life
Indeed. I've reached quite a high age without any of that. All coming.
I’m just a few years younger than you and have likewise avoided any major death in my life. Including my own, which I positively sought on occasion
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
Just seen Van der Leyen speech to the EU Parliament. What a performance. My word makes Liz Truss look a very poor version of a leader. Why did we leave the EU, remind me, because frankly I do not know. It has left us an outsider looking in with envy.
You must be forgetting the time she accidentally put a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Mrs Stodge and I went to Seville in May but you don't hear me whining on about it.
It's a fine city and while the Alfonso XIII Hotel is a shade pretentious it does provide an excellent location near some lovely gardens for a gentle exploration of the Real Alcazar and the rest of the city.
There are some exceptional tapas venues in the backstreets of the older part of the city if that's your thing. Some of the finest grilled lamb I've ever had in one of them quite near the Hotel Colon. The walk down by the river is not for the faint hearted in the heat of the day but is a wonderful post-dinner experience.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
The entirety of Bath is UNESCO.
Bath, and Durham, which is similarly lovely to walk around the centre of, most likely escaped some of the worst effects of the vast due to the steepness of the terrain in several places.
In the case of Bath it is that same steepness which prevents fuller pedestrianisation: some of the city’s prettiest squares and streets are traffic jams.
Pretty much the whole of central Edinburgh should be pedestrianised - Queen Street to the Uni, Holyrood to the Castle.
On the one hand, yes, that would be great, but on the other, we've seen with the road closures for the Queen that Lothian Road can't handle the north-south bus traffic alone when the Bridges and the Mound are closed.
You'd need to build an underground system for Edinburgh to take the load off the buses, but that's hardly likely after the experience with the trams.
Labour 10% and 12% ahead in the two latest polls just out I see.
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
So if nobody and nothing moves for 2 and a bit years its nailed on
I’ve beaten HY to posting about Ed Millibands double digit leads, prior to general election thrashing based on swingback.
I think the historical precedent points to volatility in mid term polling being fools gold to opposition, as things rarely move that dramatically from the election results themselves. The nearest example of working majority wiped out to opposition majority was 1970?
Just catching up with today's events. The choir singing Psalm 139 as the Coffin was brought in was absolutely beautiful.
I would guess HMQ has chosen all the hymns/music we hear during her service and funeral?
Yes. She took a keen and well informed interest
She understood that half of royalty is this; the ceremonial. You have to nail these big events. That’s kinda the point. They capture the nation’s emotions
So far I’d give her dramaturgy 9/10
I’m knocking a point off for the flight from Edinburgh to Northolt. They should have found a way to do the train or a car. That would have been amazing. The whole nation throwing flowers
What a strange start to PMship for Liz Truss. Not good or bad, just really strange. Everytime we see her she's blank-faced and head to toe in long antique black, it reminds me quite strongly of the enigmatic nanny in The Omen. Was it Billie Whitelaw? Think it was. Hope there's no "drama" with a window this time anyway. I guess she - Truss - is repeating to herself, "look, just get though this, won't be long now, another week then I can start being Prime Minister and do some of those crazy things I've been talking about."
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
I see your Cannock and raise you Crawley.
You have the advantage of me, for I have never seen Crawley.
Labour 10% and 12% ahead in the two latest polls just out I see.
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
So if nobody and nothing moves for 2 and a bit years its nailed on
It's a shame that you-might-know-who's obsession with you-might-know-what means that he can't tell us where swingback theory is pointing.
My guess is that, unless Truss can manage a decent boomlet that doesn't go sour pretty soon, she will struggle to turn this around enough. Remember that 2013 to 2015 were fairly good years for the UK economy. Then something happened.
Labour minority. Only other option is a Tory minority and second election in short order in which they get humped big time. Labour arent getting a majority.
Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Newcastle could all be made to “work” better with concerted effort.
Manchester is “so-so”, Birmingham distressingly bad, Southampton and Portsmouth are downright disasters.
I’m not familiar enough with Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Leeds or Nottingham to offer an opinion.
We can’t compete with Seville or Venice. But we can legitimately aspire to compete with Dutch, Scandinavian and German cities.
Belfast could be grand. Amazing setting. Likewise Bristol
Brum is helpless and yet it was once dense and beautiful. At its core. It cannot be saved, it is too Late. Scrap it
I haven’t seen the new Manchester but I am suspicious tho it has a great inheritance of important Victorian buildings
Sheffield is shite. Nottingham is unknown to Me
Weirdly: Plymouth is brilliant. It is the one place modernism worked. Yet people despise it. Dunno why
I have livedin both Sheffield and Nottingham. I love Sheffield utterly. In the 90s, it was horrible. But even when it was horrible it was wonderful, because the hills. You can see so much of the city from wherever you are. But nowadays it is much improved. I don't think there is any city which improved itself as much in the first decade of the century as Sheffield. (The prize for the second decade goes to Bradford, which is seriously worth a look now. It has determined it had too much office space and simply knocked all its ugliest buildings down, leaving pleasant squares from which to view the glories 9f the Victorian era. It is an astonishing turn around). Nottingham meanwhile was clearly wonderful in the fifties. The centre, inside the ring road and devoid of cars, is still a pleasant pre-Victorian city centre. The ring road is a regrettable scar. And then to the west and north west there is more pleasant pre-Victoriana. And comparatively unscarred by inadvisable brutalist council estates.
It's a grotesquely ugly building but I think potentially the full hideousness could be ameliorated by cutting off the very top of the 'pinched off' bit of the turd and putting it under a sort of dome, or London style rooftop restaurant or something. Save the architects blushes by saying 'it's so good we're extending it'. Still be ugly mind.
Just seen Van der Leyen speech to the EU Parliament. What a performance. My word makes Liz Truss look a very poor version of a leader. Why did we leave the EU, remind me, because frankly I do not know. It has left us an outsider looking in with envy.
You must be forgetting the time she accidentally put a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The 5% forced energy cuts in peak hours and running out of gas by Spring are winners too
Just seen Van der Leyen speech to the EU Parliament. What a performance. My word makes Liz Truss look a very poor version of a leader. Why did we leave the EU, remind me, because frankly I do not know. It has left us an outsider looking in with envy.
You must be forgetting the time she accidentally put a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Yes, as a Remainer I do find one distinct advantage of leaving that we don't have to think anything about VDL or JCJ or Marin, or Santer, or Delors.
At least we periodically remove our lunatics and criminals.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
I see your Cannock and raise you Crawley.
You have the advantage of me, for I have never seen Crawley.
Boris Johnson surely the poorest leader in the whole world
Look, this is the room for the five-minute argument. If you want to start a ten-minute argument, then you need to go to room 221B and ask for HYUFD.
I might join them. It is bound to be more interesting than the undertaker's waiting room that is PB this evening...
Got any funeral plans Beverly?
I have buried one relative recently and have another terminally ill.
Ah very sorry to hear that. Apols for flippancy.
It's just life
Indeed. I've reached quite a high age without any of that. All coming.
I’m just a few years younger than you and have likewise avoided any major death in my life. Including my own, which I positively sought on occasion
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
My observation is that plenty of folk enjoy good mental and physical health into their late Eighties, but only a minority into their nineties.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
The entirety of Bath is UNESCO.
Bath, and Durham, which is similarly lovely to walk around the centre of, most likely escaped some of the worst effects of the vast due to the steepness of the terrain in several places.
In the case of Bath it is that same steepness which prevents fuller pedestrianisation: some of the city’s prettiest squares and streets are traffic jams.
Pretty much the whole of central Edinburgh should be pedestrianised - Queen Street to the Uni, Holyrood to the Castle.
It's hard enough to drive round as it is.
Diddums
Car traffic in Edinburgh has grown hugely over the last 20 years and about half of them are these stupid SUVs that can't fit in the spaces. That's why it's hard to get around.
What a strange start to PMship for Liz Truss. Not good or bad, just really strange. Everytime we see her she's blank-faced and head to toe in long antique black, it reminds me quite strongly of the enigmatic nanny in The Omen. Was it Billie Whitelaw? Think it was. Hope there's no "drama" with a window this time anyway. I guess she - Truss - is repeating to herself, "look, just get though this, won't be long now, another week then I can start being Prime Minister and do some of those crazy things I've been talking about."
She walks these hills in a long black veil She visits my grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
I see your Cannock and raise you Crawley.
You have the advantage of me, for I have never seen Crawley.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
What a strange start to PMship for Liz Truss. Not good or bad, just really strange. Everytime we see her she's blank-faced and head to toe in long antique black, it reminds me quite strongly of the enigmatic nanny in The Omen. Was it Billie Whitelaw? Think it was. Hope there's no "drama" with a window this time anyway. I guess she - Truss - is repeating to herself, "look, just get though this, won't be long now, another week then I can start being Prime Minister and do some of those crazy things I've been talking about."
She walks these hills in a long black veil She visits my grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
I agree with your diagnosis, but jot your prognosis. Reduce cars in city centres and you'll see a dramatic change surprisongly quickly and easily. The problem with many 70s/80s pedestrianisation schemes (see Market Street,Manchester) is that too often they went along with some truly horrible architecture alongside the street. But pedestrianise while preserving the architecture (see Briggate, Leeds) and you end up with a very pleasant urban environment. This is the future for Deansgate in Mamchester, which will tie into the successful streetscapes of St. Anne's Square and New Cathedral Street and Hanging Ditch. You don't even need particularly beautiful streets to do it. Adequate streets will do it. If you're ever passing, I urge you to experience Fishergate in Preston as an example of what could be done with a city centre.
Adequate works, if you care for it enough. The centre of Romford has decent enough bones, it's just that half the buildings are tatty and the other half have hideous shrieking signs on their shop fronts. And the market place ought to have a better off-duty use than as a car park.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
I see your Cannock and raise you Crawley.
You have the advantage of me, for I have never seen Crawley.
My brother used to live in Redhill. That is pretty grim too, as is Bracknell, where my Sister in Law lives. Both do have the advantage of being significantly cheaper places to live than most of the Home Counties.
Labour 10% and 12% ahead in the two latest polls just out I see.
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
So if nobody and nothing moves for 2 and a bit years its nailed on
I’ve beaten HY to posting about Ed Millibands double digit leads, prior to general election thrashing based on swingback.
I think the historical precedent points to volatility in mid term polling being fools gold to opposition, as things rarely move that dramatically from the election results themselves. The nearest example of working majority wiped out to opposition majority was 1970?
Yes when almost all seats were simple red blue head to heads 126 gains for a majority of 1......... without a particularly popular leader and no apparant vision whatsoever. They are relying on Tory meltdown and offering absolutely nothing. Except some insulation some time before 2030
What a strange start to PMship for Liz Truss. Not good or bad, just really strange. Everytime we see her she's blank-faced and head to toe in long antique black, it reminds me quite strongly of the enigmatic nanny in The Omen. Was it Billie Whitelaw? Think it was. Hope there's no "drama" with a window this time anyway. I guess she - Truss - is repeating to herself, "look, just get though this, won't be long now, another week then I can start being Prime Minister and do some of those crazy things I've been talking about."
She walks these hills in a long black veil She visits my grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me
Don't know it but like it - Nick Cave?
(no ok googled - JC)
Murder Ballads, Cave, one of my fav LPs.
I know it as a The Band song, dunno who wrote it.
She looks pretty creepy wriggling past the coffin with Sir Keir.
Boris Johnson surely the poorest leader in the whole world
Look, this is the room for the five-minute argument. If you want to start a ten-minute argument, then you need to go to room 221B and ask for HYUFD.
I might join them. It is bound to be more interesting than the undertaker's waiting room that is PB this evening...
Got any funeral plans Beverly?
I have buried one relative recently and have another terminally ill.
Ah very sorry to hear that. Apols for flippancy.
It's just life
Indeed. I've reached quite a high age without any of that. All coming.
I’m just a few years younger than you and have likewise avoided any major death in my life. Including my own, which I positively sought on occasion
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
This can be taken too far.
Bath, Winchester, York, Salisbury are beautiful. Oxford and Cambridge in the middle, but the outskirts are ghastly.
It's as much about new build as restoring old build.
And our countryside is largely glorious, green, beautiful and clean.
There's nothing like it I've seen anywhere else.
The English (or British) countryside is truly special, and weirdly taken for granted.
That’s why I’m so insistent about the green belts even though I recognise they impose a significant planning cost.
The problem is honestly less the Green Belt, and more NIMBYs who think every field in the country outside their town or village counts as Green Belt.
What a strange start to PMship for Liz Truss. Not good or bad, just really strange. Everytime we see her she's blank-faced and head to toe in long antique black, it reminds me quite strongly of the enigmatic nanny in The Omen. Was it Billie Whitelaw? Think it was. Hope there's no "drama" with a window this time anyway. I guess she - Truss - is repeating to herself, "look, just get though this, won't be long now, another week then I can start being Prime Minister and do some of those crazy things I've been talking about."
She does get to launch off the back of a moment of national unity and renewal, so there is the capacity for triumph but i doubt there is the ability
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
I see your Cannock and raise you Crawley.
You have the advantage of me, for I have never seen Crawley.
My brother used to live in Redhill. That is pretty grim too, as is Bracknell, where my Sister in Law lives. Both do have the advantage of being significantly cheaper places to live than most of the Home Counties.
I know Bracknell, and my father was brought up in Reigate.
Embarrassingly my grandfather went to the same school as Corbyn, and my father to the same one as Starmer.*
So the next Labour leader will presumably have gone to Newent Community School.
Can't think who it would be unless Alison Goldsworthy returns from America and somewhat radicalises her political opinions (plus, given Labour's record, starts identifying as a man) but it's inevitable.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
I would like Charles to be given wide-ranging powers on this. Every monstrosity from the mid to late 20th century razed to the ground, or at the very least, swaddled beyond recognition in neoclassical stucco-work. It would keep him busy, and frankly a more beautiful nation would be a fitting legacy.
There is a rather horrible irony that by far the ugliest building in Cannock - which is in a field of pretty intense competition - is the Prince of Wales Theatre.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
I see your Cannock and raise you Crawley.
You have the advantage of me, for I have never seen Crawley.
My brother used to live in Redhill. That is pretty grim too, as is Bracknell, where my Sister in Law lives. Both do have the advantage of being significantly cheaper places to live than most of the Home Counties.
I’m also a fan of modern architecture. Britain has some of the best.
In fact, if I think about it, London is probably the “global capital” of modern architecture, measured by global projects x practice or something.
It's an unpopular opinion, but I like some of the weirdly shaped glass skyscrapers in central London. Wouldn't want that sort of thing everywhere, but taken together it works, gives them character, and makes them more memorable.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
This can be taken too far.
Bath, Winchester, York, Salisbury are beautiful. Oxford and Cambridge in the middle, but the outskirts are ghastly.
It's as much about new build as restoring old build.
And our countryside is largely glorious, green, beautiful and clean.
There's nothing like it I've seen anywhere else.
The English (or British) countryside is truly special, and weirdly taken for granted.
That’s why I’m so insistent about the green belts even though I recognise they impose a significant planning cost.
The problem is honestly less the Green Belt, and more NIMBYs who think every field in the country outside their town or village counts as Green Belt.
Well, it is green is the point, what difference does it being classified as "belt" vs not, make?
Boris Johnson surely the poorest leader in the whole world
Look, this is the room for the five-minute argument. If you want to start a ten-minute argument, then you need to go to room 221B and ask for HYUFD.
I might join them. It is bound to be more interesting than the undertaker's waiting room that is PB this evening...
Got any funeral plans Beverly?
I have buried one relative recently and have another terminally ill.
Ah very sorry to hear that. Apols for flippancy.
It's just life
Indeed. I've reached quite a high age without any of that. All coming.
I’m just a few years younger than you and have likewise avoided any major death in my life. Including my own, which I positively sought on occasion
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
My observation is that plenty of folk enjoy good mental and physical health into their late Eighties, but only a minority into their nineties.
As a healthy (bar the recent bout of vertigo) 72-year-old with three jobs and a new experience every couple of weeks, I don't think the distance from birthdate is very significant, and life can remain excellent fun in those circs. Obviously you're aware that the chance that the fun will be cut short gradually rises, but there's no reason to rush to meet that.
Just seen Van der Leyen speech to the EU Parliament. What a performance. My word makes Liz Truss look a very poor version of a leader. Why did we leave the EU, remind me, because frankly I do not know. It has left us an outsider looking in with envy.
People say this sort of thing from time to time, I recall comments about how well presented and well spoken VdL.
It never makes any sense to me. I switched from Leave to Remain, but the ability of a leader on either side to put together a good speech or wear a nice suit doesn't come into it. Some right duffers can deliver fantastic speeches, and some great leaders can have the charisma of a disgruntled vole.
The benefits or negatives of being in the organisations don't have anything to do with individual politicians and officials.
Boris Johnson surely the poorest leader in the whole world
Look, this is the room for the five-minute argument. If you want to start a ten-minute argument, then you need to go to room 221B and ask for HYUFD.
I might join them. It is bound to be more interesting than the undertaker's waiting room that is PB this evening...
Got any funeral plans Beverly?
I have buried one relative recently and have another terminally ill.
Ah very sorry to hear that. Apols for flippancy.
It's just life
Indeed. I've reached quite a high age without any of that. All coming.
I’m just a few years younger than you and have likewise avoided any major death in my life. Including my own, which I positively sought on occasion
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
You might change your mind when (if) you reach 70… assuming you are still healthy. My dad is now 83 and still keeps his allotment stick and span, loves going to watch rugby and holidays.
Labour 10% and 12% ahead in the two latest polls just out I see.
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
So if nobody and nothing moves for 2 and a bit years its nailed on
I’ve beaten HY to posting about Ed Millibands double digit leads, prior to general election thrashing based on swingback.
I think the historical precedent points to volatility in mid term polling being fools gold to opposition, as things rarely move that dramatically from the election results themselves. The nearest example of working majority wiped out to opposition majority was 1970?
Yes when almost all seats were simple red blue head to heads 126 gains for a majority of 1......... without a particularly popular leader and no apparant vision whatsoever. They are relying on Tory meltdown and offering absolutely nothing. Except some insulation some time before 2030
I wasn’t making a particular party political point, though expected Horse to call me a Tory - only that regardless of poling fun between elections, working majority lost to majority for other side is rare. I think 1970 last time it happened, and rare before that too.
1997 doesn’t count here as government had no majority and opposition just a few seats behind, not a hundred and something - besides as Mike Smithson pointed out yesterday, if Starmer only wins as many as Blair in 1997, he still won’t have a majority.
We have to play it straight here, this is a political betting site, we have to tell the world there is zero chance of a Labour majority after the next election. Or something very very close to zero. There have been more than enough headers from Mike on this we should be paying attention to, because out of the two bets, Tory majority or labour majority, Tory majority is the value political bet as it’s got higher probability of actually happening, but with mid term polls like this we can get on at worthwhile odds.
My prediction today, Labour largest party but no majority.
Labour 10% and 12% ahead in the two latest polls just out I see.
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
So if nobody and nothing moves for 2 and a bit years its nailed on
I’ve beaten HY to posting about Ed Millibands double digit leads, prior to general election thrashing based on swingback.
I think the historical precedent points to volatility in mid term polling being fools gold to opposition, as things rarely move that dramatically from the election results themselves. The nearest example of working majority wiped out to opposition majority was 1970?
Yes when almost all seats were simple red blue head to heads 126 gains for a majority of 1......... without a particularly popular leader and no apparant vision whatsoever. They are relying on Tory meltdown and offering absolutely nothing. Except some insulation some time before 2030
I wasn’t making a particular party political point, though expected Horse to call me a Tory - only that regardless of poling fun between elections, working majority lost to majority for other side is rare. I think 1970 last time it happened, and rare before that too.
1997 doesn’t count here as government had no majority and opposition just a few seats behind, not a hundred and something - besides as Mike Smithson pointed out yesterday, if Starmer only wins as many as Blair in 1997, he still won’t have a majority.
We have to play it straight here, this is a political betting site, we have to tell the world there is zero chance of a Labour majority after the next election. Or something very very close to zero. There have been more than enough headers from Mike on this we should be paying attention to, because out of the two bets, Tory majority or labour majority, Tory majority is the value political bet as it’s got higher probability of actually happening, but with mid term polls like this we can get on at worthwhile odds.
My prediction today, Labour largest party but no majority.
Anyway I have just made 4 bottles of sloe gin for drinking 2023-24. #senseofachievement.
I misread that for a moment and I was ready to be really impressed at your achievement in still being conscious after drinking four bottles of sloe gin.
Boris Johnson surely the poorest leader in the whole world
Look, this is the room for the five-minute argument. If you want to start a ten-minute argument, then you need to go to room 221B and ask for HYUFD.
I might join them. It is bound to be more interesting than the undertaker's waiting room that is PB this evening...
Got any funeral plans Beverly?
I have buried one relative recently and have another terminally ill.
Ah very sorry to hear that. Apols for flippancy.
It's just life
Indeed. I've reached quite a high age without any of that. All coming.
I’m just a few years younger than you and have likewise avoided any major death in my life. Including my own, which I positively sought on occasion
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
My observation is that plenty of folk enjoy good mental and physical health into their late Eighties, but only a minority into their nineties.
As a healthy (bar the recent bout of vertigo) 72-year-old with three jobs and a new experience every couple of weeks, I don't think the distance from birthdate is very significant, and life can remain excellent fun in those circs. Obviously you're aware that the chance that the fun will be cut short gradually rises, but there's no reason to rush to meet that.
In many respects The Queen was as good as it gets. Yes, she was frail and had mobility and health issues in the last 2-3 years but she was cognitive and functional until 24 hours before, and went very quickly having lived to 96.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
This is an important question, actually.
The UK is not alone, the other English speaking countries are the same, actually.
I think it’s got something to do with the car and an unholy alliance between capitalists (build cheaply), conservatives (spend leastly), and progressives (be suspicious of heritage and beautiful things).
This can be taken too far.
Bath, Winchester, York, Salisbury are beautiful. Oxford and Cambridge in the middle, but the outskirts are ghastly.
It's as much about new build as restoring old build.
And our countryside is largely glorious, green, beautiful and clean.
There's nothing like it I've seen anywhere else.
The English (or British) countryside is truly special, and weirdly taken for granted.
That’s why I’m so insistent about the green belts even though I recognise they impose a significant planning cost.
The problem is honestly less the Green Belt, and more NIMBYs who think every field in the country outside their town or village counts as Green Belt.
Well, it is green is the point, what difference does it being classified as "belt" vs not, make?
In fact it being green is not the point. The point was that Green Belt is specifically designated, it isn't simply that it is green (it might not be). If it is not designated people might refer to greenfield in order to contrast with brownfield (previously developed) as an example.
So it makes a pretty big difference in terms of the protection that land has from development. And misunderstanding that means people can have misconceptions about what is and is not likely to be permitted - there can and often is policies which will limit building in open countryside for example, but if it is Green Belt it will be much easier to resist.
People objecting to development who think any green bit round their town is the same as being green belt will find themselves disabused.
Anyway I have just made 4 bottles of sloe gin for drinking 2023-24. #senseofachievement.
I misread that for a moment and I was ready to be really impressed at your achievement in still being conscious after drinking four bottles of sloe gin.
But I have, how do you think I freed up the bottle space?
Anyway I have just made 4 bottles of sloe gin for drinking 2023-24. #senseofachievement.
I misread that for a moment and I was ready to be really impressed at your achievement in still being conscious after drinking four bottles of sloe gin.
But I have, how do you think I freed up the bottle space?
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
He’s bang on, in this case
There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc
Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity
Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us
The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.
The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.
A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.
Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.
Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.
Just catching up with today's events. The choir singing Psalm 139 as the Coffin was brought in was absolutely beautiful.
I would guess HMQ has chosen all the hymns/music we hear during her service and funeral?
Yes. She took a keen and well informed interest
She understood that half of royalty is this; the ceremonial. You have to nail these big events. That’s kinda the point. They capture the nation’s emotions
So far I’d give her dramaturgy 9/10
I’m knocking a point off for the flight from Edinburgh to Northolt. They should have found a way to do the train or a car. That would have been amazing. The whole nation throwing flowers
Otherwise: perfect
Yes I agree. It's a shame they didn't take her from Edinburgh to London on a train. Through the cities and the market towns. Through the villages and the shires. It would have been the ideal way to include all her subjects in her final goodbye.
Anyway I have just made 4 bottles of sloe gin for drinking 2023-24. #senseofachievement.
I misread that for a moment and I was ready to be really impressed at your achievement in still being conscious after drinking four bottles of sloe gin.
I've been struggling with Leon's "Seville" posts all day. At first glance I've been seeing "Savile". I'll be relieved when he reaches Barcelona.
The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville
The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.
Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right
Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?
Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.
He’s bang on, in this case
There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc
Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity
Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us
The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.
The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.
A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.
Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.
Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.
Particularly the architect who infamously told teachers at a school of my acquaintance that they were stupid Philistines for not appreciating his classroom design.
Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Newcastle could all be made to “work” better with concerted effort.
Manchester is “so-so”, Birmingham distressingly bad, Southampton and Portsmouth are downright disasters.
I’m not familiar enough with Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Leeds or Nottingham to offer an opinion.
We can’t compete with Seville or Venice. But we can legitimately aspire to compete with Dutch, Scandinavian and German cities.
Belfast could be grand. Amazing setting. Likewise Bristol
Brum is helpless and yet it was once dense and beautiful. At its core. It cannot be saved, it is too Late. Scrap it
I haven’t seen the new Manchester but I am suspicious tho it has a great inheritance of important Victorian buildings
Sheffield is shite. Nottingham is unknown to Me
Weirdly: Plymouth is brilliant. It is the one place modernism worked. Yet people despise it. Dunno why
I have livedin both Sheffield and Nottingham. I love Sheffield utterly. In the 90s, it was horrible. But even when it was horrible it was wonderful, because the hills. You can see so much of the city from wherever you are. But nowadays it is much improved. I don't think there is any city which improved itself as much in the first decade of the century as Sheffield. (The prize for the second decade goes to Bradford, which is seriously worth a look now. It has determined it had too much office space and simply knocked all its ugliest buildings down, leaving pleasant squares from which to view the glories 9f the Victorian era. It is an astonishing turn around). Nottingham meanwhile was clearly wonderful in the fifties. The centre, inside the ring road and devoid of cars, is still a pleasant pre-Victorian city centre. The ring road is a regrettable scar. And then to the west and north west there is more pleasant pre-Victoriana. And comparatively unscarred by inadvisable brutalist council estates.
Yeah Sheffield is lovely. Also very nice people. I generally am not a fan of Yorkshire but will make an exception for Sheffield.
Russians claimed that they had destroyed a barge with Ukrainian troops that was supposed to land at #Zaporizhzhia NPP. It's funny, but in the video they published, isn't a barge, but a pillar of a bridge that Nazis tried to build in 1943 during the German occupation of #Ukraine https://twitter.com/InnaSovsun/status/1570083294506516481/video/1
Anyway I have just made 4 bottles of sloe gin for drinking 2023-24. #senseofachievement.
I misread that for a moment and I was ready to be really impressed at your achievement in still being conscious after drinking four bottles of sloe gin.
I've been struggling with Leon's "Seville" posts all day. At first glance I've been seeing "Savile". I'll be relieved when he reaches Barcelona.
Don’t worry, he’s visiting the Moorish citadel of Rol fah Aris tomorrow.
Comments
Colston was statuified because he tried harder than 99.5% of his fellow traders, to make things right, by making uge charitable donations. He was also an employee, his boss being Charles then James II. There's statues of both in London, but the dickless posho Londoner Herberts who did Colston's statue, simply lacked the balls to tackle those.
There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc
Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity
Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us
Bath, Winchester, York, Salisbury are beautiful. Oxford and Cambridge in the middle, but the outskirts are ghastly.
It's as much about new build as restoring old build.
And our countryside is largely glorious, green, beautiful and clean.
There's nothing like it I've seen anywhere else.
https://unesco.org.uk/our-sites/
That’s why I’m so insistent about the green belts even though I recognise they impose a significant planning cost.
One of the pieces of "luck" Spain had was to be properly broke during the 1950s and early 1960s. They couldn't have done much remodelling of their cities, even had they wanted to.
And now, we are more likely to realise that kind of urban living is pretty damn agreeable, even if you have to do without cars.
I’d be quite happy if every single planning application had to go to King Chaz for approval. Because he is entirely right
There's an interesting debate ....
Comfortably enough for an outright Labour majority.
Lovely jubbly.
It's made worse by the fact it's next to by far the handsomest - St Luke's Church.
If you want to see the worst of urban planning, Cannock is the place to be.
Brum is helpless and yet it was once dense and beautiful. At its core. It cannot be saved, it is too
Late. Scrap it
I haven’t seen the new Manchester but I am suspicious tho it has a great inheritance of important Victorian buildings
Sheffield is shite. Nottingham is unknown to
Me
Weirdly: Plymouth is brilliant. It is the one place modernism worked. Yet people despise it. Dunno why
Muppet.
Reduce cars in city centres and you'll see a dramatic change surprisongly quickly and easily.
The problem with many 70s/80s pedestrianisation schemes (see Market Street,Manchester) is that too often they went along with some truly horrible architecture alongside the street. But pedestrianise while preserving the architecture (see Briggate, Leeds) and you end up with a very pleasant urban environment.
This is the future for Deansgate in Mamchester, which will tie into the successful streetscapes of St. Anne's Square and New Cathedral Street and Hanging Ditch.
You don't even need particularly beautiful streets to do it. Adequate streets will do it. If you're ever passing, I urge you to experience Fishergate in Preston as an example of what could be done with a city centre.
However, do be aware (and beware) that Queue is but two syllables removed from Q-Anon.
I'm not sure where it all went.
My guess is that, unless Truss can manage a decent boomlet that doesn't go sour pretty soon, she will struggle to turn this around enough. Remember that 2013 to 2015 were fairly good years for the UK economy. Then something happened.
Britain has some of the best.
In fact, if I think about it, London is probably the “global capital” of modern architecture, measured by global projects x practice or something.
And yet now I face a tsunami of death and dementia. And yet now… I don’t mind. As @Beibheirli_C says: it is life
I’ve also seen enough of it to realise I don’t particularly want to live much beyond 70-75. Give me my three score years and ten, O Lord. I have seen enough and it’s been a fucking hoot
It’s at risk of slipping down the leagues.
It's a fine city and while the Alfonso XIII Hotel is a shade pretentious it does provide an excellent location near some lovely gardens for a gentle exploration of the Real Alcazar and the rest of the city.
There are some exceptional tapas venues in the backstreets of the older part of the city if that's your thing. Some of the finest grilled lamb I've ever had in one of them quite near the Hotel Colon. The walk down by the river is not for the faint hearted in the heat of the day but is a wonderful post-dinner experience.
You'd need to build an underground system for Edinburgh to take the load off the buses, but that's hardly likely after the experience with the trams.
I think the historical precedent points to volatility in mid term polling being fools gold to opposition, as things rarely move that dramatically from the election results themselves. The nearest example of working majority wiped out to opposition majority was 1970?
She understood that half of royalty is this; the ceremonial. You have to nail these big events. That’s kinda the point. They capture the nation’s emotions
So far I’d give her dramaturgy 9/10
I’m knocking a point off for the flight from Edinburgh to Northolt. They should have found a way to do the train or a car. That would have been amazing. The whole nation throwing flowers
Otherwise: perfect
Labour arent getting a majority.
I love Sheffield utterly. In the 90s, it was horrible. But even when it was horrible it was wonderful, because the hills. You can see so much of the city from wherever you are. But nowadays it is much improved. I don't think there is any city which improved itself as much in the first decade of the century as Sheffield. (The prize for the second decade goes to Bradford, which is seriously worth a look now. It has determined it had too much office space and simply knocked all its ugliest buildings down, leaving pleasant squares from which to view the glories 9f the Victorian era. It is an astonishing turn around).
Nottingham meanwhile was clearly wonderful in the fifties. The centre, inside the ring road and devoid of cars, is still a pleasant pre-Victorian city centre. The ring road is a regrettable scar. And then to the west and north west there is more pleasant pre-Victoriana. And comparatively unscarred by inadvisable brutalist council estates.
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/086a75e5a35d68ef91472dc4338dec8f97bf88f6/0_0_3500_2333/master/3500.jpg?width=1140&quality=45&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a05e74c89353286c3989e5efb2b8e453
It's a grotesquely ugly building but I think potentially the full hideousness could be ameliorated by cutting off the very top of the 'pinched off' bit of the turd and putting it under a sort of dome, or London style rooftop restaurant or something. Save the architects blushes by saying 'it's so good we're extending it'. Still be ugly mind.
At least we periodically remove our lunatics and criminals.
Car traffic in Edinburgh has grown hugely over the last 20 years and about half of them are these stupid SUVs that can't fit in the spaces. That's why it's hard to get around.
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me
(no ok googled - JC)
Murder Ballads, Cave, one of my fav LPs.
126 gains for a majority of 1......... without a particularly popular leader and no apparant vision whatsoever. They are relying on Tory meltdown and offering absolutely nothing. Except some insulation some time before 2030
She looks pretty creepy wriggling past the coffin with Sir Keir.
Two rhymes with few, I suppose.
Embarrassingly my grandfather went to the same school as Corbyn, and my father to the same one as Starmer.*
So the next Labour leader will presumably have gone to Newent Community School.
Can't think who it would be unless Alison Goldsworthy returns from America and somewhat radicalises her political opinions (plus, given Labour's record, starts identifying as a man) but it's inevitable.
*Somewhat before, in both cases!
It never makes any sense to me. I switched from Leave to Remain, but the ability of a leader on either side to put together a good speech or wear a nice suit doesn't come into it. Some right duffers can deliver fantastic speeches, and some great leaders can have the charisma of a disgruntled vole.
The benefits or negatives of being in the organisations don't have anything to do with individual politicians and officials.
1997 doesn’t count here as government had no majority and opposition just a few seats behind, not a hundred and something - besides as Mike Smithson pointed out yesterday, if Starmer only wins as many as Blair in 1997, he still won’t have a majority.
We have to play it straight here, this is a political betting site, we have to tell the world there is zero chance of a Labour majority after the next election. Or something very very close to zero. There have been more than enough headers from Mike on this we should be paying attention to, because out of the two bets, Tory majority or labour majority, Tory majority is the value political bet as it’s got higher probability of actually happening, but with mid term polls like this we can get on at worthwhile odds.
My prediction today, Labour largest party but no majority.
Can I pick that, please?
So it makes a pretty big difference in terms of the protection that land has from development. And misunderstanding that means people can have misconceptions about what is and is not likely to be permitted - there can and often is policies which will limit building in open countryside for example, but if it is Green Belt it will be much easier to resist.
People objecting to development who think any green bit round their town is the same as being green belt will find themselves disabused.
2) They need to quicken the pace. In Edinburgh we marched through
"We must protect a lump of rock!"
Still, good to see silly people on all sides getting in on the action.
The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.
A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.
Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.
Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.
His L-shaped classroom design.
Still we can enjoy that most British of spectator sports, televised queuing.