Charles missed a trick, should have named it Charlesbury - be a real monument to his legacy then. Kings don't really plan towns like they occasionally used to, he's a throwback.
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.
His L-shaped classroom design.
Well it does open up new options for seating selected students.
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.
There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
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?
Do you think she has asked for Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to be sung?
I was quite surprised at my nan's funeral when the cremation ceremony began with You'll Never Walk Alone, not something I'd have thought she'd choose, until the priest explained it was chosen due to her love of Carousel, not football.
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.
*Somewhat before, in both cases!
That Olympic horse from Newent would be an improvent on Corbyn and Starmer!
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.
Followed by a puff piece on the famous spectacle that is the Gar Iglitter.
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.
His L-shaped classroom design.
Spare us all the architects who grumble at people not appreciating their art.
Yes, a building can be a marvellous work of art, we all know that (the Victorians made their sewage pumping stations beautiful!), but it still needs to serve its purpose as well as being art, you dingbats.
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.
His L-shaped classroom design.
At my work we have new lecture theatres 'designed' to be on a curve. Big video screens on the walls. So it's hit or miss whether you can see anything on the screen depending if you're front, left or right of the curve as the screens are, naturally, flat.
I'm sure the architect will get an award all the same.
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.
*Somewhat before, in both cases!
That Olympic horse from Newent would be an improvent on Corbyn and Starmer!
Edit. Come to think of it the statue of the horse would be an improvement on Corbyn and Starmer.
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
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.
Yep. Labour on about 280
Maybe a bit more than that. Plus the Tories could lose seats to all opposition party’s so their seats could be quite low considering Labour on 285
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?
Do you think she has asked for Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to be sung?
I was quite surprised at my nan's funeral when the cremation ceremony began with You'll Never Walk Alone, not something I'd have thought she'd choose, until the priest explained it was chosen due to her love of Carousel, not football.
Apparently the the AC-DC hit "Highway to Hell" is quite popular for the bit where the coffin goes through the curtains.
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.
Yep. Labour on about 280
Maybe a bit more than that. Plus the Tories could lose seats to all opposition party’s so their seats could be quite low considering Labour on 285
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.
His L-shaped classroom design.
Spare us all the architects who grumble at people not appreciating their art.
Yes, a building can be a marvellous work of art, we all know that (the Victorians made their sewage pumping stations beautiful!), but it still needs to serve its purpose as well as being art, you dingbats.
The straining tower at Lake Vyrnwy would be a good example.
I was there today and it not only looks stunning but 140 years on it's still doing the same 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?
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.
There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
Willing buyer. Willing seller.
And different people want different things.
I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?
1) The lying in state is the ultimate form of people watching. Particularly taken by people of different faiths praying in different ways
2) They need to quicken the pace. In Edinburgh we marched through
Changing the guard every 20 mins seems a bit too often if you're trying to get as many people to see the coffin as possible? Surely 60 mins would be better?
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.
Just as long as he doesn't cross the Pyrenees to Pied d'Aufil and St André.
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.
*Somewhat before, in both cases!
That Olympic horse from Newent would be an improvent on Corbyn and Starmer!
Edit. Come to think of it the statue of the horse would be an improvement on Corbyn and Starmer.
Here comes the equestrian statuuuuuuuuuu womp Dee bump Dee bomp 😆
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?
Do you think she has asked for Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to be sung?
I was quite surprised at my nan's funeral when the cremation ceremony began with You'll Never Walk Alone, not something I'd have thought she'd choose, until the priest explained it was chosen due to her love of Carousel, not football.
Apparently the the AC-DC hit "Highway to Hell" is quite popular for the bit where the coffin goes through the curtains.
LOL that's brilliant.
It certainly says something about expected traffic numbers that there's a Highway to Hell, but only a Stairway to Heaven.
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
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?
Do you think she has asked for Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to be sung?
I was quite surprised at my nan's funeral when the cremation ceremony began with You'll Never Walk Alone, not something I'd have thought she'd choose, until the priest explained it was chosen due to her love of Carousel, not football.
Apparently the the AC-DC hit "Highway to Hell" is quite popular for the bit where the coffin goes through the curtains.
We played my mum's favourite song, Forever Autumn, at her funeral. I was a bit put out, to return a previous comment, that it was a version which did not include the Richard Burton narration.
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.
*Somewhat before, in both cases!
That Olympic horse from Newent would be an improvent on Corbyn and Starmer!
Edit. Come to think of it the statue of the horse would be an improvement on Corbyn and Starmer.
Here comes the equestrian statuuuuuuuuuu womp Dee bump Dee bomp 😆
You are Shirley about 40 years too young to know about the Bonzo Dog Band?
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.
His L-shaped classroom design.
In the last days of Gordon Brown, they proposed to merge two local schools. One failing utterly in every way. The other very successful. The management at the failing school would be in charge - seniority.
The larger, failing school site would be sold off. And a new school built on the site of the other.
The glass and concrete box presented, had no air conditioning, artifical or natural, despite glass walls everywhere. The price per square meter was such that a relative in the building industry pointed out that it was higher than the price he charged for constructing homes for the super rich. He commented, quite seriously, that he could have built the spec, and added in a basement 50m swimming pool and still had a nice profit.
The cherry on top was the classroom design. The desks faced a glass wall. Sun in the eyes… the “board” was an unrolling projector screen that unrolled in front of the window - leaving lots of glass all around.
When I pointed out at the planning meeting that seeing anything on the “board” would be impossible, the architect attending the meeting was quite rude.
The plans fell through with the change of government…
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.
His L-shaped classroom design.
In the last days of Gordon Brown, they proposed to merge two local schools. One failing utterly in every way. The other very successful. The management at the failing school would be in charge - seniority.
The larger, failing school site would be sold off. And a new school built on the site of the other.
The glass and concrete box presented, had no air conditioning, artifical or natural, despite glass walls everywhere. The price per square meter was such that a relative in the building industry pointed out that it was higher than the price he charged for constructing homes for the super rich. He commented, quite seriously, that he could have built the spec, and added in a basement 50m swimming pool and still had a nice profit.
The cherry on top was the classroom design. The desks faced a glass wall. Sun in the eyes… the “board” was an unrolling projector screen that unrolled in front of the window - leaving lots of glass all around.
When I pointed out at the planning meeting that seeing anything on the “board” would be impossible, the architect attending the meeting was quite rude.
The plans fell through with the change of government…
Yes, although BSF wasn't without merits it was on the whole a very bad system.
As ever with Ukraine there's two places in hte same Oblast, closish to each other with the same name
Depending on how exactly this is being reported it could be that the Northern one was captured and Journalists have rushed to google maps and mistaken it for the southern one and massively shortened the actual distance.
Because if they've taken the Southern one then that's huge.
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.
There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
Willing buyer. Willing seller.
And different people want different things.
I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?
Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
Look, it was at closer to being 'news' than the entertainment website a few years ago revealing in an exclusive that Charles considered it his birthright to be king.
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."
For a bit of fun I went on the YouGov approval ratings for public figures. HM Queen Elizabeth II is top though Volodymr Zelensky might threaten her position if he had the same recognition. Who have the lowest favourability ratings?
There's no point including someone with a 2% favourability rating if only 3% know who they are. So in short order it appears to be Putin, Xi, Rupert Murdoch, MBS, Matt Hancock and a little surprisingly Keith Vaz.
My daughter has a Ukrainian refugee that has joined her class this term. She came home and said the teachers have asked them (Year 4, 8 years old) not to talk about "Russia" because he finds it quite upsetting.
He doesn't speak English but hopefully can adjust quickly, he seems to be settling in OK.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
Look, it was at closer to being 'news' than the entertainment website a few years ago revealing in an exclusive that Charles considered it his birthright to be king.
I like the way they make us sound like we are all starving to death and living in pig shit. I vote we repay them by having Joe followed round by a guy in full regalia with an adult nappy 'in case of oopsies'
Kazakhstan is going to leave the CSTO from 2023. Another blow for Russia.
Also, I see they are changing the name of their capital back, after naming it after their longtime dictator when he stepped down only a few years ago (though a quick glance suggests he had retained significant influence, which might explain why the name rechange now).
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
As ever with Ukraine there's two places in hte same Oblast, closish to each other with the same name
Depending on how exactly this is being reported it could be that the Northern one was captured and Journalists have rushed to google maps and mistaken it for the southern one and massively shortened the actual distance.
Because if they've taken the Southern one then that's huge.
Different Oblasts. The northern one is in Mykolaiv oblast, and I think it's marked in at least one OSINT map as already held by Ukraine.
There have been a lot of claims of territory taken recently by Ukraine that haven't been substantiated, so waiting on one of the flag photos for this.
Long black veil, 1959, songwriters: Danny Dill / Marijohn Wilkin Originally performed by Lefty Frizzell, recorded in 1963 by Joan Baez, in 1965 by Johnny Cash. Mine is JB's version.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
What a joke.
How much it will cost may well be a news story, but 'taxpayers paying for it' is not.
Oh it is, I remember John Major pointing out the Windsor castle fire took place during a recession and there was no way the country was going to pay for the restoration in those circumstances.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
For a bit of fun I went on the YouGov approval ratings for public figures. HM Queen Elizabeth II is top though Volodymr Zelensky might threaten her position if he had the same recognition. Who have the lowest favourability ratings?
There's no point including someone with a 2% favourability rating if only 3% know who they are. So in short order it appears to be Putin, Xi, Rupert Murdoch, MBS, Matt Hancock and a little surprisingly Keith Vaz.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
Whisky Tango Foxtrot.
This is the first state funeral for a monarch in my lifetime, or my parents lifetime too. There've been multiple state funerals while I've been an adult alone I can recall for former Presidents like Reagan or GHW Bush.
Of all the issues with a monarchy, this is categorically not one of them.
Some minor typos and homophones have led to mourners being directed to somewhere in the suburbs of London (it’s a long line, but not that long), or Yorkshire, or North Carolina, or California.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
that's a truly wicked slur on Nursie.
Still love the reason why Nursie is called Bernard, and it is to do with a current Tory MP.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
What a joke.
How much it will cost may well be a news story, but 'taxpayers paying for it' is not.
Oh it is, I remember John Major pointing out the Windsor castle fire took place during a recession and there was no way the country was going to pay for the restoration in those circumstances.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
Paying for castle restoration is not the same thing as a Head of State funeral. Come on.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
Rees-Mogg is surely a charmless incarnation of Percy. He’s probably busy right now perfecting “alchemy” to solve the UK financial situation with similar results.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
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.
There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
Willing buyer. Willing seller.
And different people want different things.
I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?
Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.
First encountered it in the near- dark when in a B&B nearby and being recommended to go to the pub for dinner. It creeped me out like the Blair Witch Project and I coiuldn't think why (hadn't realised Poundbury existedf as a development). It wasn't till I looked at it in daylight that I realised it was sort of C17, C18 and C19 to modern metric and thermal standards. No wonder it seemed so odd.
Can't stand the (a) lack of front gardens and above all (b) the use of different vernacular stones within metres of each other, Lower Lias grey marly limestone, Middle Lias ironstone, Middle Jurassic oolites - those are supposed to be in separate areas altogether by the law of nature.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
Rees-Mogg is surely a charmless incarnation of Percy. He’s probably busy right now perfecting “alchemy” to solve the UK financial situation with similar results.
Hmm. And Percy Percy was willing to debase and humiliate himself for his 'friend' who actually despised and did not trust him.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
What a joke.
How much it will cost may well be a news story, but 'taxpayers paying for it' is not.
Oh it is, I remember John Major pointing out the Windsor castle fire took place during a recession and there was no way the country was going to pay for the restoration in those circumstances.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
Paying for castle restoration is not the same thing as a Head of State funeral. Come on.
I agree to a point, I saw recently the number of pauper funerals increasing a lot.
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
Rees-Mogg is surely a charmless incarnation of Percy. He’s probably busy right now perfecting “alchemy” to solve the UK financial situation with similar results.
One of the coldest starts to September for many years over Finland and much of European Russia. Helsinki has broken its minimum temperature record for this time of the month which has been in place since 1941 and the likes of Minsk and Volgograd have also recorded very cold temperatures for the time of year.
If only the Russians had some spare gas they could use to keep warm and didn't just burn away...
Mrs Foxy won some Asda yellow products in raffle, and they were quite good. A good bit of marketing. People will buy other stuff while they are there.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
A pinch point our guys predicted was next March when a lot of people will see their mobile/landline/broadband costs go up around 20%.
If you do a political giveaway, there are two potential win points. One is at the announcement, the other is when the money arrives with the voters.
Truss's problem is that the first was rather overtaken by events, and the other won't really happen. It's not so much as feel good as a prevention of feeling really really bad. Goodish government, but lousy politics.
Mrs Foxy won some Asda yellow products in raffle, and they were quite good. A good bit of marketing. People will buy other stuff while they are there.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
A pinch point our guys predicted was next March when a lot of people will see their mobile/landline/broadband costs go up around 20%.
I've never signed up to be on one of those contracts where the price goes up by CPI + loads%
I can't understand why anyone does.
It's why I generally buy the device outright and recontract my sims in April.
But not everybody can afford to buy outright so they get it monthly.
Big shoutout to o2 though, they split the device cost and the airtime cost and only the CPI/RPI +3.9% rise to the airtime part.
I'm with Sky who both split the device cost and airtime cost, and have no price rises at all (though I don't think that's guaranteed, none are scheduled).
As ever with Ukraine there's two places in hte same Oblast, closish to each other with the same name
Depending on how exactly this is being reported it could be that the Northern one was captured and Journalists have rushed to google maps and mistaken it for the southern one and massively shortened the actual distance.
Because if they've taken the Southern one then that's huge.
Different Oblasts. The northern one is in Mykolaiv oblast, and I think it's marked in at least one OSINT map as already held by Ukraine.
There have been a lot of claims of territory taken recently by Ukraine that haven't been substantiated, so waiting on one of the flag photos for this.
The northern one has been marked as held by Ukraine for months. If the report is real, then it would be the southern one. Would mean Ukraine have punched a whole through the forward defence line and imply the Russian forces west of the Dnipro are close to collapse through steady attrition and interruption of supply lines.
Mrs Foxy won some Asda yellow products in raffle, and they were quite good. A good bit of marketing. People will buy other stuff while they are there.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
A pinch point our guys predicted was next March when a lot of people will see their mobile/landline/broadband costs go up around 20%.
I've never signed up to be on one of those contracts where the price goes up by CPI + loads%
I can't understand why anyone does.
It's why I generally buy the device outright and recontract my sims in April.
But not everybody can afford to buy outright so they get it monthly.
Big shoutout to o2 though, they split the device cost and the airtime cost and only the CPI/RPI +3.9% rise to the airtime part.
When I started a new job in 2017 I bought a new phone with a loan, because I was able to claim the cost of the loan payments on the phone to my new employer. Setting up the loan was all handled by Giffgaff.
There are alternatives out there, but even PhD friends of mine with plenty of money choose the contact route. I do not understand in the slightest. You can see why the car manufacturers look at the phone market with envy, and what to change the car purchase model to match.
This estimate cannot possibly be true can it? I know they spend big in America, but even so.
Ben Walker @BNHWalker The 2017 inauguration cost American households $1.40-1.60 each Quote Tweet Ben Judah @b_judah · 2h Let me fix the headline for you @nytimes — “Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, which will involve elaborate processions, vigils and rituals, will cost 5p per household.” twitter.com/nytimes/status…
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."
That’s it! That’s who she reminds me of!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Miranda Richardson's Queenie is someone else she can remind me of.
Argh, don't do that, now I'm picturing Jacob Rees-Mogg as Nursie (it's the intellect).
Rees-Mogg is surely a charmless incarnation of Percy. He’s probably busy right now perfecting “alchemy” to solve the UK financial situation with similar results.
More like a less charming incarnation of Captain Darling.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
Whisky Tango Foxtrot.
This is the first state funeral for a monarch in my lifetime, or my parents lifetime too. There've been multiple state funerals while I've been an adult alone I can recall for former Presidents like Reagan or GHW Bush.
Of all the issues with a monarchy, this is categorically not one of them.
Indeed and US taxpayers have paid for all State Funerals for US Presidents
For a bit of fun I went on the YouGov approval ratings for public figures. HM Queen Elizabeth II is top though Volodymr Zelensky might threaten her position if he had the same recognition. Who have the lowest favourability ratings?
There's no point including someone with a 2% favourability rating if only 3% know who they are. So in short order it appears to be Putin, Xi, Rupert Murdoch, MBS, Matt Hancock and a little surprisingly Keith Vaz.
This estimate cannot possibly be true can it? I know they spend big in America, but even so.
Ben Walker @BNHWalker The 2017 inauguration cost American households $1.40-1.60 each Quote Tweet Ben Judah @b_judah · 2h Let me fix the headline for you @nytimes — “Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, which will involve elaborate processions, vigils and rituals, will cost 5p per household.” twitter.com/nytimes/status…
Some minor typos and homophones have led to mourners being directed to somewhere in the suburbs of London (it’s a long line, but not that long), or Yorkshire, or North Carolina, or California.
Isn't that one of the plus points of w3w, that mistakes are obvious?
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.
I have never fallen in love with a city at first sight like I did with Sheffield. It helped that I was approaching from the west. I challenge you to find a more agreeable highway into any British city than Sheffield from the A57 from Glossop or A623(? the Hope Valley Road into Ecclesall). Possibly those whose experience of Sheffield is seeing it from the M1 or approaching it from the east have a different impression.
Mrs Foxy won some Asda yellow products in raffle, and they were quite good. A good bit of marketing. People will buy other stuff while they are there.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
A pinch point our guys predicted was next March when a lot of people will see their mobile/landline/broadband costs go up around 20%.
I've never signed up to be on one of those contracts where the price goes up by CPI + loads%
I can't understand why anyone does.
It's why I generally buy the device outright and recontract my sims in April.
But not everybody can afford to buy outright so they get it monthly.
Big shoutout to o2 though, they split the device cost and the airtime cost and only the CPI/RPI +3.9% rise to the airtime part.
I'm with Sky who both split the device cost and airtime cost, and have no price rises at all (though I don't think that's guaranteed, none are scheduled).
Mrs Foxy won some Asda yellow products in raffle, and they were quite good. A good bit of marketing. People will buy other stuff while they are there.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
A pinch point our guys predicted was next March when a lot of people will see their mobile/landline/broadband costs go up around 20%.
I've never signed up to be on one of those contracts where the price goes up by CPI + loads%
I can't understand why anyone does.
It's why I generally buy the device outright and recontract my sims in April.
But not everybody can afford to buy outright so they get it monthly.
Big shoutout to o2 though, they split the device cost and the airtime cost and only the CPI/RPI +3.9% rise to the airtime part.
When I started a new job in 2017 I bought a new phone with a loan, because I was able to claim the cost of the loan payments on the phone to my new employer. Setting up the loan was all handled by Giffgaff.
There are alternatives out there, but even PhD friends of mine with plenty of money choose the contact route. I do not understand in the slightest. You can see why the car manufacturers look at the phone market with envy, and what to change the car purchase model to match.
We are car hunting at the moment (Mrs Eek’s is rapidly dyin)..
I can get a car loan from a bank that will cost me a total interest over 4 years of 7% or use the car dealers loan that works out at 28%…
And that bank loan is only being used because the money will offset the mortgage profitably…
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
What a joke.
How much it will cost may well be a news story, but 'taxpayers paying for it' is not.
Oh it is, I remember John Major pointing out the Windsor castle fire took place during a recession and there was no way the country was going to pay for the restoration in those circumstances.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
Paris city council contributed 50 million euros to the Notre Dame restoration fund
No Truss bounce there, so far. Can she conjure one from an address at the funeral ?
Can anyone explain why she has been wearing a fascinator at each event?
The Prime Minister might be hoping for an invitation to Royal Ascot, and is showing the King she has the headgear ready (hats or fascinators for women).
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.
There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
Willing buyer. Willing seller.
And different people want different things.
My first flat, on Crown Estate land, by Tower Hill, was 60% shared equity. The last 40% had no rent on it. So you bought and sold at 60% of the nominal value. I believe that it was a project of Prince Charles - it was run by a housing association. You could start by buying 20% and rent the 40% left, and buy your way up to 60% in 5% chunks….
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
What a joke.
How much it will cost may well be a news story, but 'taxpayers paying for it' is not.
Oh it is, I remember John Major pointing out the Windsor castle fire took place during a recession and there was no way the country was going to pay for the restoration in those circumstances.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
Paris city council contributed 50 million euros to the Notre Dame restoration fund
Wasn't Notre Dame open to the public all year round though, rather than not at all or later on for just for one month a year?
Abolish the monarchy and we could have Buck House attracting tourists 12 months a year.
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.
There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
Willing buyer. Willing seller.
And different people want different things.
I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?
Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.
A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths. No Exposé without Representaté!
What a joke.
How much it will cost may well be a news story, but 'taxpayers paying for it' is not.
Oh it is, I remember John Major pointing out the Windsor castle fire took place during a recession and there was no way the country was going to pay for the restoration in those circumstances.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
Paris city council contributed 50 million euros to the Notre Dame restoration fund
You're holding up the French as a Good Model To Follow? Very un-Tory.
Mrs Foxy won some Asda yellow products in raffle, and they were quite good. A good bit of marketing. People will buy other stuff while they are there.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
A pinch point our guys predicted was next March when a lot of people will see their mobile/landline/broadband costs go up around 20%.
I've never signed up to be on one of those contracts where the price goes up by CPI + loads%
I can't understand why anyone does.
It's why I generally buy the device outright and recontract my sims in April.
But not everybody can afford to buy outright so they get it monthly.
Big shoutout to o2 though, they split the device cost and the airtime cost and only the CPI/RPI +3.9% rise to the airtime part.
I'm with Sky who both split the device cost and airtime cost, and have no price rises at all (though I don't think that's guaranteed, none are scheduled).
I recently renewed my BT contract for full fibre 100 + halo, landline, BT sports and two sim cards at £10 pm less than my present contract and when I expressed concern about next April CPI +3.9% increase I was told they are having a lot of complaints and said that if it happens, to phone between the 1st and 31st March and they will just add £2 to broadband which I have treated with some scepticism
I really believe ofcom should outlaw it for the next couple of years
As ever with Ukraine there's two places in hte same Oblast, closish to each other with the same name
Depending on how exactly this is being reported it could be that the Northern one was captured and Journalists have rushed to google maps and mistaken it for the southern one and massively shortened the actual distance.
Because if they've taken the Southern one then that's huge.
Different Oblasts. The northern one is in Mykolaiv oblast, and I think it's marked in at least one OSINT map as already held by Ukraine.
There have been a lot of claims of territory taken recently by Ukraine that haven't been substantiated, so waiting on one of the flag photos for this.
The northern one has been marked as held by Ukraine for months. If the report is real, then it would be the southern one. Would mean Ukraine have punched a whole through the forward defence line and imply the Russian forces west of the Dnipro are close to collapse through steady attrition and interruption of supply lines.
From yesterday: “Institute for the Study of War said satellite imagery of known Russian positions in Kyselivka, 15 km northwest of Kherson, shows just four Russian vehicles left”
To be just perfect there should have been two queues. Then people can worry about which one is longer and once in it fret as to whether the other one is moving faster.
Comments
@visegrad24
·
38m
BREAKING:
The Ukrainian Army has taken control of Kyselivka, 10 km from central Kherson.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24
And that The Immortal Bard has morphed into a MAGA maniac.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.
Willing buyer. Willing seller.
And different people want different things.
Yes, a building can be a marvellous work of art, we all know that (the Victorians made their sewage pumping stations beautiful!), but it still needs to serve its purpose as well as being art, you dingbats.
I'm sure the architect will get an award all the same.
Asda has temporarily limited purchases of its new budget range Just Essentials, blaming soaring demand.
The supermarket said customers would be limited to buying three items at most of each product until further notice.
It launched Just Essentials in May, promising an expanded line of low-cost products to help shoppers with the cost of living.
That came after food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe criticised Asda for cutting back its budget ranges in some stores.
But on Wednesday, the supermarket said demand was outstripping availability, with sales growing almost 20% faster than the market average.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62905806
I was there today and it not only looks stunning but 140 years on it's still doing the same job,
It certainly says something about expected traffic numbers that there's a Highway to Hell, but only a Stairway to Heaven.
Worth noting that even if gas prices drop, there are a lot of other inflationary pressures on people.
The larger, failing school site would be sold off. And a new school built on the site of the other.
The glass and concrete box presented, had no air conditioning, artifical or natural, despite glass walls everywhere. The price per square meter was such that a relative in the building industry pointed out that it was higher than the price he charged for constructing homes for the super rich. He commented, quite seriously, that he could have built the spec, and added in a basement 50m swimming pool and still had a nice profit.
The cherry on top was the classroom design. The desks faced a glass wall. Sun in the eyes… the “board” was an unrolling projector screen that unrolled in front of the window - leaving lots of glass all around.
When I pointed out at the planning meeting that seeing anything on the “board” would be impossible, the architect attending the meeting was quite rude.
The plans fell through with the change of government…
Depending on how exactly this is being reported it could be that the Northern one was captured and Journalists have rushed to google maps and mistaken it for the southern one and massively shortened the actual distance.
Because if they've taken the Southern one then that's huge.
NYT with the shocking expose that the state pay for a head of states funeral. Keep your beaks out twatsworths.
No Exposé without Representaté!
Liz Truss is Wednesday Adams!
Donald Trump 97% have heard of, 16% have a positive opinion.
So Trump is slightly more popular among British people who have heard of him than Cameron. I suppose it makes sense.
He doesn't speak English but hopefully can adjust quickly, he seems to be settling in OK.
I vote we repay them by having Joe followed round by a guy in full regalia with an adult nappy 'in case of oopsies'
There have been a lot of claims of territory taken recently by Ukraine that haven't been substantiated, so waiting on one of the flag photos for this.
Originally performed by Lefty Frizzell, recorded in 1963 by Joan Baez, in 1965 by Johnny Cash.
Mine is JB's version.
That's why the Queen had to open up Buck House to the tourists.
17/99 > 16/97
This is the first state funeral for a monarch in my lifetime, or my parents lifetime too. There've been multiple state funerals while I've been an adult alone I can recall for former Presidents like Reagan or GHW Bush.
Of all the issues with a monarchy, this is categorically not one of them.
https://gizmodo.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-westminster-queue-line-what3words-uk-1849536290
Some minor typos and homophones have led to mourners being directed to somewhere in the suburbs of London (it’s a long line, but not that long), or Yorkshire, or North Carolina, or California.
I can't understand why anyone does.
I cannot speak to JRM having an udder fixation.
Can't stand the (a) lack of front gardens and above all (b) the use of different vernacular stones within metres of each other, Lower Lias grey marly limestone, Middle Lias ironstone, Middle Jurassic oolites - those are supposed to be in separate areas altogether by the law of nature.
But not everybody can afford to buy outright so they get it monthly.
Big shoutout to o2 though, they split the device cost and the airtime cost and only the CPI/RPI +3.9% rise to the airtime part.
One of the coldest starts to September for many years over Finland and much of European Russia. Helsinki has broken its minimum temperature record for this time of the month which has been in place since 1941 and the likes of Minsk and Volgograd have also recorded very cold temperatures for the time of year.
If only the Russians had some spare gas they could use to keep warm and didn't just burn away...
Truss's problem is that the first was rather overtaken by events, and the other won't really happen. It's not so much as feel good as a prevention of feeling really really bad. Goodish government, but lousy politics.
There are alternatives out there, but even PhD friends of mine with plenty of money choose the contact route. I do not understand in the slightest. You can see why the car manufacturers look at the phone market with envy, and what to change the car purchase model to match.
Ben Walker
@BNHWalker
The 2017 inauguration cost American households $1.40-1.60 each
Quote Tweet
Ben Judah
@b_judah
·
2h
Let me fix the headline for you @nytimes — “Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, which will involve elaborate processions, vigils and rituals, will cost 5p per household.” twitter.com/nytimes/status…
https://twitter.com/BNHWalker/status/1570104747553878016
She actually smacked me around the face and called me a wicked child** when I was 25.
*Pakistani custom, all friends of your parents you call them auntie or uncle.
**A lot more strong in Urdu.
It helped that I was approaching from the west. I challenge you to find a more agreeable highway into any British city than Sheffield from the A57 from Glossop or A623(? the Hope Valley Road into Ecclesall).
Possibly those whose experience of Sheffield is seeing it from the M1 or approaching it from the east have a different impression.
I can get a car loan from a bank that will cost me a total interest over 4 years of 7% or use the car dealers loan that works out at 28%…
And that bank loan is only being used because the money will offset the mortgage profitably…
Abolish the monarchy and we could have Buck House attracting tourists 12 months a year.
My parents and I had an understanding, my parents were married young, we agreed i would focus on my career until I was 25 then get married.
So when 25 approached I had to drop the bombshell on them.
I really believe ofcom should outlaw it for the next couple of years
From yesterday:
“Institute for the Study of War said satellite imagery of known Russian positions in Kyselivka, 15 km northwest of Kherson, shows just four Russian vehicles left”