On the Eurostar. IS IT A COINCIDENCE that the wifi en France is a zillion times better than the wifi in the UK.
All pretty shit, that said, for an international passenger service, but notable nonetheless.
IIRC in the UK trackside access for things like mobile masts is incredibly difficult as it is jealously guarded by Network Rail. Presumably in France some bigwig can simply order SNCF to let the networks put up masts in sensible places along the route. So the on-train Wi-Fi can easily connect to trackside masts in France whereas in the UK it is lobbing the data over the embankment and hoping a mast in a nearby town can grab it.
Interesting thanks makes sense.
FWIW a quick Google and it seems that Network Rail is in discussions to finally do something about this in 2023, by granting mast rights to a business consortium in return for upgrades to the signalling infrastructure from GSM-R. So maybe sometime next decade it might be sorted out.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
Vienna? Seemed to be doing better when we were there in December compared to 2019 when I was last there.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
How will it make it worse? The money raised by putting VAT on private school fees will be used to increase funding for the schools that 93% of kids go to. Since those schools are starved of resources I would assume that each £1 spent there would have more incremental benefit on the overall quality of educational outcomes. At state schools the money would be spent on more teachers or new books, at private schools it would just be a new lighting system at the school theatre, more manicuring of the school's eighth rugby pitch or an extra school cricket trip to the Caribbean.
Because it won't raise any more money, and will indeed cost the taxpayer, as the children transfer to be educated at the State's expense and, indeed, some private schools actually close.
It's a remarkably stupid policy, driven by prejudice.
I remember going through the numbers and it looked like it would be revenue positive - you'd need an implausibly high amount of pupils switching to the state system for it not to be (and since I would prefer all pupils to be educated in the state system so that the rich can't escape the consequences of their voting decisions and to promote social cohesion I wouldn't be that bothered if that happened anyway).
If you wanted "to promote social cohesion" rigorously you'd have to abolish catchment areas, do away with kids going to schools they can walk to, and instead have something like bussing and random allocation with no choice as to what school people go to.
The fact that a good school's catchment area is a key determinant in house prices shows that there's more than just private schools etc that are in play here.
Parents who value their kids education are going to do what they can to get their kids into a good school, even within the state sector, and not be worried about "social cohesion" - and quite rightly too.
School catchment is certainly a factor in house prices but the causation also runs the other way and is likely more powerful - big houses in leafy suburbs attract middle class families whose kids attend their local school and get better exam results. For most children their closest school is their best option. I am certainly glad that our kids can attend their nearest comprehensive school (rated good - the median rating, above average number of kids on free school meals) and walk there, it is best for everyone.
Wouldn't it be nice if your local school was nice?
In practice, everyone-goes-to-their-local-school leads to a large amount of coasting. Schools will get the kids and the funding anyway, so no need to try too hard. They can follow their own agenda, rather than one that parents might want them to.
In practice, if your kids are starting secondary school this September, there is next to no choice: you go where you're put. This cohort is so huge that there isn't the space to pick and choose.
You've highlighted one of the problems with school choice here. For it to work, you do need the system to carry a significant number of free places in each area. In general, we don't want to do that, because of the cost/inefficiency. So what often happens in practice is that all but one schools fill up to capacity and the school seen as worst becomes half-empty and enters a spiral of doom.
One of the theories was that good schools would want to expand to meet demand. That rarely happened- partly because of the constraints of school sites and partly because a lot of heads would rather keep a small school running well than risk the instability of expansion.
The dirty secret of school improvement is that, once you get beyond basic competence (and yes, there are schools where that doesn't happen reliably), it's not easy to make a school actually better (as opposed to looking better), and the easiest way to do it is to choose your intake shrewdly.
I strongly (though politely!) disagree with your last para. There's LOADS of ways of improving schools, and there are loads of examples of schools improving experiences and outcomes for pupils by changing the right things. (My wife works in schools improvement and is very interesting on the subject!)
And you do need slack in the system, as in any system. If you're running at capacity, you fall over when you're pushed that little bit more.
Curious what you consider are the easiest wins in terms of ways of improving schools?
I wish my wife was on hand to answer this (Mrs. Cookie, if you're reading, of course I was listening), but to pluck an example out of thin air, there is one academy trust which has effected fantastic results with pupil motivation, attendance and engagement simply by changing the philosophy of how kids are rewarded. Again, I'm being vague here because I can't remember all the details, but there is a notion of 'bring in work you are proud of'. And there are other philosophical changes too: what behaviour do and don't we encourage/tolerate? How do we present our school? What do we put on the walls? How do we deal with non-attendance? And so forth. There are also lots of discipline-specific decisions - as an example, around matters like setting, but more specifically (for example) how do we best teach algebra?
This is outside my area of expertise - but the point is there are wins which - if not easy - are not necessarily resource dependent. Some schools will be getting this right, some will be getting it wrong; many will be in some sort of middle ground. I'm certainly not saying lack of resources is not a problem; but resources alone are not the solution.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
Yes but my issue is that Paris has become too homogenous and bourgeois. The problem is that it is *too* wealthy, and that normal people can’t afford to live so centrally anymore.
The same is true in all the superstar cities, including London. I’m just bemoaning Paris because it’s more obvious to me, for reasons. (Not unlike, in sentiment, your nostalgia about squatting near King’s Cross).
The coverage of the Brecon Beacons generally misses their most salient feature. They’re shite. Large tracts of bald, boggy, treeless steep hills, too swampy to hike, devoid of interesting history, too small to be impressive. Meh
They need to be replanted with trees, and rewilded with wolves, lynx, bear and aurochs. And maybe Beaker People
The Falklands War was won on them (cf Waterloo/Eton)
Yeah, they’re good for training the SAS. Because they’re such rough wet tedious sapping terrain. Not so good for holidays
I mean, what does this photo say? Come here for an exciting, varied and beautiful hike? With an interesting pubby village on the way?
I am peculiar. I like that landscape a lot. I remember a day's walking in the Brecon Beacons, tramping through the empty country, watching rain showers slowly approach across the big skies. It was pretty awesome. A great place for a day trip, but not a holiday, I agree.
I find them immensely boring and ugly. One of the ugliest places in rural Britain. And hiking is a pain because of the swampy, break-your-ankle tussocks and peatlands
The Black Mountains next door are vastly superior
They're both cool.
Many moons ago, I was doing a hike between Christmas and New Year from Brecon south. On the second day, I climbed up to the beallach between Fan-y-Big and Pen-y-Fan via Cribyn. At the bottom of Pen-y-Fan, I met a man in full army gear. By the time I reached the top of Pen-y-Fan, carrying my camping gear, he had gone up and down two or three times. With a heavier pack.
I did both my SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) training bouts on the Brecon Beacons. The first was utter misery enlivened only by the mock execution of a blindfolded and screaming navigator by the staff pretending to drive over his head with a Land Rover. On the second one I knew how to cheat and my mate's girlfriend picked us both up at a pre-arranged RV for a night spent in a Pub/B&B.
That would meet the survive and evade components, providing you weren't caught. Resistance too, I guess.
They are funny exercises (ours were called E&E - escape and evasion). On the one hand you knew it was all a game and a bloke (or bird, which worked more sometimes especially if you were lavatorially deprived) screaming at you and being in the stress position was manageable; and on the other it was an "interestingly real" experience also.
Of course I never had to put it into practice and much more important for eg aircrew and SF where I'm sure the note-taking was more rigorous than ours.
My mate did the Russian Air Force equivalent in the 90s and the Cossack Naval Infantry who caught him properly beat the fucking shit out of him - hospital job. He always maintained that he'd rather eject over NATO territory than Russia after that.
So the Russian military were a bunch of sociopathic sadists? Some things don’t appear to have changed in 30 years.
He claimed the SAS training broke him psychologically and in a way he never recovered (even though he passed). I didn't believe him, but then he went and topped himself, so maybe there was something in it. Of course the SAS attracts weird people anyway. Growing up in Hereford I met many of them
What colour is the boat house at Hereford?
I always felt sorry for Sean Bean in that film. Even if he was a pillock.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
Athens now has some of what London had in the late 1990's - an excellent balance of growing affluence and increasing cosmopolitanism, but with still very large and specific local authenticity. Go there now before it's just another similar city.
What's the issue with Rishi's wife having shares in a childcare company ? I'd have thought as the PM's brief is the entire British economy then shares in almost anything could be a potential conflict of interest with his work ? Maybe the PM and his wife should transfer to hold blind trusts for the entirity of their equity portfolio for anything UK related; the transfer starting the day they get the gig. Looks the only way out of it to me, you can probably include the Chancellor too.
Yes, otherwise you end up with the Nancy Pelosi problem, that her husband seems to be outperforming Soros in the stock market, and has become worth $200m. Mrs Sunak should either sell, or put in a blind trust, anything related to business that operate in the UK, or could be directly affected by government policy.
On the Eurostar. IS IT A COINCIDENCE that the wifi en France is a zillion times better than the wifi in the UK.
All pretty shit, that said, for an international passenger service, but notable nonetheless.
IIRC in the UK trackside access for things like mobile masts is incredibly difficult as it is jealously guarded by Network Rail. Presumably in France some bigwig can simply order SNCF to let the networks put up masts in sensible places along the route. So the on-train Wi-Fi can easily connect to trackside masts in France whereas in the UK it is lobbing the data over the embankment and hoping a mast in a nearby town can grab it.
Interesting thanks makes sense.
Restricting trackside access makes sense from Network Rail's point of view. You don't want numpties walking about working railway lines, and if they do, then they need escorting by trained non-numpties. we all think of 'rail safety' as being about the safety of people on trains; it's also very much about the safety of trackside workers.
This is why I quite like Philadelphia in the US. Globalisation has left it mostly unmolested. You can’t get Laduree macarons there, like you can everywhere else.
(Was it really so long since you had to go to the Rue Royale to try them? Wikipedia says 1997…)
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
From the Times's coverage of Sunak's maths speech. On balance, I'm pretty sure that devising their own spreadsheets is not a good use of (Prime) Ministerial time.
Sunak, a former investment banker who devises his own spreadsheets for use in government, will argue that poor maths skills are costing the British economy.
For people to learn basic maths you need more maths teachers. Good luck with that!
We don't invest anything like as much as we need to in children's education.
Unfortunately, Labour's keystone policy of vindictiveness towards private schools will only make it worse.
How will it make it worse? The money raised by putting VAT on private school fees will be used to increase funding for the schools that 93% of kids go to. Since those schools are starved of resources I would assume that each £1 spent there would have more incremental benefit on the overall quality of educational outcomes. At state schools the money would be spent on more teachers or new books, at private schools it would just be a new lighting system at the school theatre, more manicuring of the school's eighth rugby pitch or an extra school cricket trip to the Caribbean.
Because it won't raise any more money, and will indeed cost the taxpayer, as the children transfer to be educated at the State's expense and, indeed, some private schools actually close.
It's a remarkably stupid policy, driven by prejudice.
I remember going through the numbers and it looked like it would be revenue positive - you'd need an implausibly high amount of pupils switching to the state system for it not to be (and since I would prefer all pupils to be educated in the state system so that the rich can't escape the consequences of their voting decisions and to promote social cohesion I wouldn't be that bothered if that happened anyway).
If you wanted "to promote social cohesion" rigorously you'd have to abolish catchment areas, do away with kids going to schools they can walk to, and instead have something like bussing and random allocation with no choice as to what school people go to.
The fact that a good school's catchment area is a key determinant in house prices shows that there's more than just private schools etc that are in play here.
Parents who value their kids education are going to do what they can to get their kids into a good school, even within the state sector, and not be worried about "social cohesion" - and quite rightly too.
School catchment is certainly a factor in house prices but the causation also runs the other way and is likely more powerful - big houses in leafy suburbs attract middle class families whose kids attend their local school and get better exam results. For most children their closest school is their best option. I am certainly glad that our kids can attend their nearest comprehensive school (rated good - the median rating, above average number of kids on free school meals) and walk there, it is best for everyone.
Wouldn't it be nice if your local school was nice?
In practice, everyone-goes-to-their-local-school leads to a large amount of coasting. Schools will get the kids and the funding anyway, so no need to try too hard. They can follow their own agenda, rather than one that parents might want them to.
In practice, if your kids are starting secondary school this September, there is next to no choice: you go where you're put. This cohort is so huge that there isn't the space to pick and choose.
You've highlighted one of the problems with school choice here. For it to work, you do need the system to carry a significant number of free places in each area. In general, we don't want to do that, because of the cost/inefficiency. So what often happens in practice is that all but one schools fill up to capacity and the school seen as worst becomes half-empty and enters a spiral of doom.
One of the theories was that good schools would want to expand to meet demand. That rarely happened- partly because of the constraints of school sites and partly because a lot of heads would rather keep a small school running well than risk the instability of expansion.
The dirty secret of school improvement is that, once you get beyond basic competence (and yes, there are schools where that doesn't happen reliably), it's not easy to make a school actually better (as opposed to looking better), and the easiest way to do it is to choose your intake shrewdly.
I strongly (though politely!) disagree with your last para. There's LOADS of ways of improving schools, and there are loads of examples of schools improving experiences and outcomes for pupils by changing the right things. (My wife works in schools improvement and is very interesting on the subject!)
And you do need slack in the system, as in any system. If you're running at capacity, you fall over when you're pushed that little bit more.
Curious what you consider are the easiest wins in terms of ways of improving schools?
Number 1 has to be the leadership team as it sets the tone for everything else.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Fully agree. Geneva is shockingly, and I mean shockingly dull.
I used to travel around the UK for work, and I’d always amuse my hosts or companions by finding something interesting in Slough, or Sunderland, or St Helens.
I've noticed this too. The metro between the Gare de Lyon and Gare du Nord always feels way more tense than inner or South London.
My guess is it's something to do with the way Paris is so divided socio-geographically. Rich white people live in the middle, poorer ethnic people live beyond the Peripherique - and come into town to work play or "have fun", if they are bored youngsters
So there is an intrinsic edginess which you don't get in London, which is racially mixed almost everywhere
That said, London has got dodgier too in recent years: bike and phone thefts are off the dial
I think that's right. Cities like London and Manchester have central areas full of both the middle classes and minorities.
There's something else. In the Gare De Lyon a few years ago I witnessed a couple of paramilitary-style policemen with boots and dogs, smiling menacingly, suddenly appear and bark at a group of fairly obviously random minority youths ; the real culprit and kerfuffle had been about 10 minutes before.
There's something wrong with the inter-ethnic atmosphere in France.
As was seen at the Stade de France Real-Liverpool final. Police lost all control of "locals"
When I was last in Paris, I saw the following.
Early one morning, sitting having coffee while out getting breakfast croissant for the family, a battered Renault hatchback cut off a big Mercedes drive by a gentleman of colour.
Four huge policemen in paramilitary garb (black clothes, body armour, assault rifles etc) boiled out of the Renault - covered in tattoos and generally looking quite rough. It was a sketch - especially when a 5th copper unfolded himself from the boot. It was hard to see how they all fitted in the car.
Lots of shouting and waving of guns. After about 3 minutes they all piled back in the Renault and took off.
The locals said that this wasn’t surprising or unusual.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Fully agree. Geneva is shockingly, and I mean shockingly dull.
I used to travel around the UK for work, and I’d always amuse my hosts or companions by finding something interesting in Slough, or Sunderland, or St Helens.
I just don’t get Geneva at all.
Zurich is mildly interesting. Mildly.
Like Hong Kong, Geneva and Zurich are great places to leave. For Brits this means weekend skiing.
I could do a list of major western cities experiencing obvious decline and it would be thirty long, or more, and it would include Paris, NYC, LA, Rome, New Orleans, Florence and - I am afraid - London. And many many more. Perhaps this is to be expected after a plague but it is still a sad fact
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier) Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?) Er Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
It depends on the timeframe. Compare, say, Birmingham now to the Birmingham I lived in during the 1980s and it has improved on just about every level possible. Do it over the last five to 10 years and you may get a different answer. The same is probably true of most cities in the UK and Europe. That said, there are probably quite a few cities in Central and Eastern Europe that are still on the up - places like Bucharest, Warsaw, Sofia etc.
The one city that I know that has unquestionably gone backwards over a longer stretch is Barcelona. That has been in serious decline for over two decades and it is absolute tragedy because it used to be magnificent.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Fully agree. Geneva is shockingly, and I mean shockingly dull.
I used to travel around the UK for work, and I’d always amuse my hosts or companions by finding something interesting in Slough, or Sunderland, or St Helens.
I just don’t get Geneva at all.
Zurich is mildly interesting. Mildly.
It's extremely expensive, dull and has a very seedy underbelly because of the UN and other diplomatic people who have (or act as if they have) immunity from criminal actions. I think if it were ever properly investigated child sex trafficking in Geneva would probably be among the worst in the world.
What's the issue with Rishi's wife having shares in a childcare company ? I'd have thought as the PM's brief is the entire British economy then shares in almost anything could be a potential conflict of interest with his work ? Maybe the PM and his wife should transfer to hold blind trusts for the entirity of their equity portfolio for anything UK related; the transfer starting the day they get the gig. Looks the only way out of it to me, you can probably include the Chancellor too.
A certain PM's wife did rather well out of the Human Rights Act.
The coverage of the Brecon Beacons generally misses their most salient feature. They’re shite. Large tracts of bald, boggy, treeless steep hills, too swampy to hike, devoid of interesting history, too small to be impressive. Meh
They need to be replanted with trees, and rewilded with wolves, lynx, bear and aurochs. And maybe Beaker People
The Falklands War was won on them (cf Waterloo/Eton)
Yeah, they’re good for training the SAS. Because they’re such rough wet tedious sapping terrain. Not so good for holidays
I mean, what does this photo say? Come here for an exciting, varied and beautiful hike? With an interesting pubby village on the way?
I am peculiar. I like that landscape a lot. I remember a day's walking in the Brecon Beacons, tramping through the empty country, watching rain showers slowly approach across the big skies. It was pretty awesome. A great place for a day trip, but not a holiday, I agree.
I find them immensely boring and ugly. One of the ugliest places in rural Britain. And hiking is a pain because of the swampy, break-your-ankle tussocks and peatlands
The Black Mountains next door are vastly superior
They're both cool.
Many moons ago, I was doing a hike between Christmas and New Year from Brecon south. On the second day, I climbed up to the beallach between Fan-y-Big and Pen-y-Fan via Cribyn. At the bottom of Pen-y-Fan, I met a man in full army gear. By the time I reached the top of Pen-y-Fan, carrying my camping gear, he had gone up and down two or three times. With a heavier pack.
I did both my SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) training bouts on the Brecon Beacons. The first was utter misery enlivened only by the mock execution of a blindfolded and screaming navigator by the staff pretending to drive over his head with a Land Rover. On the second one I knew how to cheat and my mate's girlfriend picked us both up at a pre-arranged RV for a night spent in a Pub/B&B.
That would meet the survive and evade components, providing you weren't caught. Resistance too, I guess.
They are funny exercises (ours were called E&E - escape and evasion). On the one hand you knew it was all a game and a bloke (or bird, which worked more sometimes especially if you were lavatorially deprived) screaming at you and being in the stress position was manageable; and on the other it was an "interestingly real" experience also.
Of course I never had to put it into practice and much more important for eg aircrew and SF where I'm sure the note-taking was more rigorous than ours.
My mate did the Russian Air Force equivalent in the 90s and the Cossack Naval Infantry who caught him properly beat the fucking shit out of him - hospital job. He always maintained that he'd rather eject over NATO territory than Russia after that.
So the Russian military were a bunch of sociopathic sadists? Some things don’t appear to have changed in 30 years.
He claimed the SAS training broke him psychologically and in a way he never recovered (even though he passed). I didn't believe him, but then he went and topped himself, so maybe there was something in it. Of course the SAS attracts weird people anyway. Growing up in Hereford I met many of them
What colour is the boat house at Hereford?
Fuck knows. What boat house?! I used to live right by the river, there were quite a few
The main boathouse is sort of white and woody-brown with a glass front. Is that good enough for you Mr DeNiro?
If Sean Bean had been thinking on his feet he’d have replied, “Which one, and how do you pronounce Hereford?”
Still a shit film though
I’ve rowed with Hereford Rowing Club - they grin in a tired way, at the jokes.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
Can't agree at all there. Thriving arts and creative scenes, whom through a few friends I've been lucky enough to meet some parts of - modern greek visual art and cinema is very trendy abroad - and just the right balance of local grit and authenticity and internationally feeding-in affluence now, for my money. The locals are already being priced out of the centre, though, so give it 10 years and Plaka will feel as boring as some the overpriced very central parts of London do now, I think.
This is why I quite like Philadelphia in the US. Globalisation has left it mostly unmolested. You can’t get Laduree macarons there, like you can everywhere else.
(Was it really so long since you had to go to the Rue Royale to try them? Wikipedia says 1997…)
Di Bruno Bros on Chestnut Street had a lot of welcome imports last time I was there
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Yeah. Geneva - despite being absurdly wealthy and in an enviable location - manages to combine German stodginess and humourlessness, with French snootiness and rudeness, and a special tedious Swissness all its own. Horrible town. Tho I did have a very nice salad nicoise there
Zurich is definitely better
As we have discussed, Italian Switzerland is the place to be, if you have to be in Switzerland. Even there it's fairly boring but you get sunshine and gorgeous towns and good food and wine - and Italy is ten minutes away, for fun
I could do a list of major western cities experiencing obvious decline and it would be thirty long, or more, and it would include Paris, NYC, LA, Rome, New Orleans, Florence and - I am afraid - London. And many many more. Perhaps this is to be expected after a plague but it is still a sad fact
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier) Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?) Er Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
There are a lot of American cities in the sunbelt doing very well: Nashville, Chattanooga, Asheville, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin, DFW, Fort Myers.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Yeah. Geneva - despite being absurdly wealthy and in an enviable location - manages to combine German stodginess and humourlessness, with French snootiness and rudeness, and a special tedious Swissness all its own. Horrible town. Tho I did have a very nice salad nicoise there
Zurich is definitely better
As we have discussed, Italian Switzerland is the place to be, if you have to be in Switzerland. Even there it's fairly boring but you get sunshine and gorgeous towns and good food and wine - and Italy is ten minutes away, for fun
Yeah and the people are distinctly less Swiss. It's like being in a more professional Italy. I think the rest of the world is going to realise just how great Ticino and Lugano are in the next 5-7 years. Both are usually overlooked for more famous bits of both Switzerland and Italy.
I could do a list of major western cities experiencing obvious decline and it would be thirty long, or more, and it would include Paris, NYC, LA, Rome, New Orleans, Florence and - I am afraid - London. And many many more. Perhaps this is to be expected after a plague but it is still a sad fact
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier) Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?) Er Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
In the US, Miami, Austin, and Nashville are the cities on the up - as NYC, LA, and SF are those with problems.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I haven't been to Athens for a long time, but I find it very hard to believe that it is worse now than it was when I was there in the early 1990s!
I've noticed this too. The metro between the Gare de Lyon and Gare du Nord always feels way more tense than inner or South London.
My guess is it's something to do with the way Paris is so divided socio-geographically. Rich white people live in the middle, poorer ethnic people live beyond the Peripherique - and come into town to work play or "have fun", if they are bored youngsters
So there is an intrinsic edginess which you don't get in London, which is racially mixed almost everywhere
That said, London has got dodgier too in recent years: bike and phone thefts are off the dial
I think that's right. Cities like London and Manchester have central areas full of both the middle classes and minorities.
There's something else. In the Gare De Lyon a few years ago I witnessed a couple of paramilitary-style policemen with boots and dogs, smiling menacingly, suddenly appear and bark at a group of fairly obviously random minority youths ; the real culprit and kerfuffle had been about 10 minutes before.
There's something wrong with the inter-ethnic atmosphere in France.
As was seen at the Stade de France Real-Liverpool final. Police lost all control of "locals"
When I was last in Paris, I saw the following.
Early one morning, sitting having coffee while out getting breakfast croissant for the family, a battered Renault hatchback cut off a big Mercedes drive by a gentleman of colour.
Four huge policemen in paramilitary garb (black clothes, body armour, assault rifles etc) boiled out of the Renault - covered in tattoos and generally looking quite rough. It was a sketch - especially when a 5th copper unfolded himself from the boot. It was hard to see how they all fitted in the car.
Lots of shouting and waving of guns. After about 3 minutes they all piled back in the Renault and took off.
The locals said that this wasn’t surprising or unusual.
This sounds familiar. Awful inter-ethnic atmosphere.
It hasn't been all progress, and parts of the main shopping areas are feeling the squeeze being felt everywhere. It is sad to see Debenhams - which is still a lovely building - standing empty and forlorn. But even since 2019, there has been far more improvement than decline. The growth in the Northern Quarter/Ancoats and Deansgate is well known, along with Inner Salford; Piccadilly East is on the verge of something spectacular, Great Ducie Street and Victoria North will be after that.
There is still too much litter and graffiti. But that has always been the case; that's not decline, just failure in that area to make progress.
The suburbs and surrounding towns, too, have improved over the last few years.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Yeah. Geneva - despite being absurdly wealthy and in an enviable location - manages to combine German stodginess and humourlessness, with French snootiness and rudeness, and a special tedious Swissness all its own. Horrible town. Tho I did have a very nice salad nicoise there
Zurich is definitely better
As we have discussed, Italian Switzerland is the place to be, if you have to be in Switzerland. Even there it's fairly boring but you get sunshine and gorgeous towns and good food and wine - and Italy is ten minutes away, for fun
Yeah and the people are distinctly less Swiss. It's like being in a more professional Italy. I think the rest of the world is going to realise just how great Ticino and Lugano are in the next 5-7 years. Both are usually overlooked for more famous bits of both Switzerland and Italy.
Although, why would they discover them in the next 5-7 when they haven’t so far?
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Washington Post (via Seattle Times) > Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm
Over the last two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial disclosure forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership.
But that company – a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives – has not existed since 2006.
That year, the family real estate company was shut down and a separate firm was created, state incorporation records show. The similarly named firm assumed control of the shuttered company’s land leasing business, according to property records.
Since that time, however, Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company – between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years – and there is no mention of the newer firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, on the forms.
The previously unreported misstatement might be dismissed as a paperwork error. But it is among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades, a review of those records shows. Together, they have raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public.
Thomas’s disclosure history is in the spotlight after ProPublica revealed this month that a Texas billionaire took him on lavish vacations and also bought from Thomas and his siblings a Georgia home where their mother lives, a transaction that was not disclosed on the forms. Thomas said in a statement that colleagues he did not name told him he did not have to report the vacations and that he has always tried to comply with disclosure guidelines. He has not publicly addressed the property transaction.
Lisbon and Porto are way, way better than they used to be. Same with quite a few cities in Spain - Bilbao and Valencia especially. Madrid is not what it was but is still pretty good. As I say, though, Barcelona is a sad exception.
Is this some elaborate Herefordian meta-joke? If so, I am obviously too dumb to get it. Which is not surprising. I grew up in Hereford, FFS
The film "Ronin" (great car chases, terrible accents) has Robert DeNiro and Sean Bean as mercenaries. Bean presents as ex-SAS and uses lingo like "the Regiment", but deNiro thinks he's lying. Eventually Bean's amateurism becomes obvious and DeNiro confronts him with the question "what colour is the boathouse in Hereford?" where Hereford is the base of the SAS. It's a tense scene in a film well worth watching, but it is ludicrously spoilt by the fact that DeNiro doesn't know how to pronounce the word "Hereford", pronouncing the "Here" to rhyme with "Deer", not "Her-err".
I've noticed this too. The metro between the Gare de Lyon and Gare du Nord always feels way more tense than inner or South London.
My guess is it's something to do with the way Paris is so divided socio-geographically. Rich white people live in the middle, poorer ethnic people live beyond the Peripherique - and come into town to work play or "have fun", if they are bored youngsters
So there is an intrinsic edginess which you don't get in London, which is racially mixed almost everywhere
That said, London has got dodgier too in recent years: bike and phone thefts are off the dial
I think that's right. Cities like London and Manchester have central areas full of both the middle classes and minorities.
There's something else. In the Gare De Lyon a few years ago I witnessed a couple of paramilitary-style policemen with boots and dogs, smiling menacingly, suddenly appear and bark at a group of fairly obviously random minority youths ; the real culprit and kerfuffle had been about 10 minutes before.
There's something wrong with the inter-ethnic atmosphere in France.
As was seen at the Stade de France Real-Liverpool final. Police lost all control of "locals"
When I was last in Paris, I saw the following.
Early one morning, sitting having coffee while out getting breakfast croissant for the family, a battered Renault hatchback cut off a big Mercedes drive by a gentleman of colour.
Four huge policemen in paramilitary garb (black clothes, body armour, assault rifles etc) boiled out of the Renault - covered in tattoos and generally looking quite rough. It was a sketch - especially when a 5th copper unfolded himself from the boot. It was hard to see how they all fitted in the car.
Lots of shouting and waving of guns. After about 3 minutes they all piled back in the Renault and took off.
The locals said that this wasn’t surprising or unusual.
This sounds familiar. Awful inter-ethnic atmosphere.
It reminded me more of Peruvian policing* than London style armed police.
The armed street gang vibe from the cops was massive. They looked like the DEA guys in Bad Boys 2.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I haven't been to Athens for a long time, but I find it very hard to believe that it is worse now than it was when I was there in the early 1990s!
Very much not. I know many people who've been pleasantly surprised by Athens in the last five or ten years. Much better food, transport infrastructure and services, for still very reasonable prices compared to London and Paris, and a lot of interesting, trendy or bohemian sub-areas - they won't be there for long, too near the centre, though.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Yeah. Geneva - despite being absurdly wealthy and in an enviable location - manages to combine German stodginess and humourlessness, with French snootiness and rudeness, and a special tedious Swissness all its own. Horrible town. Tho I did have a very nice salad nicoise there
Zurich is definitely better
As we have discussed, Italian Switzerland is the place to be, if you have to be in Switzerland. Even there it's fairly boring but you get sunshine and gorgeous towns and good food and wine - and Italy is ten minutes away, for fun
Yeah and the people are distinctly less Swiss. It's like being in a more professional Italy. I think the rest of the world is going to realise just how great Ticino and Lugano are in the next 5-7 years. Both are usually overlooked for more famous bits of both Switzerland and Italy.
Although, why would they discover them in the next 5-7 when they haven’t so far?
Because the nicer parts of Italy are becoming expensive. Part of the target market will decide that Switzerland is a better long term bet for them.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Crime has now peaked in US cities. It appears to have been a COVID thing.
McClatchy News Service (via Seattle Times) >New poll: DeSantis — not Trump — leads Biden in battleground states
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race.
The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins.
The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him.
Perceptions about the governor’s general election strength compared to Trump have helped fuel his rise in polls of the GOP 2024 primary, though DeSantis has not yet formally entered the race.
In Pennsylvania, according to the poll, DeSantis leads Biden 45% to 42%, while Trump trails the sitting president 42% to 46%.
The survey found that in Arizona, DeSantis leads Biden 48% to 42%. Trump, however, trails the Democratic leader 44% to 45%. . . .
The coverage of the Brecon Beacons generally misses their most salient feature. They’re shite. Large tracts of bald, boggy, treeless steep hills, too swampy to hike, devoid of interesting history, too small to be impressive. Meh
They need to be replanted with trees, and rewilded with wolves, lynx, bear and aurochs. And maybe Beaker People
The Falklands War was won on them (cf Waterloo/Eton)
Yeah, they’re good for training the SAS. Because they’re such rough wet tedious sapping terrain. Not so good for holidays
I mean, what does this photo say? Come here for an exciting, varied and beautiful hike? With an interesting pubby village on the way?
I am peculiar. I like that landscape a lot. I remember a day's walking in the Brecon Beacons, tramping through the empty country, watching rain showers slowly approach across the big skies. It was pretty awesome. A great place for a day trip, but not a holiday, I agree.
I find them immensely boring and ugly. One of the ugliest places in rural Britain. And hiking is a pain because of the swampy, break-your-ankle tussocks and peatlands
The Black Mountains next door are vastly superior
They're both cool.
Many moons ago, I was doing a hike between Christmas and New Year from Brecon south. On the second day, I climbed up to the beallach between Fan-y-Big and Pen-y-Fan via Cribyn. At the bottom of Pen-y-Fan, I met a man in full army gear. By the time I reached the top of Pen-y-Fan, carrying my camping gear, he had gone up and down two or three times. With a heavier pack.
I did both my SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) training bouts on the Brecon Beacons. The first was utter misery enlivened only by the mock execution of a blindfolded and screaming navigator by the staff pretending to drive over his head with a Land Rover. On the second one I knew how to cheat and my mate's girlfriend picked us both up at a pre-arranged RV for a night spent in a Pub/B&B.
Captain Kirk's cheating on the Kobayashi Maru has nothing on you....
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
And very dull. I really felt as though I would die of boredom in Zurich when I lived there. Switzerland is best in the countryside, cities are all avoidable and worth doing so. Geneva is probably the most irredeemable city I've been to in Europe.
Yeah. Geneva - despite being absurdly wealthy and in an enviable location - manages to combine German stodginess and humourlessness, with French snootiness and rudeness, and a special tedious Swissness all its own. Horrible town. Tho I did have a very nice salad nicoise there
Zurich is definitely better
As we have discussed, Italian Switzerland is the place to be, if you have to be in Switzerland. Even there it's fairly boring but you get sunshine and gorgeous towns and good food and wine - and Italy is ten minutes away, for fun
Yeah and the people are distinctly less Swiss. It's like being in a more professional Italy. I think the rest of the world is going to realise just how great Ticino and Lugano are in the next 5-7 years. Both are usually overlooked for more famous bits of both Switzerland and Italy.
I liked Italian Switzerland very much when I visited - it was weird; you crossed the border and it somehow got cleaner and more efficient - but while cleaner (and God knows I value clean), I didn't actually like it as much as actual Italy. In Italy, it feels like every business you pass is offering you the opportunity to have a nice time in some way; while in Switzerland it is offering you the opportunity to make your life more efficient.
McClatchy News Service (via Seattle Times) >New poll: DeSantis — not Trump — leads Biden in battleground states
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race.
The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins.
The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him.
Perceptions about the governor’s general election strength compared to Trump have helped fuel his rise in polls of the GOP 2024 primary, though DeSantis has not yet formally entered the race.
In Pennsylvania, according to the poll, DeSantis leads Biden 45% to 42%, while Trump trails the sitting president 42% to 46%.
The survey found that in Arizona, DeSantis leads Biden 48% to 42%. Trump, however, trails the Democratic leader 44% to 45%. . . .
Further evidence why President Biden and Democrats are praying Trump wins the GOP nomination again
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Crime has now peaked in US cities. It appears to have been a COVID thing.
That's quite a statement based on what the article actually says
"Data From Cities Show Violent Crime Rates Fell Slightly Last Year
A report from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that homicides and gun assaults mostly declined in the 35 cities studied and that car thefts rose dramatically."
I'd say wait and see. The depopulation of the big cities - especially Chicago, LA, SF, and NYC to an extent - does not augur well for crime in the medium term. Emptier streets = more crime. But who knows
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Yes the few times I've been out and about recently in places like Soho it has definitely felt like it was back from the dead. I think there has been some permanent displacement of activity from the centre to residential neighbourhoods like ours, which is probably a good thing. Agreed on the petty crime situation, my wife got her phone nicked the other week in central London.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I don't often agree with you, but outside the area around the Cathedral (I accidentally wound up at King Constantine's funeral in January) is lovely. The remainder of the city could be twinned with Bootle.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
"Are you going to pick that up?" "No, you pick it up." "You've been walking past it all day." "It's addressed to you." "It isn't addressed to anyone." "But you're the voter." "I'm not going to vote." "They're your friends." "No they're not. I just happen to know some of them."
And so it lies there on the doormat, unloved, unwanted, unread.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Yes the few times I've been out and about recently in places like Soho it has definitely felt like it was back from the dead. I think there has been some permanent displacement of activity from the centre to residential neighbourhoods like ours, which is probably a good thing. Agreed on the petty crime situation, my wife got her phone nicked the other week in central London.
Walking around Soho in the early evening it is fantastically busy. People literally thronging around Old Compton St and the various streets. No doubt trying to find the entrance to one of the Soho Houses but I imagine some are just hanging out. Zillions of people.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I don't often agree with you, but outside the area around the Cathedral (I accidentally wound up at King Constantine's funeral in January) is lovely. The remainder of the city could be twinned with Bootle.
I would personally say you've missed lots of interesting stuff there, MP, and should give it a look again. There are between five and ten very interesting artistic neighbourhoods near the centre, Plaka is still both authentic - just - and internationally thriving, and they're about to build a giant california/tel aviv-style development all down the coast. It's an interesting time to be in the city, on the up but just before it comes just another slightly more anonymous globocity, I would say.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I don't often agree with you, but outside the area around the Cathedral (I accidentally wound up at King Constantine's funeral in January) is lovely. The remainder of the city could be twinned with Bootle.
Greece is two economies. Some of the islands are becoming lavishly wealthy, from tourism. And a few of the luckier mainland coastal towns, as well
Some of the interior, or neglected coastal towns feel as poor as anywhere in the EU. Which is unsurprising, given the multiple shocks that have more-than-decimated the Greek economy
Athens is both of these economies in one. Some luxe, some large tracts of serious poverty
tldr is that fertility rates in Africa are falling much faster than expected, and Africa's pattern of the next 60 years might be Asia's pattern of the last 60. And therefore peak world population could be sooner and lower than we are currently expecting.
The following few paragraphs are worth picking out:
"The un’s population projections are widely seen as the most authoritative. Its latest report, published last year, contained considerably lower estimates for sub-Saharan Africa than those of a decade ago. For Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest population numbering about 213m people, the un has reduced its forecast for 2060 by more than 100m people (down to around 429m). By 2100 it expects the country to have about 550m people, more than 350m fewer than it reckoned a decade ago. Yet even the un’s latest projections may not be keeping pace with the rapid decline in fertility rates (the average number of children that women are expected to have) that some striking recent studies show. Most remarkable is Nigeria, where a un-backed survey in 2021 found the fertility rate had fallen to 4.6 from 5.8 just five years earlier. This figure seems to be broadly confirmed by another survey, this time backed by usaid, America’s aid agency, which found a fertility rate of 4.8 in 2021, down from 6.1 in 2010. “Something is happening,” muses Argentina Matavel of the un Population Fund. If these findings are correct they would suggest that birth rates are falling at a similar pace to those in some parts of Asia, when that region saw its own population growth rates slow sharply in a process often known as a demographic transition. A similar trend seems to be emerging in parts of the Sahel, which still has some of Africa’s highest fertility rates, and coastal west Africa. In Mali, for instance, the fertility rate fell from 6.3 to a still high 5.7 in six years. Senegal’s, at 3.9 in 2021, equates to one fewer baby per woman than little over a decade ago. So too in the Gambia, where the rate plunged from 5.6 in 2013 to 4.4 in 2020, and Ghana, where it fell from 4.2 to 3.8 in just three years. These declines bring west Africa closer to the lower fertility rates seen in much of southern Africa. "
Thanks for the article.
The idea that Nigeria would have ever been able to support 900 million is a bit silly IMO. Other factors would have come into play before that happened.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
One every 6 mintues was the figure I heard quoted - which is, yep, 240 per day. I assumed the number of thefts had risen though when that was quoted...
I could do a list of major western cities experiencing obvious decline and it would be thirty long, or more, and it would include Paris, NYC, LA, Rome, New Orleans, Florence and - I am afraid - London. And many many more. Perhaps this is to be expected after a plague but it is still a sad fact
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier) Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?) Er Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
There are a lot of American cities in the sunbelt doing very well: Nashville, Chattanooga, Asheville, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin, DFW, Fort Myers.
How is Phoenix planning to deal with its chronic lack of water supplies?
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I don't often agree with you, but outside the area around the Cathedral (I accidentally wound up at King Constantine's funeral in January) is lovely. The remainder of the city could be twinned with Bootle.
Greece is two economies. Some of the islands are becoming lavishly wealthy, from tourism. And a few of the luckier mainland coastal towns, as well
Some of the interior, or neglected coastal towns feel as poor as anywhere in the EU. Which is unsurprising, given the multiple shocks that have more-than-decimated the Greek economy
Athens is both of these economies in one. Some luxe, some large tracts of serious poverty
I agree with most of this, just to add that I think Athens has more of some of the atmosphere of 1990's London - real poverty, growing affluence from international money, and an interesting bohemian middle class ensconced across lots of poorer and architecturally older areas before they've become fully gentrified. The Athens equivalent of the 1990's London, old docks warehouse rave is the semi-restored, semi-decrepit neoclassical mansion , with arty cafe attached and bougainvillea flowing down the balcony.
Half a million people already watching, what’s either going to be the dawn of making the species multiplanetary, or one of the biggest accidental explosions ever seen on Earth.
tldr is that fertility rates in Africa are falling much faster than expected, and Africa's pattern of the next 60 years might be Asia's pattern of the last 60. And therefore peak world population could be sooner and lower than we are currently expecting.
The following few paragraphs are worth picking out:
"The un’s population projections are widely seen as the most authoritative. Its latest report, published last year, contained considerably lower estimates for sub-Saharan Africa than those of a decade ago. For Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest population numbering about 213m people, the un has reduced its forecast for 2060 by more than 100m people (down to around 429m). By 2100 it expects the country to have about 550m people, more than 350m fewer than it reckoned a decade ago. Yet even the un’s latest projections may not be keeping pace with the rapid decline in fertility rates (the average number of children that women are expected to have) that some striking recent studies show. Most remarkable is Nigeria, where a un-backed survey in 2021 found the fertility rate had fallen to 4.6 from 5.8 just five years earlier. This figure seems to be broadly confirmed by another survey, this time backed by usaid, America’s aid agency, which found a fertility rate of 4.8 in 2021, down from 6.1 in 2010. “Something is happening,” muses Argentina Matavel of the un Population Fund. If these findings are correct they would suggest that birth rates are falling at a similar pace to those in some parts of Asia, when that region saw its own population growth rates slow sharply in a process often known as a demographic transition. A similar trend seems to be emerging in parts of the Sahel, which still has some of Africa’s highest fertility rates, and coastal west Africa. In Mali, for instance, the fertility rate fell from 6.3 to a still high 5.7 in six years. Senegal’s, at 3.9 in 2021, equates to one fewer baby per woman than little over a decade ago. So too in the Gambia, where the rate plunged from 5.6 in 2013 to 4.4 in 2020, and Ghana, where it fell from 4.2 to 3.8 in just three years. These declines bring west Africa closer to the lower fertility rates seen in much of southern Africa. "
Thanks for the article.
The idea that Nigeria would have ever been able to support 900 million is a bit silly IMO. Other factors would have come into play before that happened.
Yes, I agree. Though I've been saying that for some time without any actual evidence it was happening! There is a slightly silly bit in the article saying that Africa isn't overcrowded because it is less crowded than the UK, South Korea and Japan. If the world were crowded to levels typical in the UK, South Korea and Japan we really would be in trouble!
I could do a list of major western cities experiencing obvious decline and it would be thirty long, or more, and it would include Paris, NYC, LA, Rome, New Orleans, Florence and - I am afraid - London. And many many more. Perhaps this is to be expected after a plague but it is still a sad fact
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier) Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?) Er Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
There are a lot of American cities in the sunbelt doing very well: Nashville, Chattanooga, Asheville, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin, DFW, Fort Myers.
Denver, my friend, is not doing well. It's a ghost town. I was there last year and it was shocking. I believe we discussed this. It's empty apart from homeless people, and that = crime
"'Being nice is not working!' Fed-up Denver business leaders slam Dem-run city for forcing them to shell out MILLIONS a year on security to protect their businesses, as homelessness and crime soars in Mile-High City"
We have had requests for "What are LTNs and the controversies thereof?" a few times.
Tonight's Panorama is a pretty good summary of the background, impacts and viewpoints, that I would recommend. Not a lot original for anyone who has followed the issue, but worth half an hour.
It is documentary rather than opinionating (for once !).
Half a million people already watching, what’s either going to be the dawn of making the species multiplanetary, or one of the biggest accidental explosions ever seen on Earth.
LTNs are a product of the mindset that says: people will get on their bikes or walk to do the shopping, school run, visit friends/relatives, even people who have never nor would ever got on their bikes or walked to do such things.
We have been round these houses before. If you are an older, inactive person, or just inactive for one reason or another, you are not going to jump on a bicycle and will just find a way around the LTNs.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be slanted by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be spiked by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
I could do a list of major western cities experiencing obvious decline and it would be thirty long, or more, and it would include Paris, NYC, LA, Rome, New Orleans, Florence and - I am afraid - London. And many many more. Perhaps this is to be expected after a plague but it is still a sad fact
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier) Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?) Er Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
There are a lot of American cities in the sunbelt doing very well: Nashville, Chattanooga, Asheville, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin, DFW, Fort Myers.
How is Phoenix planning to deal with its chronic lack of water supplies?
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Yes the few times I've been out and about recently in places like Soho it has definitely felt like it was back from the dead. I think there has been some permanent displacement of activity from the centre to residential neighbourhoods like ours, which is probably a good thing. Agreed on the petty crime situation, my wife got her phone nicked the other week in central London.
Walking around Soho in the early evening it is fantastically busy. People literally thronging around Old Compton St and the various streets. No doubt trying to find the entrance to one of the Soho Houses but I imagine some are just hanging out. Zillions of people.
Yes, that's exactly my experience (and I too was looking for one of the many bewildering entrances to Soho House!)
I've been living in London 40 years and outside street festivals/jubilees etc I cannot remember Soho EVER being so busy. Quite striking. And it was not a sunny weekend in summer
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I don't often agree with you, but outside the area around the Cathedral (I accidentally wound up at King Constantine's funeral in January) is lovely. The remainder of the city could be twinned with Bootle.
Greece is two economies. Some of the islands are becoming lavishly wealthy, from tourism. And a few of the luckier mainland coastal towns, as well
Some of the interior, or neglected coastal towns feel as poor as anywhere in the EU. Which is unsurprising, given the multiple shocks that have more-than-decimated the Greek economy
Athens is both of these economies in one. Some luxe, some large tracts of serious poverty
I agree with most of this, just to add that I think Athens has more of some of the atmosphere of 1990's London - real poverty, growing affluence from international money, and an interesting bohemian middle class ensconced across lots of poorer and architecturally older areas before they've become fully gentrified. The Athens equivalent of the 1990's London, old docks warehouse rave is the semi-restored, semi-decrepit neoclassical mansion with arty cafe attached and bougainvillea flowing down the balcony.
I strongly suspect that cycles of decline and renewal are necessary for the long term health of a city. Without it, a city loses the opportunity for artists, bohemians and entrepreneurs to move in and oxygenate the city's biosphere with creativity. A city that keeps on getting richer in a linear way just becomes Switzerland. Arguably London could do with a few lean years to get that process going again. Even edgy SE London is getting too expensive for young creative types to gain a toehold now. There are too many finance wankers in New Cross these days.
Half a million people already watching, what’s either going to be the dawn of making the species multiplanetary, or one of the biggest accidental explosions ever seen on Earth.
Here's an eye witness of when a Russian N1 went boom:
" We were all looking in the direction of the launch, where the hundred-meter pyramid of the rocket was being readied to be hurled into space. Ignition, the flash of flame from the engines, and the rocket slowly rose on a column of flame . And suddenly, at the place where it had just been, a bright fireball. Not one of us understood anything at first. A terrible purple-black mushroom cloud, so familiar from the pictures from the textbook on weapons of mass destruction. The steppe began to rock and the air began to shake, and all of the soldiers and officers froze. "
" Only in the trench did I understand the sense of the expression "your heart in your mouth." Something quite improbable was being created all around-the steppe was trembling like a vibration test jig, thundering, rumbling. whistling. gnashing-all mixed together in some terrible. seemingly unending cacophony. The trench proved to be so shallow and unreliable that one wanted to burrow into the sand so as not to hear this nightmare . .. the thick wave from the explosion passed over us. sweeping away and leveling everything. Behind it came hot metal raining down from above. Pieces of the rocket were thrown ten kilometers away. and large windows were shattered in structures 40 kilometers away. A 400 kilogram spherical tank landed on the roof of the installation and testing wing, seven kilometers from the launch pad. "
" We arrived at the fueling station and were horrified-the windows and doors were smashed out. the iron entrance gate was askew. the equipment was scattered about with the light of dawn and was turned to stone-the steppe was literally strewn with dead animals and birds. Where so many of them came from and how they appeared in such quantities at the station I still do not understand."
And that was calculated to be only a small fraction of the rocket's fuel.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be spiked by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
Reported phone thefts and actual phone thefts will be very different numbers. My phone insurance has a no questions asked replacement policy for lost or stolen, so you don't even need a crime reference number to claim, therefore people with similar policies are unlikely to go through the hassle of reporting it. People who don't have insurance are extremely unlikely to bother as well since there's zero chance of getting it back and the police are simply unbothered by catching the criminals.
Comparing 2013 to today doesn't make sense for these reasons, back then insurance policies tended to require a CRN to get a replacement device, now most of them don't. I wouldn't be surprised if actual phone theft is 5x what is being reported which is about 1 in every 5000 Londoners having a phone stolen per day.
LTNs are a product of the mindset that says: people will get on their bikes or walk to do the shopping, school run, visit friends/relatives, even people who have never nor would ever got on their bikes or walked to do such things.
We have been round these houses before. If you are an older, inactive person, or just inactive for one reason or another, you are not going to jump on a bicycle and will just find a way around the LTNs.
The problem with LTNs is the failure of Satnavs to know about them, even years after they are introduced. Fix that and they'd have my wholehearted support.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be slanted by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
I muted NextDoor for that very reason, also the endless requests for tradesmen recommendations –– have these people never used CheckATrade or MyBuilder?
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be spiked by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
Reported phone thefts and actual phone thefts will be very different numbers. My phone insurance has a no questions asked replacement policy for lost or stolen, so you don't even need a crime reference number to claim, therefore people with similar policies are unlikely to go through the hassle of reporting it. People who don't have insurance are extremely unlikely to bother as well since there's zero chance of getting it back and the police are simply unbothered by catching the criminals.
Comparing 2013 to today doesn't make sense for these reasons, back then insurance policies tended to require a CRN to get a replacement device, now most of them don't. I wouldn't be surprised if actual phone theft is 5x what is being reported which is about 1 in every 5000 Londoners having a phone stolen per day.
2013 a stolen phone was resettable and instantly resellable.
In 2023 your average iphone is a brick only partly reusable for parts once marked as stolen,
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be spiked by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
Reported phone thefts and actual phone thefts will be very different numbers. My phone insurance has a no questions asked replacement policy for lost or stolen, so you don't even need a crime reference number to claim, therefore people with similar policies are unlikely to go through the hassle of reporting it. People who don't have insurance are extremely unlikely to bother as well since there's zero chance of getting it back and the police are simply unbothered by catching the criminals.
Comparing 2013 to today doesn't make sense for these reasons, back then insurance policies tended to require a CRN to get a replacement device, now most of them don't. I wouldn't be surprised if actual phone theft is 5x what is being reported which is about 1 in every 5000 Londoners having a phone stolen per day.
Yes, that makes total sense
My phone was insured, I just walked into the local Vodafone store and got a like-for-like replacement. They didn't even ask for a police report, I didn't bother going to get one (as I guessed it would not be needed)
My sense is that you're right. Also phones are so much more VALUABLE now. Theft will be more tempting
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Yes the few times I've been out and about recently in places like Soho it has definitely felt like it was back from the dead. I think there has been some permanent displacement of activity from the centre to residential neighbourhoods like ours, which is probably a good thing. Agreed on the petty crime situation, my wife got her phone nicked the other week in central London.
Walking around Soho in the early evening it is fantastically busy. People literally thronging around Old Compton St and the various streets. No doubt trying to find the entrance to one of the Soho Houses but I imagine some are just hanging out. Zillions of people.
Yes, that's exactly my experience (and I too was looking for one of the many bewildering entrances to Soho House!)
I've been living in London 40 years and outside street festivals/jubilees etc I cannot remember Soho EVER being so busy. Quite striking. And it was not a sunny weekend in summer
I still haven't grasped how those entrances work – as at least one is across the road from the others. Is there a subterranean section that links them?
LTNs are a product of the mindset that says: people will get on their bikes or walk to do the shopping, school run, visit friends/relatives, even people who have never nor would ever got on their bikes or walked to do such things.
We have been round these houses before. If you are an older, inactive person, or just inactive for one reason or another, you are not going to jump on a bicycle and will just find a way around the LTNs.
The problem with LTNs is the failure of Satnavs to know about them, even years after they are introduced. Fix that and they'd have my wholehearted support.
They shouldn't. Because it creates both Super Rat Runs and huge congestion as people funnel through the approved route. They are often disastrous but tick the revenue collection (fines for going through the ones with no barriers but cameras) and green boxes.
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
I don't often agree with you, but outside the area around the Cathedral (I accidentally wound up at King Constantine's funeral in January) is lovely. The remainder of the city could be twinned with Bootle.
Greece is two economies. Some of the islands are becoming lavishly wealthy, from tourism. And a few of the luckier mainland coastal towns, as well
Some of the interior, or neglected coastal towns feel as poor as anywhere in the EU. Which is unsurprising, given the multiple shocks that have more-than-decimated the Greek economy
Athens is both of these economies in one. Some luxe, some large tracts of serious poverty
I agree with most of this, just to add that I think Athens has more of some of the atmosphere of 1990's London - real poverty, growing affluence from international money, and an interesting bohemian middle class ensconced across lots of poorer and architecturally older areas before they've become fully gentrified. The Athens equivalent of the 1990's London, old docks warehouse rave is the semi-restored, semi-decrepit neoclassical mansion with arty cafe attached and bougainvillea flowing down the balcony.
I strongly suspect that cycles of decline and renewal are necessary for the long term health of a city. Without it, a city loses the opportunity for artists, bohemians and entrepreneurs to move in and oxygenate the city's biosphere with creativity. A city that keeps on getting richer in a linear way just becomes Switzerland. Arguably London could do with a few lean years to get that process going again. Even edgy SE London is getting too expensive for young creative types to gain a toehold now. There are too many finance wankers in New Cross these days.
Agree with this, London is becoming prohibitively expensive for young people who don't work in finance or tech, it's going to have negative repercussions for the next decade or so. All housing developments should be 4 or 6 storey 2-4 unit townhouses with gardens, big balconies and roof terraces for outdoor space. Plus whatever awful high rises are planned.
I love Paris. Not sure I’d want to live there these days. If it’s gone downhill, it’s due to the globalisation and gentrification of the inner quarters.
I liked it best as I discovered it. Still a bit seedy in the second, third and fourth.
Every major city in the west has gone downhill, I am sad to say. I've been to about forty of them in the last few years (many in the last two years). I cannot name one which is obviously improving, they are nearly all in decline. A few are managing to tread water
Swiss cities are doing OK but they are small and intensely rich
I can't really speak for London as a whole as I don't spend that much time in the centre outside of work but South East London - places like Deptford and Peckham - continues to improve noticeably.
London is suffering, but it's nowhere near as bad as the decline in some American cities: the deserted downtowns, the surging crime. Good to hear that SE London is on the up (insert joke about "it couldn't get worse" in here)
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Phone theft in London in 2013 - 314 every day Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
Has phone theft really gone down??! I guess that's heartening to hear
My perspective may be spiked by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
Next Door is a source of comedy gold, don't mute it!
While phone theft is down (which doesn't surprise me that much - it takes a little more wherewithall than it used to to make use of a nicked mobile, which has probably reduced a degree of opportunistic theft by the desperate and leaving it to the ne'er-do-wells who are no doubt putting them into a more organised criminal supply chain), it's still reasonably high enough to worry about, and seems to be increasingly happening in the form of drive-by robbery - which is more distressing than a pickpocket.
But then I think crime always feels worse in the here and now and there are no doubt a load of psychological fallacies at play. Plus the old reported vs actual numbers thing, though I daresay with phone theft it is a reasonably accurate picture.
Another possibly ill-remembered anecdote from the Russian N1:
The sound suppression system required so much water (in an arid area), that the local town had to do without running water for nearly a week before every launch, as the tanks for the system were filled.
The Russian space program was remarkable, both for its achievements and its nuttiness.
Comments
And there are other philosophical changes too: what behaviour do and don't we encourage/tolerate? How do we present our school? What do we put on the walls? How do we deal with non-attendance? And so forth.
There are also lots of discipline-specific decisions - as an example, around matters like setting, but more specifically (for example) how do we best teach algebra?
This is outside my area of expertise - but the point is there are wins which - if not easy - are not necessarily resource dependent. Some schools will be getting this right, some will be getting it wrong; many will be in some sort of middle ground. I'm certainly not saying lack of resources is not a problem; but resources alone are not the solution.
The same is true in all the superstar cities, including London. I’m just bemoaning Paris because it’s more obvious to me, for reasons.
(Not unlike, in sentiment, your nostalgia about squatting near King’s Cross).
I was there last spring several times. Outside a couple of small rich neighborhoods (which are very nice) and the odd trendy but tiny bohemian quarter, it looks awful. Grimy, shuttered, covered in graffiti, really really poor. I was absolutely shocked
Globalisation has left it mostly unmolested. You can’t get Laduree macarons there, like you can everywhere else.
(Was it really so long since you had to go to the Rue Royale to try them? Wikipedia says 1997…)
Geneva is shockingly, and I mean shockingly dull.
I used to travel around the UK for work, and I’d always amuse my hosts or companions by finding something interesting in Slough, or Sunderland, or St Helens.
I just don’t get Geneva at all.
Zurich is mildly interesting. Mildly.
Early one morning, sitting having coffee while out getting breakfast croissant for the family, a battered Renault hatchback cut off a big Mercedes drive by a gentleman of colour.
Four huge policemen in paramilitary garb (black clothes, body armour, assault rifles etc) boiled out of the Renault - covered in tattoos and generally looking quite rough. It was a sketch - especially when a 5th copper unfolded himself from the boot. It was hard to see how they all fitted in the car.
Lots of shouting and waving of guns. After about 3 minutes they all piled back in the Renault and took off.
The locals said that this wasn’t surprising or unusual.
The list of cities looking better is probably more interesting because it is so much smaller
Seville (the outskirts are still poor, nonetheless the centre is much lovelier)
Lucerne (but is that major, does it count?)
Er
Reykjavik?
Nashville Tennessee seemed to be doing well, and it is experiencing an influx of people (unlike many American cities) but it was my first visit so dunno how much of a change this is
The one city that I know that has unquestionably gone backwards over a longer stretch is Barcelona. That has been in serious decline for over two decades and it is absolute tragedy because it used to be magnificent.
Zurich is definitely better
As we have discussed, Italian Switzerland is the place to be, if you have to be in Switzerland. Even there it's fairly boring but you get sunshine and gorgeous towns and good food and wine - and Italy is ten minutes away, for fun
If this was a universal credit claim he’d be sanctioned for six months.
Starmer fans please explain.
It hasn't been all progress, and parts of the main shopping areas are feeling the squeeze being felt everywhere. It is sad to see Debenhams - which is still a lovely building - standing empty and forlorn. But even since 2019, there has been far more improvement than decline. The growth in the Northern Quarter/Ancoats and Deansgate is well known, along with Inner Salford; Piccadilly East is on the verge of something spectacular, Great Ducie Street and Victoria North will be after that.
There is still too much litter and graffiti. But that has always been the case; that's not decline, just failure in that area to make progress.
The suburbs and surrounding towns, too, have improved over the last few years.
That said, I was in Soho for a meet two days ago and the buzz was absolutely tremendous, you couldn't get a car down Dean Street coz of all the drinkers spilling out everywhere. And this was a really chilly Thursday evening at about 6pm. And recently there have been so many people in Camden they've had to semi-close the Tube in weekdays for safety reasons - to slow the crowds - something that only ever happened on weekends before
All anecdotal, but London ain't done yet, just maybe having a rough patch with signs of recuperation
They really do need to sort the petty crime tho - the phones and the bikes
Over the last two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial disclosure forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership.
But that company – a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives – has not existed since 2006.
That year, the family real estate company was shut down and a separate firm was created, state incorporation records show. The similarly named firm assumed control of the shuttered company’s land leasing business, according to property records.
Since that time, however, Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company – between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years – and there is no mention of the newer firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, on the forms.
The previously unreported misstatement might be dismissed as a paperwork error. But it is among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades, a review of those records shows. Together, they have raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public.
Thomas’s disclosure history is in the spotlight after ProPublica revealed this month that a Texas billionaire took him on lavish vacations and also bought from Thomas and his siblings a Georgia home where their mother lives, a transaction that was not disclosed on the forms. Thomas said in a statement that colleagues he did not name told him he did not have to report the vacations and that he has always tried to comply with disclosure guidelines. He has not publicly addressed the property transaction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-g0NGE9W8
(Incidentally, the accents in the film really are rubbish. NornIron is difficult to do well)
The armed street gang vibe from the cops was massive. They looked like the DEA guys in Bad Boys 2.
*which is less fun than St Lucia policing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/crime-data-2022.html
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race.
The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins.
The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him.
Perceptions about the governor’s general election strength compared to Trump have helped fuel his rise in polls of the GOP 2024 primary, though DeSantis has not yet formally entered the race.
In Pennsylvania, according to the poll, DeSantis leads Biden 45% to 42%, while Trump trails the sitting president 42% to 46%.
The survey found that in Arizona, DeSantis leads Biden 48% to 42%. Trump, however, trails the Democratic leader 44% to 45%. . . .
In Italy, it feels like every business you pass is offering you the opportunity to have a nice time in some way; while in Switzerland it is offering you the opportunity to make your life more efficient.
"Data From Cities Show Violent Crime Rates Fell Slightly Last Year
A report from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that homicides and gun assaults mostly declined in the 35 cities studied and that car thefts rose dramatically."
I'd say wait and see. The depopulation of the big cities - especially Chicago, LA, SF, and NYC to an extent - does not augur well for crime in the medium term. Emptier streets = more crime. But who knows
Phone theft in London in 2023 - 248 every day
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21018569
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65105199
"Are you going to pick that up?"
"No, you pick it up."
"You've been walking past it all day."
"It's addressed to you."
"It isn't addressed to anyone."
"But you're the voter."
"I'm not going to vote."
"They're your friends."
"No they're not. I just happen to know some of them."
And so it lies there on the doormat, unloved, unwanted, unread.
The Tory election leaflet.
Some of the interior, or neglected coastal towns feel as poor as anywhere in the EU. Which is unsurprising, given the multiple shocks that have more-than-decimated the Greek economy
Athens is both of these economies in one. Some luxe, some large tracts of serious poverty
The idea that Nigeria would have ever been able to support 900 million is a bit silly IMO. Other factors would have come into play before that happened.
Half a million people already watching, what’s either going to be the dawn of making the species multiplanetary, or one of the biggest accidental explosions ever seen on Earth.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=L5QXreqOrTA&pp
There is a slightly silly bit in the article saying that Africa isn't overcrowded because it is less crowded than the UK, South Korea and Japan. If the world were crowded to levels typical in the UK, South Korea and Japan we really would be in trouble!
"'Being nice is not working!' Fed-up Denver business leaders slam Dem-run city for forcing them to shell out MILLIONS a year on security to protect their businesses, as homelessness and crime soars in Mile-High City"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11832755/Denver-businesses-hiring-private-security-beat-thefts-homeless-people.html
If you are so obviously wrong about Denver, it makes me doubt your other opinions
Tonight's Panorama is a pretty good summary of the background, impacts and viewpoints, that I would recommend. Not a lot original for anyone who has followed the issue, but worth half an hour.
It is documentary rather than opinionating (for once !).
It is on the BBC Website to watch with your late lunch:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001krql
We have been round these houses before. If you are an older, inactive person, or just inactive for one reason or another, you are not going to jump on a bicycle and will just find a way around the LTNs.
My perspective may be slanted by this:
1. I got my own phone nicked, successfully, for the first time a few weeks back (I suffered an unsuccessful attemped theft a few years ago
2. I couple of friends have had the same experience recently
3. I've joined that Next Door app which has some very useful functions - like finding a cleaner - but is also full of people moaning about phone theft, car theft, graffiti, etc, which can make you think the entire city is falling down. I am tempted to mute it
When it gets stolen, ring it to say goodbye….
I've been living in London 40 years and outside street festivals/jubilees etc I cannot remember Soho EVER being so busy. Quite striking. And it was not a sunny weekend in summer
" We were all looking in the direction of the launch, where the hundred-meter pyramid of the rocket was being readied to be hurled into space. Ignition, the flash of flame from the engines, and the rocket slowly rose on a column of flame . And suddenly, at the place where it had just been, a bright fireball. Not one of us understood anything at first. A terrible purple-black mushroom cloud, so familiar from the pictures from the textbook on weapons of mass destruction. The steppe began to rock and the air began to shake, and all of the soldiers and officers froze. "
" Only in the trench did I understand the sense of the expression "your heart in your mouth." Something quite improbable was being created all around-the steppe was trembling like a vibration test jig, thundering, rumbling. whistling. gnashing-all mixed together in some terrible. seemingly unending cacophony. The trench proved to be so shallow and unreliable that one wanted to burrow into the sand so as not to hear this nightmare . .. the thick wave from the explosion passed over us. sweeping away and leveling everything. Behind it came hot metal raining down from above. Pieces of the rocket were thrown ten kilometers away. and large windows were shattered in structures 40 kilometers away. A 400 kilogram spherical tank landed on the roof of the installation and testing wing, seven kilometers from the launch pad. "
" We arrived at the fueling station and were horrified-the windows and doors were smashed out. the iron entrance gate was askew. the equipment was scattered about with the light of dawn and was turned to stone-the steppe was literally strewn with dead animals and birds. Where so many of them came from and how they appeared in such quantities at the station I still do not understand."
And that was calculated to be only a small fraction of the rocket's fuel.
Comparing 2013 to today doesn't make sense for these reasons, back then insurance policies tended to require a CRN to get a replacement device, now most of them don't. I wouldn't be surprised if actual phone theft is 5x what is being reported which is about 1 in every 5000 Londoners having a phone stolen per day.
In 2023 your average iphone is a brick only partly reusable for parts once marked as stolen,
My phone was insured, I just walked into the local Vodafone store and got a like-for-like replacement. They didn't even ask for a police report, I didn't bother going to get one (as I guessed it would not be needed)
My sense is that you're right. Also phones are so much more VALUABLE now. Theft will be more tempting
While phone theft is down (which doesn't surprise me that much - it takes a little more wherewithall than it used to to make use of a nicked mobile, which has probably reduced a degree of opportunistic theft by the desperate and leaving it to the ne'er-do-wells who are no doubt putting them into a more organised criminal supply chain), it's still reasonably high enough to worry about, and seems to be increasingly happening in the form of drive-by robbery - which is more distressing than a pickpocket.
But then I think crime always feels worse in the here and now and there are no doubt a load of psychological fallacies at play. Plus the old reported vs actual numbers thing, though I daresay with phone theft it is a reasonably accurate picture.
It's not like he had a beer and a curry is it?
The sound suppression system required so much water (in an arid area), that the local town had to do without running water for nearly a week before every launch, as the tanks for the system were filled.
The Russian space program was remarkable, both for its achievements and its nuttiness.