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We seem to be heading for the most boring White House race ever – politicalbetting.com

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  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,577

    Jofra Archer ruled out of the Ashes

    Archer will never be fully fit, in the same way that Raducanu won't. She will never win another Slam, Archer will probably never play test cricket for England again, or certainly a full series.

    Sad in both cases.
    This is a good article.
    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/may/10/cricket-jofra-archer-jeff-jones-england-the-spin
    I hadn't realised Simon Jones's dad went through a career ending series of injuries too.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    carnforth said:

    Morocco has a real high speed line - well, half. It slows down on some parts of the route:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq

    Thailand is also on the way. Bangkok-Chiang Mai

    Basically every country I go to now has a better high speed network - or is building one that will open soon - compared to the UK
    How much did each one cost ?
    Less than HS2 probably. We seem to have an amazing ability to delay and fiddle with a project until the costs spiral out of all control then build a ¼ of it to "save" money.

    Does HS2 still reach as far as Brum these days or does it now stop at Aylesbury?
    The frustrating thing is that when we do actually build this stuff it is highly effective. The Liz Line is dreamy

    Likewise Heathrow is now a pretty seductive airport - one of the best in the western world - after being a right old mess for yonks

    We have the ability. We seem to have some intention tremor when it comes to execution
    Huh? Heathrow "a pretty seductive airport"? T5 once you are through security is like a modest shopping mall, but the rest (that is currently open) isn't much better than Stansted. Step away from the bubble pipe!

    Execution! Did someone mention execution? Suella did you hear that?
    Every decent airport is now like a pleasant shopping mall

    What marks Heathrow out is the brilliant access to a world city. 15-20 minutes by train
    I had to go somewhere via terminal 3 recently and was reminded that there is still one really crap terminal in the airport with ceiling heights straight out of Being John Malkovich. (Unless you're in the Virgin lounge).
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,403
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    carnforth said:

    Morocco has a real high speed line - well, half. It slows down on some parts of the route:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq

    Thailand is also on the way. Bangkok-Chiang Mai

    Basically every country I go to now has a better high speed network - or is building one that will open soon - compared to the UK
    How much did each one cost ?
    Less than HS2 probably. We seem to have an amazing ability to delay and fiddle with a project until the costs spiral out of all control then build a ¼ of it to "save" money.

    Does HS2 still reach as far as Brum these days or does it now stop at Aylesbury?
    The frustrating thing is that when we do actually build this stuff it is highly effective. The Liz Line is dreamy

    Likewise Heathrow is now a pretty seductive airport - one of the best in the western world - after being a right old mess for yonks

    We have the ability. We seem to have some intention tremor when it comes to execution
    Huh? Heathrow "a pretty seductive airport"? T5 once you are through security is like a modest shopping mall, but the rest (that is currently open) isn't much better than Stansted. Step away from the bubble pipe!

    Execution! Did someone mention execution? Suella did you hear that?
    Every decent airport is now like a pleasant shopping mall

    What marks Heathrow out is the brilliant access to a world city. 15-20 minutes by train
    Or: "An efficient way to escape the hell-hole that is London."
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,403
    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    Because we're British, we always quibble about the cost and the effect on the view from our windows.

    So we end up here.
    It's the fault of the Treasury - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

    While using a rule book that is very much anti development because if a profit isn't immediately identifible it gets binned.

    Which is why none of Leeds / Manchester / Birmingham have metro / underground lines and the rest of the world does.

    and Metro lines are the investment that triggers real growth in a town. It may not show up on a spreadsheet but you can see it in every single town that has then.

    Heck just look at how rapdily Copenhagen is expanding once they add the metro line to the area. It was how the Metropolitan line was built after all.
    Actually, Manchester's Metro is quite extensive and privately (non-govt) funded. When the Blair/Brown Labour govt offered to help fund the extension it came with so many strings attached and conditions that Mancunians voted it down and the Metro raised private funding. Within a few years the metro tripled in size...
    Manchester has trams - that share their tracks with cars.

    Manchester doesn't have a metro in the traditional sense of single purpose tracks.
    Well, it's a bit of a hybrid. But it's mostly (80%-ish?) a traditional Metro with singe purpose track.
    And a number of the lines are re-purposed heavy rail (e.g. Bury). Similar to the T&W Metro. However, the latter tunnels through the centre of Newcastle and Gateshead rather than street running.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Jesus bloody Christ even EGYPT has a high speed train. Alex to Cairo

    ICE called in Alex?
    Touché

    I’m actually going to seek out the coldest possible Stella beer in Alexandria (where I am headed now through insane Cairo traffic) just in honour of that brilliant moment in that resonant movie

    Last night’s sunset in the Sahara


    Carlsberg not Stella surely?
    Good point. It was Carlsberg in the movie, right?

    I only say Stella because that is the national beer in Egypt. And not a bad beer for a country that often shuns alcohol
    Nothing wrong with a cold Stella for sure.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    carnforth said:

    Morocco has a real high speed line - well, half. It slows down on some parts of the route:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq

    Thailand is also on the way. Bangkok-Chiang Mai

    Basically every country I go to now has a better high speed network - or is building one that will open soon - compared to the UK
    How much did each one cost ?
    Less than HS2 probably. We seem to have an amazing ability to delay and fiddle with a project until the costs spiral out of all control then build a ¼ of it to "save" money.

    Does HS2 still reach as far as Brum these days or does it now stop at Aylesbury?
    The frustrating thing is that when we do actually build this stuff it is highly effective. The Liz Line is dreamy

    Likewise Heathrow is now a pretty seductive airport - one of the best in the western world - after being a right old mess for yonks

    We have the ability. We seem to have some intention tremor when it comes to execution
    We lack the nerve to spend the money and face the difficulties major projects cause. But I agree, when we do stuff it is often done very well.

    But I am more convinced than ever that we need some form of political reform that removes the ability of outright vengance from constituents. Perhaps a form of AV? TSE could do a thread on it....
    Problems we have include:
    - Britain (well, England) is full. Every inch is valued. Every square foot has its own preservation society. Every field is of historical importance. All our countryside is highly productive and highly loved. There's nowhere we can put anything without anyone minding. This isn't anyone's fault; this is just a peculiar feature of Britain. Its loveliness and fecundity are part of why it is so densely populated.
    - It's part of human nature that we value losses higher than gains. Those facing the loss of a view fight harder than those who might benefit from more capacity on the railways.
    - We have a highly adversarial system; so much public or quasi-public money is spent on parts of the public sector fighting other parts of the public sector, when arguably that money might better be fought on designing a better thing in the first place, or even on building the thing.

    Some of these factors are linked.
    That's a great point. Just about every inch of land in England is owned by someone. The Dartmoor wild camping issue being a great example. It makes my blood boil that a few people can "own" so much of our nature.
    True only even more so for countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, but the difference there is much of their landscape is already semi-urbanised so the NIMBY imperative is less powerful.

    I think we have the almost unique issue of a very populous country of which large swathes are "densely inhabited countryside". A village every couple of miles but still enough prettiness to feel worth protecting.

    Especially the case in the home counties.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401
    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    The scenarios are easy enough to sketch out but I think you're overstating their probability. Look at what he's already come through - it will take a lot to genuinely knock him out and time is ticking.

    Health? Yes, possibly. He's obese, old and has a bad diet. But it's also less than a year to the primaries.
    Legal trouble? Maybe. But look at what he's come through. It'll need a criminal conviction that jails him...
    Is that actually so ?
    I think it quite possible that a number of ongoing, concurrent cases might make it very hard for him to be the nominee.

    He hasn't been through plenty of law courts, but he hasn't been through the kind of legal scrutiny he's likely to face over the next twelve months.
    Being found, in court, to be a sexual abuser, and being ordered to pay $5m compensation hasn't damped his poll ratings a jot with the GOP primary voters. That's all you need to know.

    If you don't think he will be nominee, you need to sketch out a process by which the legal cases directly impact the relevant voting public, and the reasons why they will do so then, when they haven't done so until now. You also need to sketch out why he will withdraw, or be barred, or be beaten (and in that last case, by who and how).
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,265
    edited May 2023



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    One of the good things about Heathrow T2 and 5 is that you're not forced through the shops before getting to the seating areas. It's much more open, you just go where you want.
  • WestieWestie Posts: 426
    A piece from 18 April on the move to a new ticketing system (lifetime cost assessed at £18m) by Scottish ferry company Caledonian MacBrayne:

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/23462423.anger-calmac-ferry-e-booking-system-delayed/

    Eventually they took most of the old ticketing system down on 13 May, without operationalising the new one, at first for three days but that's now changed to four. Unclear what will happen next. You'd have to be very brave to expect to be able to buy a ticket tomorrow.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    ...
    viewcode said:

    Sadly the race may be boring but the aftermath could get exciting very rapidly if the wrong man wins.

    I find it difficult to believe that the US is actually considering electing Trump again. It defies logic.

    Trump was elected last time and very little of any consequence happened.
    He abandoned the Ukranians out of pique (Zelensky refused to manufacture evidence about Biden's kid's laptop), renegotiated several international treaties, recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and thru his advocacy of ivermectin and reluctance to recognise the seriousness of Covid caused thousands of preventable deaths. Everything a President does, for good or ill, is of consequence


    Those are fairly weak to say the least. Did evidence need to be 'manufactured' about Hunter Biden? And I'm not sure 'kid' is the appropriate terminology for a dissipated old letch. And I'm not advocating any anti-vax stuff, but let's see how the arguments surrounding the right strategies for dealing with covid shake out over the coming years.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    I don't think I would call a Biden v Trump rerun boring. After the CNN town hall, I think it is clear that Trump will be the nominee (the networks want those ratings so bad) and he is still a rather effective communicator, if a lying evil bastard. The issue is going to be Biden - he managed to dodge too much campaigning and debates due to Covid last time, and I don't think he will do so again. Which makes me worry Trump is favourite to win (especially with the current economic struggles in the US).

    The Dems need to do better messaging beyond "fighting for democracy". Yes, that is important, but it also feels out of touch when people are hurting in their pocket. The Dems need to hammer home why they are the party of "freedom"; reforming healthcare so people can be free from huge medical debts, pro-choice so women and their families are free to make family planning and healthcare decisions, increasing union powers so the average worker is free to bargain for a higher wage and not have to be stuck in a crap job just for the insurance. Freedom to express yourself, gay, straight, white, black; freedom to vote, to have your voice heard. Take this talking point away from the GOP and hit them with it like a stick - have an overarching economic and social message based on the freedom most people should feel by having a sound economic foundation and ability to participate in a multicultural pluralistic society.

    But they won't, coz they're rubbish...
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257
    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    Because we're British, we always quibble about the cost and the effect on the view from our windows.

    So we end up here.
    I am not sure it can be just that. I mean I oppose HS2 and think it is a massive waste of money, but even I wonder why it is going to cost an etimated £200 million per Km when the latest TGV line to the Med only cost 20 million Euros per Km.

    There is something seriously wrong with how we do civil engineering projects in the UK and not much of that is due to NIMBYs.
    The astonishing cost of infrastructure build in the UK versus any other European State might be down to the complete hollowing out of the capacity of the state sector over the course of the last forty years.

    When the civil service has to take advice about how it takes advice, then the only winners are the armies of independent consultants paid at consultancy rates. Whitehall has got rid of years of experience in all fields as a botched and short-sighted cost cutting exercise, while local government has been eviscerated by decades of cuts to block grants to the point that many are forced to merge into "unitary authorities" in order to perform even their statutory duties, never mid any strategic long term planing. The result is that governments rely on QUANGO "delivery bodies" to complete any significant project and these are dissolved on completion so that there is never any long term expertise kept in house.

    When one compares the quality of French infrastructure and the costs of delivery with those of the UK, it is sobering. Whether it is RER versus Crossrail, TGV versus HS2, Electricity generation including renewables and the civilian nuclear power programme, Motorways, Functioning Regional government versus "Northern Power House" Public Relations Bullshit, the costs for the UK are huge multiples of the costs in France, which has retained a large civil service to supervise such projects.

    Turns out that it is not whether things are private or public that determines the quality of services or delivery of investment, but whether the public sector has the capacity to administer either the supervision or undertaking of large projects. UK under investment is a major drag on our future growth and quality of life, but the political class in general has no idea how to address this crisis.
    There's a lot in this. My wife worked for transport consultancy for a number of years and they made an absolute killing out of Leeds' New Generation Transport scheme - first it was going to be trams (c. 2010), then that got scrapped and there was a bus plan, now that is scrapped and W Yorkshire is aparently going to have some fancy scheme. Masses spent, nothing delivered.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,034
    Commentary on the speed of other nations building their infrastructure projects is meaningless without also commenting on their democratic process on how they deal with property rights, planning and the environment, and health & safety in construction and operation.

    It's easy - in a quasi-dictatorship - to throw up totemic infrastructure projects quickly that couldn't less about the rights of ordinary people, the environmental impact, and aren't particularly safe to use either.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 2,182
    malcolmg said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Jesus bloody Christ even EGYPT has a high speed train. Alex to Cairo

    ICE called in Alex?
    Touché

    I’m actually going to seek out the coldest possible Stella beer in Alexandria (where I am headed now through insane Cairo traffic) just in honour of that brilliant moment in that resonant movie

    Last night’s sunset in the Sahara


    Carlsberg not Stella surely?
    Good point. It was Carlsberg in the movie, right?

    I only say Stella because that is the national beer in Egypt. And not a bad beer for a country that often shuns alcohol
    Nothing wrong with a cold Stella for sure.
    I believe the kids call it "wife beater"...
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,750
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Jesus bloody Christ even EGYPT has a high speed train. Alex to Cairo

    ICE called in Alex?
    Touché

    I’m actually going to seek out the coldest possible Stella beer in Alexandria (where I am headed now through insane Cairo traffic) just in honour of that brilliant moment in that resonant movie

    Last night’s sunset in the Sahara


    Carlsberg not Stella surely?
    Good point. It was Carlsberg in the movie, right?

    I only say Stella because that is the national beer in Egypt. And not a bad beer for a country that often shuns alcohol
    Carlsberg in the film, another beer in the book that apparently sounded too German and so was considered a bit off to use when still close to the end of the war.
    Interesting that those sensitivities were still hanging about in 1958. I’d bet the original was Löwenbräu which I think was one of the first German export beers to the UK, but frustratingly I can’t confirm it on Google.

    To introduce a cheery note to the morning, the author of the original novel topped himself with alcohol and barbiturates.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Commentary on the speed of other nations building their infrastructure projects is meaningless without also commenting on their democratic process on how they deal with property rights, planning and the environment, and health & safety in construction and operation.

    It's easy - in a quasi-dictatorship - to throw up totemic infrastructure projects quickly that couldn't less about the rights of ordinary people, the environmental impact, and aren't particularly safe to use either.

    Which is why Cicero was talking about France.

    France is hardly a quasi-dictatorship. The only difference is the regional mayors have real power and actual control of purse strings.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,523

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    See my post. It hasn't - unless you think 100MPH is faster than 125MPH on many parts of our network, or the >180 MPH on HS1... ;)
    Hold on wasn't HS2 about capacity ?
    It's about both. The main push is for capacity; high speed is just a side benefit. But the conversation was about speed, and I mentioned HS1 - or the line from the chunnel to St Pancras which has been operating for years...
    Why did they not call it "High Capacity" or HC1 then? It would have stopped a lot of the arguments about the value of saving 20 mins on a run from Manchester to Euston...
    That's a very good question. I think it was down to two things:

    *) High Speed 1 (from the chunnel to St Pancras) was already under construction. As we had an HS1, having a 'HS2' made sense. (HS1 was originally known as the Chanuel Tunnel Rail Link, which was not particularly memorable to the public.

    *) Politicians think 'speed' is sexy, and easy to sell to the public. Capacity is a much harder sell.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    malcolmg said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    That rules out Foreskin then
    Oh no, Brain of Scotland has joined us to give us his great insights and monumental lack of wisdom

    Foreskin!! What a wag you are. It is a good one for someone like yourself with an IQ below 80 though I must admit.

    Pushing the trolleys round at Tesco's must be getting a little less stressful now the weather is getting milder I guess?

    Any more black female Tories you want to pass your misogynistic views on? Or perhaps you want to bore us how only your great fuhrer (the man once described as a bully and a sex pest by his barrister) has the answers to everything. Anyway must dash. Can't waste my time trying to communicate with sub-moronic Alba fascists.

    Regrettably I must bid you adieu. Heil Salmond!

  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    Your blood boils simply by walking through a shop?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    Because we're British, we always quibble about the cost and the effect on the view from our windows.

    So we end up here.
    Actually, Manchester's Metro is quite extensive and privately (non-govt) funded. When the Blair/Brown Labour govt offered to help fund the extension it came with so many strings attached and conditions that Mancunians voted it down and the Metro raised private funding. Within a few years the metro tripled in size...
    Manchester has trams - that share their tracks with cars.

    Manchester doesn't have a metro in the traditional sense of single purpose tracks.
    Well, it's a bit of a hybrid. But it's mostly (80%-ish?) a traditional Metro with singe purpose track.
    But it's a tram in the bit (city centre) that really should be underground and where the real benefit would be felt..
    Perhaps.
    But the underground/Metro trade off isn't as one sided as you might think.

    Most trips actually go no further than the city centre. The need for fast trips across the city centre - which an underground might serve well - so I can get fast from south of the city to north of the city - is actually relatively small.
    Even in the city centre, trams don't get stuck in traffic: in almost all cases, the tram is on dedicated lines at street level. This is slower than a hypothetical underground line would be, but the delay is just caused by at-grade crossings - and trams tend to have priority here, so these delays are relatively minor. An underground train could also go more quickly, but given how close stations are to each other, this again is a small benefit (unless we remove stations).
    Consider also that if I were to get off the tram at a hypothetical St. Peter's Square underground station, I would be a good 90 seconds or so further from my destination than the existing St. Peter's Square tram stop due to the need to funnel up to street level. That time cost has to be offset against any time saving.

    In conclusion, the advantages of putting Metrolink underground in central Manchester would be surprisingly modest. I'd take it, if it was offered, but it wouldn't be the massive step change you might imagine.

    As against that, the costs of an underground railway in Manchester would also be less than you might think. We have the best rock in the country for tunneling here (Sherwood Sandstone - in common with much of Central and Northern England) - much easier for TBMs to make progress and much less work to shore up afterwards. Far, far easier than tunneling through the clays of London.

    My proposal is that Metrolink stay at surface level - although there may be possible advantages for cut-and-covering the Piccadilly Gardens section where progress is particularly slow and station arrangements a tad sub-optimal. I would, however, like a heavy rail tunnel under Central Manchester to address the issues of Central Manchester capacity (originally to be addressed through widening the Castlefield Corridor, though this would now involve so much demolition that it would be as expensive as tunneling): a Manchester equivalent of the St. Pancras-Blackfriars route, and serving the same sort of middle-distance market - though a suburban market or an intercity market could also work. I would go underground south east of Piccadilly and have stops somewhere in Central Manchester, somewhere in Central Salford, and at Salford Quays. This would address the issue of how long it takes to get from one end to the other of the combined central Manchester/Salford/Salford Quays area (known as the regional centre) - the tram is currently quickest, but it's a slow old journey on the tram through Salford Quays, which is more like a bus - and also address the issue of the lack of Central Manchester capacity.

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    Holy Moses the outskirts of Alexandria are ugly
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    To me the key thing that indicates Trump will be the nominee is that the US TV / News media has either not learned or learned the wrong lessons from 2016. The CNN town hall was atrocious - a room filled with Trump supporters on TV with a host who used to work for Tucker Carlson playing the annoyed lib character - pointing out factual inaccuracies, but never actually taking Trump down. But it was great for ratings! So they'll keep giving him free air time. And I think Fox losing Tucker means Tucker (as much as he seems to hate Trump in private) will need a big media win, and getting exclusives with Trump that won't air on Fox would be something both would find fun.

    DeSantis is a bad alternative; he has no charisma, he has no charm and, most importantly, his actual policies in Florida have started to piss off the money. Disney are annoyed at him. His recent immigration policy (that anyone without papers on hand could get arrested) is leaving shelves empty as Hispanic truck drivers are boycotting the state (either out of fear of harassment, or just solidarity). He is putting into effect a lot of policies that the base of the GOP might like the sound of, but are actually too negatively impactful in material reality. And unlike Brexit (which had the benefit of a few years of negotiation before the shit started to hit the fan) the negatives are being felt now and he hasn't even been elected POTUS yet.

    No other GOP contender could oust Trump - Nikki Hailey won't manage, Mike Pence won't do it, no one has the right attitude to get in the mud and wrestle Trump and win. We saw others try last time and the closest anyone came was Chris Christie, and he bowed out almost immediately and endorsed Trump anyway. I don't see his legal troubles hurting him in the primaries - victim / persecution complexes are what currently fuel the GOP base.

    If Biden dies and the Dems end up with Kamala, then they'd be even more screwed - if he is going to kick the bucket he needs to do so before the convention so they can do an emergency selection there. The only possible worse candidate than Kamala would be Hillary again...
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    Surely somewhere to buy a pint of beer at 7 in the morning as is uniquely permitted during international travel is also a must.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    RobD said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    Your blood boils simply by walking through a shop?
    A shop I have made no choice to enter, selling things I don't want, deliberately wasting my time and inconveniencing me for their own enrichment, yes.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    Leon said:

    Holy Moses the outskirts of Alexandria are ugly

    Holy Moses probably walked through them back in his day.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    TimS said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    Surely somewhere to buy a pint of beer at 7 in the morning as is uniquely permitted during international travel is also a must.
    I will allow you that. Probably essential actually to calm nerves after being forced to spent five minutes walking through a vile duty free shop.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    edited May 2023



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    You’re talking specifically about the duty free maze (which is indeed designed to make you linger and buy)

    The main space in an airport is the Departure Lounge which is much more than that. It’s all the restaurants and bars and often adorned with some public art. LHR T5 is a pleasant example - it’s actually a rather nice place to be

    At their best - Changi? - these spaces can be sumptuous. Like the finest stations from the golden age of rail. Like Grand Central or St Pancras
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Holy Moses the outskirts of Alexandria are ugly

    Holy Moses probably walked through them back in his day.
    I know this was likely just a clever joke, but I do find it interesting that most scholars, including Jewish and Israeli scholars, accept that Moses almost certainly never existed and the Exodus almost certainly didn't happen.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,750
    I see I missed the Cole-Hamilton stushie on the last thread. It appears he made his mythologies of ancient nations that can never and should never exist again comments while kitted out in full highland fig (maxi skirt version). What an un-self aware tit.


  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Are you suggesting the tax on fags and booze is a benefit to the consumer :smiley:

    My objection to duty free shopping is that they seem (for booze, anyway) mysteriously no cheaper than Tesco. They are theoretically able to sell at dramatically lower prices, but seemingly choose not to. And as an airport is quite high up in the list of places where carrying a bottle of whiskey would make life rather more difficult, I have never yet found a good reason to shop at one.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    148grss said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Holy Moses the outskirts of Alexandria are ugly

    Holy Moses probably walked through them back in his day.
    I know this was likely just a clever joke, but I do find it interesting that most scholars, including Jewish and Israeli scholars, accept that Moses almost certainly never existed and the Exodus almost certainly didn't happen.
    Does this mean that the ten commandments can now be ignored?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,577

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    The scenarios are easy enough to sketch out but I think you're overstating their probability. Look at what he's already come through - it will take a lot to genuinely knock him out and time is ticking.

    Health? Yes, possibly. He's obese, old and has a bad diet. But it's also less than a year to the primaries.
    Legal trouble? Maybe. But look at what he's come through. It'll need a criminal conviction that jails him...
    Is that actually so ?
    I think it quite possible that a number of ongoing, concurrent cases might make it very hard for him to be the nominee.

    He hasn't been through plenty of law courts, but he hasn't been through the kind of legal scrutiny he's likely to face over the next twelve months.
    Being found, in court, to be a sexual abuser, and being ordered to pay $5m compensation hasn't damped his poll ratings a jot with the GOP primary voters. That's all you need to know.

    If you don't think he will be nominee, you need to sketch out a process by which the legal cases directly impact the relevant voting public, and the reasons why they will do so then, when they haven't done so until now. You also need to sketch out why he will withdraw, or be barred, or be beaten (and in that last case, by who and how).
    Criminal versus civil.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61084161

    It's their impact on Trump, rather than the voting public. The option of not turning up, as he did in the Carroll case, is not open to him.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,750

    148grss said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Holy Moses the outskirts of Alexandria are ugly

    Holy Moses probably walked through them back in his day.
    I know this was likely just a clever joke, but I do find it interesting that most scholars, including Jewish and Israeli scholars, accept that Moses almost certainly never existed and the Exodus almost certainly didn't happen.
    Does this mean that the ten commandments can now be ignored?
    *ignored even more
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,171

    Sadly the race may be boring but the aftermath could get exciting very rapidly if the wrong man wins.

    I find it difficult to believe that the US is actually considering electing Trump again. It defies logic.

    Trump was elected last time and very little of any consequence happened. I would expect more from you than to buy into the popular hysteria surrounding his political career.
    Little of any consequence? There was a big shift in the make up of the Supreme Court, which led to abortion becoming illegal in large parts of the country and a further expansive interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, for starters. Trump disrupted support for Ukraine (what led to his first impeachment) and the Trumpian conspiracy theories over Ukraine would be disastrous for Ukraine were he to return. A pandemic happened and while we can’t blame that on Trump, his poor response worsened the situation. And his reaction when he lost, his Big Lie on voting fraud, his support for the Jan 6 attack, has hugely undermined democracy in the US.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    TimS said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    Surely somewhere to buy a pint of beer at 7 in the morning as is uniquely permitted during international travel is also a must.
    I would add, there are some other situations where a 7am beer is very much allowed and adds greatly to the whole experience.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401
    edited May 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    The scenarios are easy enough to sketch out but I think you're overstating their probability. Look at what he's already come through - it will take a lot to genuinely knock him out and time is ticking.

    Health? Yes, possibly. He's obese, old and has a bad diet. But it's also less than a year to the primaries.
    Legal trouble? Maybe. But look at what he's come through. It'll need a criminal conviction that jails him...
    Is that actually so ?
    I think it quite possible that a number of ongoing, concurrent cases might make it very hard for him to be the nominee.

    He hasn't been through plenty of law courts, but he hasn't been through the kind of legal scrutiny he's likely to face over the next twelve months.
    Being found, in court, to be a sexual abuser, and being ordered to pay $5m compensation hasn't damped his poll ratings a jot with the GOP primary voters. That's all you need to know.

    If you don't think he will be nominee, you need to sketch out a process by which the legal cases directly impact the relevant voting public, and the reasons why they will do so then, when they haven't done so until now. You also need to sketch out why he will withdraw, or be barred, or be beaten (and in that last case, by who and how).
    Criminal versus civil.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61084161

    It's their impact on Trump, rather than the voting public. The option of not turning up, as he did in the Carroll case, is not open to him.
    He'll just shout 'witch-hunt', and his base will agree.

    Like I say, unless he ends up in jail - and 28 months after leaving the White House, he's not at all close to that - why would it affect either his actions or his base's support?

    The impact on Trump personally will be negligible. He will regard himself as the victim and that may impact his narrative but only in detail, not the big picture.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    Exactly. Travel should be exciting or romantic or mysterious or at least interesting. You’re going somewhere else!

    The best transport architecture expresses this drama and intrigue. A glass of champagne before you head off to Paris or Venice, or Mumbai or Beijing

    The worst transport architecture extinguishes all such aesthetic pleasure and confirms that you are indeed simply getting the next train to Bracknell
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,171
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    I dream we get Trump running as an independent against a different Republican nominee, with so much down ballot disruption that the Dems take the presidency, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.

  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    Cookie said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Are you suggesting the tax on fags and booze is a benefit to the consumer :smiley:

    My objection to duty free shopping is that they seem (for booze, anyway) mysteriously no cheaper than Tesco. They are theoretically able to sell at dramatically lower prices, but seemingly choose not to. And as an airport is quite high up in the list of places where carrying a bottle of whiskey would make life rather more difficult, I have never yet found a good reason to shop at one.
    Yup, the duty free/tax free does seem to be sold at a far higher price than it should be with the tax/duty removed.

    Better to get it overseas.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    I dream we get Trump running as an independent against a different Republican nominee, with so much down ballot disruption that the Dems take the presidency, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.

    Why would he do that? And how?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047

    Sadly the race may be boring but the aftermath could get exciting very rapidly if the wrong man wins.

    I find it difficult to believe that the US is actually considering electing Trump again. It defies logic.

    Trump was elected last time and very little of any consequence happened. I would expect more from you than to buy into the popular hysteria surrounding his political career.
    Little of any consequence? There was a big shift in the make up of the Supreme Court, which led to abortion becoming illegal in large parts of the country and a further expansive interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, for starters. Trump disrupted support for Ukraine (what led to his first impeachment) and the Trumpian conspiracy theories over Ukraine would be disastrous for Ukraine were he to return. A pandemic happened and while we can’t blame that on Trump, his poor response worsened the situation. And his reaction when he lost, his Big Lie on voting fraud, his support for the Jan 6 attack, has hugely undermined democracy in the US.
    I'm not sure why the domestic law in the US concerning abortions is such a big issue for UK commentors. There is a panoply of different laws on abortion worldwide; I see little complaint or even passing awareness about any of it here.

    As for Ukraine conspiracies, I am not sure which conspiracies you mean. Trump and his allies seem to take a strongly isolationist stance on this conflict. You can call that a bad thing if you like, but I'd argue that recent history tells us that American interventionism tends to have far worse consequences than American isolationism. One way or another, Trump's period of isolation during his first term resulted in a lot less non-Americans dying. I hesitate to imply causation, but Biden's celebrated global leadership comeback for America correlates with a far more miserable world.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom
    You are perfectly describing the layout at Newcastle Airport.

    Drives me mad. Hate it. Especially when it is busy and you get people milling around gawping at all the product like they have never seen a bottle of Smirnoff or some Chanel No 5 before.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,577
    Ukraine evidently has at least some of the more modern Patriot system missiles:

    https://twitter.com/dangroshev/status/1658422823600242689
    Correction: apparently there were PAC-3 stages falling down on Kyiv tonight, so I'm wrong and there's at least one other battery that does have PAC-3 in it
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,577
    After school shooting, Tennessee governor signs bill to protect gun firms
    The expansion of civil immunity for gun companies was hardly in doubt after lawmakers passed it.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/15/tennessee-guns-protect-shield-law-lee-00097013
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785
    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    Because we're British, we always quibble about the cost and the effect on the view from our windows.

    So we end up here.
    Actually, Manchester's Metro is quite extensive and privately (non-govt) funded. When the Blair/Brown Labour govt offered to help fund the extension it came with so many strings attached and conditions that Mancunians voted it down and the Metro raised private funding. Within a few years the metro tripled in size...
    Manchester has trams - that share their tracks with cars.

    Manchester doesn't have a metro in the traditional sense of single purpose tracks.
    Well, it's a bit of a hybrid. But it's mostly (80%-ish?) a traditional Metro with singe purpose track.
    But it's a tram in the bit (city centre) that really should be underground and where the real benefit would be felt..
    Perhaps.
    But the underground/Metro trade off isn't as one sided as you might think.

    Most trips actually go no further than the city centre. The need for fast trips across the city centre - which an underground might serve well - so I can get fast from south of the city to north of the city - is actually relatively small.
    Even in the city centre, trams don't get stuck in traffic: in almost all cases, the tram is on dedicated lines at street level. This is slower than a hypothetical underground line would be, but the delay is just caused by at-grade crossings - and trams tend to have priority here, so these delays are relatively minor. An underground train could also go more quickly, but given how close stations are to each other, this again is a small benefit (unless we remove stations).
    Consider also that if I were to get off the tram at a hypothetical St. Peter's Square underground station, I would be a good 90 seconds or so further from my destination than the existing St. Peter's Square tram stop due to the need to funnel up to street level. That time cost has to be offset against any time saving.

    In conclusion, the advantages of putting Metrolink underground in central Manchester would be surprisingly modest. I'd take it, if it was offered, but it wouldn't be the massive step change you might imagine.

    As against that, the costs of an underground railway in Manchester would also be less than you might think. We have the best rock in the country for tunneling here (Sherwood Sandstone - in common with much of Central and Northern England) - much easier for TBMs to make progress and much less work to shore up afterwards. Far, far easier than tunneling through the clays of London.

    My proposal is that Metrolink stay at surface level - although there may be possible advantages for cut-and-covering the Piccadilly Gardens section where progress is particularly slow and station arrangements a tad sub-optimal. I would, however, like a heavy rail tunnel under Central Manchester to address the issues of Central Manchester capacity (originally to be addressed through widening the Castlefield Corridor, though this would now involve so much demolition that it would be as expensive as tunneling): a Manchester equivalent of the St. Pancras-Blackfriars route, and serving the same sort of middle-distance market - though a suburban market or an intercity market could also work. I would go underground south east of Piccadilly and have stops somewhere in Central Manchester, somewhere in Central Salford, and at Salford Quays. This would address the issue of how long it takes to get from one end to the other of the combined central Manchester/Salford/Salford Quays area (known as the regional centre) - the tram is currently quickest, but it's a slow old journey on the tram through Salford Quays, which is more like a bus - and also address the issue of the lack of Central Manchester capacity.

    Even outside the city centre, the amount of Metrolink running on street is / looks to be not much - broadly a bit across Droylsden in the east, the odd junction crossing, bits in Oldham and Rochdale that deviate from the rail bed specifically to serve those centres. The rest is dedicated, and even on street a lot of separation is achieved.

    The slowness at Salford Quays is more to do with a winding route that serves every nook than a lot of road sharing.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    Cicero said:

    malcolmg said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Jesus bloody Christ even EGYPT has a high speed train. Alex to Cairo

    ICE called in Alex?
    Touché

    I’m actually going to seek out the coldest possible Stella beer in Alexandria (where I am headed now through insane Cairo traffic) just in honour of that brilliant moment in that resonant movie

    Last night’s sunset in the Sahara


    Carlsberg not Stella surely?
    Good point. It was Carlsberg in the movie, right?

    I only say Stella because that is the national beer in Egypt. And not a bad beer for a country that often shuns alcohol
    Nothing wrong with a cold Stella for sure.
    I believe the kids call it "wife beater"...
    So they say but that is an excuse for thugs. Have drunk that and many other beers over the years and never thought of beating anyone. Wife beaters are more likely to be on cheap fire water products.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,577
    At least 3 killed, others wounded in New Mexico shooting
    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/15/new-mexico-shooting-police-00097033
    ...Seeing Farmington in the national spotlight for yet another mass shooting, particularly one that occurred on his street, was surreal for him.

    “You never think it’s going to happen here and all of a sudden, in a tiny little town it comes here,” Akins said.

    Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement that she was praying for the families of the victims and that the incident “serves at yet another reminder of how gun violence destroys lives in our state and our country every single day.” The governor, a Democrat, did not describe any other circumstances of the deadly confrontation..

    ...Farmington is not far from where New Mexico borders Colorado, Utah and Arizona. In recent years, cafes and breweries have cropped up downtown alongside decades-old businesses that trade in Native American crafts from silver jewelry to wool weavings. Traveling Broadway shows make regular stops at the expansive community center auditorium, while rural lots on the outskirts are littered with disassembled oilfield equipment.

    Last month Farmington police shot and killed a man at his front door after they went to the wrong address while responding to a domestic violence call.

  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257
    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    At the other extreme, Bristol Parkway is surely the most depressing place known to humanity. Run close by Newport station (but at least there you can see tentative signs of life in the city beyond).
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674

    malcolmg said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    That rules out Foreskin then
    Oh no, Brain of Scotland has joined us to give us his great insights and monumental lack of wisdom

    Foreskin!! What a wag you are. It is a good one for someone like yourself with an IQ below 80 though I must admit.

    Pushing the trolleys round at Tesco's must be getting a little less stressful now the weather is getting milder I guess?

    Any more black female Tories you want to pass your misogynistic views on? Or perhaps you want to bore us how only your great fuhrer (the man once described as a bully and a sex pest by his barrister) has the answers to everything. Anyway must dash. Can't waste my time trying to communicate with sub-moronic Alba fascists.

    Regrettably I must bid you adieu. Heil Salmond!

    Moronic verbal Diahorrea as ever, don't hurry back loser.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    This captures my feelings exactly! Perth is one of my favourite stations, nice and empty, lots of nods to past glories, and a good variety of trains passing through to destinations exotic (Inverness), metropolitan (Edinburgh, Glasgow and London) and mundane (Dundee). The trip from Edinburgh via the beautiful single track line from Ladybank, past Lindores Loch, Newburgh and finally along the south bank of the silvery Tay, is perfect too.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,750
    More 'there's nothing wrong with X, it's just that it hasn't been implemented properly yet' news.


  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes York is a beauty.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Sadly the race may be boring but the aftermath could get exciting very rapidly if the wrong man wins.

    I find it difficult to believe that the US is actually considering electing Trump again. It defies logic.

    You yourself wrote a compelling piece which explained clearly exactly why they might.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,750

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    This captures my feelings exactly! Perth is one of my favourite stations, nice and empty, lots of nods to past glories, and a good variety of trains passing through to destinations exotic (Inverness), metropolitan (Edinburgh, Glasgow and London) and mundane (Dundee). The trip from Edinburgh via the beautiful single track line from Ladybank, past Lindores Loch, Newburgh and finally along the south bank of the silvery Tay, is perfect too.
    Wemyss Bay is good even if a terminus. It compensates by having the ferry to Rothesay a short step away.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes York is a beauty.
    Too many associations with visiting my in-laws
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,171
    .

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    I dream we get Trump running as an independent against a different Republican nominee, with so much down ballot disruption that the Dems take the presidency, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.

    Why would he do that? And how?
    I said it was a dream, not a prediction.

    In the unlikely event that the Republican Party sees sense and dumps Trump, I can readily imagine Trump doing anything he can to attack the GOP, including running as a third-party candidate where he can.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    Agree. I hate it when the guys come out and force you to buy all that stuff. Then take you under duress to Sloane Street/Westfield and shove you into the Tag Heuer shop to buy a new watch.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,577
    148grss said:

    I don't think I would call a Biden v Trump rerun boring. After the CNN town hall, I think it is clear that Trump will be the nominee (the networks want those ratings so bad)...

    Two days after CNN pulled in more than 3.3 million viewers for its widely criticized town hall with Donald Trump, CNN found itself in fourth place among cable news networks in primetime. Worse yet, it finished behind MAGA channel Newsmax.
    https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1658235728738877440
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    Pro_Rata said:

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    Because we're British, we always quibble about the cost and the effect on the view from our windows.

    So we end up here.
    Actually, Manchester's Metro is quite extensive and privately (non-govt) funded. When the Blair/Brown Labour govt offered to help fund the extension it came with so many strings attached and conditions that Mancunians voted it down and the Metro raised private funding. Within a few years the metro tripled in size...
    Manchester has trams - that share their tracks with cars.

    Manchester doesn't have a metro in the traditional sense of single purpose tracks.
    Well, it's a bit of a hybrid. But it's mostly (80%-ish?) a traditional Metro with singe purpose track.
    But it's a tram in the bit (city centre) that really should be underground and where the real benefit would be felt..
    Perhaps.
    But the underground/Metro trade off isn't as one sided as you might think.

    Most trips actually go no further than the city centre. The need for fast trips across the city centre - which an underground might serve well - so I can get fast from south of the city to north of the city - is actually relatively small.
    Even in the city centre, trams don't get stuck in traffic: in almost all cases, the tram is on dedicated lines at street level. This is slower than a hypothetical underground line would be, but the delay is just caused by at-grade crossings - and trams tend to have priority here, so these delays are relatively minor. An underground train could also go more quickly, but given how close stations are to each other, this again is a small benefit (unless we remove stations).
    Consider also that if I were to get off the tram at a hypothetical St. Peter's Square underground station, I would be a good 90 seconds or so further from my destination than the existing St. Peter's Square tram stop due to the need to funnel up to street level. That time cost has to be offset against any time saving.

    In conclusion, the advantages of putting Metrolink underground in central Manchester would be surprisingly modest. I'd take it, if it was offered, but it wouldn't be the massive step change you might imagine.

    As against that, the costs of an underground railway in Manchester would also be less than you might think. We have the best rock in the country for tunneling here (Sherwood Sandstone - in common with much of Central and Northern England) - much easier for TBMs to make progress and much less work to shore up afterwards. Far, far easier than tunneling through the clays of London.

    My proposal is that Metrolink stay at surface level - although there may be possible advantages for cut-and-covering the Piccadilly Gardens section where progress is particularly slow and station arrangements a tad sub-optimal. I would, however, like a heavy rail tunnel under Central Manchester to address the issues of Central Manchester capacity (originally to be addressed through widening the Castlefield Corridor, though this would now involve so much demolition that it would be as expensive as tunneling): a Manchester equivalent of the St. Pancras-Blackfriars route, and serving the same sort of middle-distance market - though a suburban market or an intercity market could also work. I would go underground south east of Piccadilly and have stops somewhere in Central Manchester, somewhere in Central Salford, and at Salford Quays. This would address the issue of how long it takes to get from one end to the other of the combined central Manchester/Salford/Salford Quays area (known as the regional centre) - the tram is currently quickest, but it's a slow old journey on the tram through Salford Quays, which is more like a bus - and also address the issue of the lack of Central Manchester capacity.

    Even outside the city centre, the amount of Metrolink running on street is / looks to be not much - broadly a bit across Droylsden in the east, the odd junction crossing, bits in Oldham and Rochdale that deviate from the rail bed specifically to serve those centres. The rest is dedicated, and even on street a lot of separation is achieved.

    The slowness at Salford Quays is more to do with a winding route that serves every nook than a lot of road sharing.
    Yes, Metrolink is a bit of a curious hybrid. Some lines are basically suburban rail, some are essentially buses with delusions of grandeur, some fall midway between the two; and average speeds vary greatly across the network.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited May 2023

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes York is a beauty.
    Great Malvern with its cast-iron flower column capitals; Stamford with its transport bookshop; and so on.

    Once you could sit outside at Bournemouth Airport - admittedly in a cage like Guy the Gorilla to stop you escaping - and (if lucky) watch the heritage jets such as Meteor take off as one waited for one's plane. No idea if people can do that now.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,750
    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes York is a beauty.
    Great Malvern with its cast-iron flower column capitals; Stamford with its transport bookshop; and so on.

    Once you could sit outside at Bournemouth Airport - admittedly in a cage like Guy the Gorilla to stop you escaping - and (if lucky) watch the heritage jets such as Meteor take off as one waited for one's plane. No idea if people can do that now.
    You'd need that cage for those who'd had 5 or 6 Stellas.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785
    Taz said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom
    You are perfectly describing the layout at Newcastle Airport.

    Drives me mad. Hate it. Especially when it is busy and you get people milling around gawping at all the product like they have never seen a bottle of Smirnoff or some Chanel No 5 before.

    Once nearly missed a flight in Frankfurt because on certain gates the shopping is between passport control and on gate security and I idly looked through overpriced marzipan with only a slight nagging feeling that security had been a bit light touch.

    Still in Germany, Dusseldorf has it about right, excellent airport.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Talking of transport, the Just Stop Oilers are slow marching their way up Ludgate Hill with a police escort.

    All very civilised. They waved me past as I was in a Bugatti Veyron on a Boris Bike.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343
    .
    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes, York is great. The best fun with railways is when you have all day, nowhere you have to get to at any particular time and can train and people watch.

    And think of all those people whose first experience of 'It's grim up north' is York Station followed by seeing Durham from the train in winter mist followed by crossing the Tyne into Newcastle. Though I live in north west not north east the memory still moves me.

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    You can sit in the bar on the benches (blankets provided) at STP facing the Eurostar platforms which is v evocative.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.

    I still think it quite likely he won't be.

    It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
    I dream we get Trump running as an independent against a different Republican nominee, with so much down ballot disruption that the Dems take the presidency, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.

    Why would he do that? And how?
    I said it was a dream, not a prediction.

    In the unlikely event that the Republican Party sees sense and dumps Trump, I can readily imagine Trump doing anything he can to attack the GOP, including running as a third-party candidate where he can.
    Those places are few and far between. Most states now have sore-loser rules, where someone who enters a primary race is only allowed to compete in the general election under that party's banner.

    I agree that he'd react with fury if he were dumped - but that again is another reason to think he won't be, if he's not actively prevented from running.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257
    TOPPING said:

    Talking of transport, the Just Stop Oilers are slow marching their way up Ludgate Hill with a police escort.

    All very civilised. They waved me past as I was in a Bugatti Veyron on a Boris Bike.

    You got lucky. At some point they'll realise bike chains use oil, too :open_mouth:
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    algarkirk said:

    .

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes, York is great. The best fun with railways is when you have all day, nowhere you have to get to at any particular time and can train and people watch.
    This seems a very precise and probably not very common occurrence for people travelling by train.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    TOPPING said:

    You can sit in the bar on the benches (blankets provided) at STP facing the Eurostar platforms which is v evocative.

    Just wich KX hadn't closed their proper bookshop to make more room for Harry ****ing Potter shite.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited May 2023
    Taz said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom
    You are perfectly describing the layout at Newcastle Airport.

    Drives me mad. Hate it. Especially when it is busy and you get people milling around gawping at all the product like they have never seen a bottle of Smirnoff or some Chanel No 5 before.

    It wouldn't be so bad - if it had always been like that. But the shop "blocking" your route in is a relatively recent addition at both Newcastle and Teesside.

    Also Newcastle seems to have got rid of all seating that doesn't have a bar or cafe attached.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,789
    I take this opportunity to remind PB of the upcoming EDINBURGH TRAM INQUIRY.

    A judge led investigation 9 years and £13 million in the making.

    Trams to Newhaven (11 years late) are currently under test and merrily trundle past my flat. Ding ding.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    This captures my feelings exactly! Perth is one of my favourite stations, nice and empty, lots of nods to past glories, and a good variety of trains passing through to destinations exotic (Inverness), metropolitan (Edinburgh, Glasgow and London) and mundane (Dundee). The trip from Edinburgh via the beautiful single track line from Ladybank, past Lindores Loch, Newburgh and finally along the south bank of the silvery Tay, is perfect too.
    Wemyss Bay is good even if a terminus. It compensates by having the ferry to Rothesay a short step away.
    I never understood how Wemyss Bay and Wemyss are on opposite sides of Scotland. Presumably one is named after an aristocratic landowner who in turn was named after the other place?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes York is a beauty.
    Great Malvern with its cast-iron flower column capitals; Stamford with its transport bookshop; and so on.

    Once you could sit outside at Bournemouth Airport - admittedly in a cage like Guy the Gorilla to stop you escaping - and (if lucky) watch the heritage jets such as Meteor take off as one waited for one's plane. No idea if people can do that now.
    You'd need that cage for those who'd had 5 or 6 Stellas.
    It was heavy-duty enough for a *gorilla* with 15 Stellas!
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785

    More 'there's nothing wrong with X, it's just that it hasn't been implemented properly yet' news.


    When Dixie said last night the conference was a gift to Labour, they hadn't even Godwinned it!
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    The National Conservatism conference seems designed to allow right wing loons to pitch for a post-Sunak world.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343
    .

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    This captures my feelings exactly! Perth is one of my favourite stations, nice and empty, lots of nods to past glories, and a good variety of trains passing through to destinations exotic (Inverness), metropolitan (Edinburgh, Glasgow and London) and mundane (Dundee). The trip from Edinburgh via the beautiful single track line from Ladybank, past Lindores Loch, Newburgh and finally along the south bank of the silvery Tay, is perfect too.
    Wemyss Bay is good even if a terminus. It compensates by having the ferry to Rothesay a short step away.
    And don't forget the Holden masterpieces on the Piccadilly line: Oakwood, Southgate, and Arnos Grove the best of all. (Unusually I was in it last week).

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Selebian said:

    TOPPING said:

    Talking of transport, the Just Stop Oilers are slow marching their way up Ludgate Hill with a police escort.

    All very civilised. They waved me past as I was in a Bugatti Veyron on a Boris Bike.

    You got lucky. At some point they'll realise bike chains use oil, too :open_mouth:
    Or Oil Company CEOs can be riding them.

    (Note: I am not an oil company CEO.)
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited May 2023



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It's the price we pay for living in a free country. I've read reports of people visiting North Korea and saying how much they enjoyed the lack of things like shopping malls and adverts, even though they knew what sort of country it was. Theodore Dalrymple I think wrote an article like this.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,171

    Sadly the race may be boring but the aftermath could get exciting very rapidly if the wrong man wins.

    I find it difficult to believe that the US is actually considering electing Trump again. It defies logic.

    Trump was elected last time and very little of any consequence happened. I would expect more from you than to buy into the popular hysteria surrounding his political career.
    Little of any consequence? There was a big shift in the make up of the Supreme Court, which led to abortion becoming illegal in large parts of the country and a further expansive interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, for starters. Trump disrupted support for Ukraine (what led to his first impeachment) and the Trumpian conspiracy theories over Ukraine would be disastrous for Ukraine were he to return. A pandemic happened and while we can’t blame that on Trump, his poor response worsened the situation. And his reaction when he lost, his Big Lie on voting fraud, his support for the Jan 6 attack, has hugely undermined democracy in the US.
    I'm not sure why the domestic law in the US concerning abortions is such a big issue for UK commentors. There is a panoply of different laws on abortion worldwide; I see little complaint or even passing awareness about any of it here.

    As for Ukraine conspiracies, I am not sure which conspiracies you mean. Trump and his allies seem to take a strongly isolationist stance on this conflict. You can call that a bad thing if you like, but I'd argue that recent history tells us that American interventionism tends to have far worse consequences than American isolationism. One way or another, Trump's period of isolation during his first term resulted in a lot less non-Americans dying. I hesitate to imply causation, but Biden's celebrated global leadership comeback for America correlates with a far more miserable world.
    US domestic law on abortion matters hugely to people in the US. The views of UK commentators is neither here nor there. There is a panoply of different laws on abortion. Parts of the US have moved from among from the most liberal to the most restrictive. Abortion is more or less readily available in most of the “West”. The US is now very much an outlier (with Poland). Outside of the developed world, there are more countries with more limiting abortion laws, but places like Texas are now more extreme than most of Africa and Asia. About 1 in 3 women have an abortion in Western nations. Parts of the US have criminalised a sixth of their population over night.

    You’re obviously the expert on Ukrainian conspiracies. You’re still pushing the Ukrainian bioweapon labs propaganda. When you spout Moscow’s talking points, it’s hard to take you seriously on your calls for less American interventionism. What we need is less Russian interventionism. Ukraine’s ability to defend itself will be greatly hampered by a second Trump presidency.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    algarkirk said:

    .

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes, York is great. The best fun with railways is when you have all day, nowhere you have to get to at any particular time and can train and people watch.

    And think of all those people whose first experience of 'It's grim up north' is York Station followed by seeing Durham from the train in winter mist followed by crossing the Tyne into Newcastle. Though I live in north west not north east the memory still moves me.

    The ECML gets almost uniformly beautiful from York onwards, with the best views probably on the stretch running up the Northumberland coast, followed by the bit between South Queensferry and Kirkcaldy.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Andy_JS said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It's the price we pay for living in a free country. I've read reports of people visiting North Korea and saying how much they enjoyed the lack of things like shopping malls and adverts, even though they knew what sort of country it was.
    The point is that anyone older than 45 remembers a time before late capitalism…
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited May 2023

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    This captures my feelings exactly! Perth is one of my favourite stations, nice and empty, lots of nods to past glories, and a good variety of trains passing through to destinations exotic (Inverness), metropolitan (Edinburgh, Glasgow and London) and mundane (Dundee). The trip from Edinburgh via the beautiful single track line from Ladybank, past Lindores Loch, Newburgh and finally along the south bank of the silvery Tay, is perfect too.
    Wemyss Bay is good even if a terminus. It compensates by having the ferry to Rothesay a short step away.
    I never understood how Wemyss Bay and Wemyss are on opposite sides of Scotland. Presumably one is named after an aristocratic landowner who in turn was named after the other place?
    UNhelpfully, West Wemyss is on the east side of Scotland, too ... The eastern one called West W. seems to be a Gaelic or Brythonic derivation, cf Gaelic Uamh for the caves, but no idea re the western one called just W.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343
    .
    TOPPING said:

    algarkirk said:

    .

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes, York is great. The best fun with railways is when you have all day, nowhere you have to get to at any particular time and can train and people watch.
    This seems a very precise and probably not very common occurrence for people travelling by train.
    Only if you organise (or disorganise) for it. O my Broad Street and my Currour long ago.

    But because of cancellations and rerouting I had a quite a time on Preston station recently when in no great hurry to get to York - which on that day was a good thing.

  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785
    Cookie said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    I thought it was only "remoaners" who talked down Britain?
    Anyone with a functioning nervous system can see that HS2 is a dismal infrastructure omnishambles, and that something has gone badly wrong in UK planning when much poorer countries are able to deliver these trains in half the time it takes us to decide NOT to build a new platform at Euston
    Because we're British, we always quibble about the cost and the effect on the view from our windows.

    So we end up here.
    Actually, Manchester's Metro is quite extensive and privately (non-govt) funded. When the Blair/Brown Labour govt offered to help fund the extension it came with so many strings attached and conditions that Mancunians voted it down and the Metro raised private funding. Within a few years the metro tripled in size...
    Manchester has trams - that share their tracks with cars.

    Manchester doesn't have a metro in the traditional sense of single purpose tracks.
    Well, it's a bit of a hybrid. But it's mostly (80%-ish?) a traditional Metro with singe purpose track.
    But it's a tram in the bit (city centre) that really should be underground and where the real benefit would be felt..
    Perhaps.
    But the underground/Metro trade off isn't as one sided as you might think.

    Most trips actually go no further than the city centre. The need for fast trips across the city centre - which an underground might serve well - so I can get fast from south of the city to north of the city - is actually relatively small.
    Even in the city centre, trams don't get stuck in traffic: in almost all cases, the tram is on dedicated lines at street level. This is slower than a hypothetical underground line would be, but the delay is just caused by at-grade crossings - and trams tend to have priority here, so these delays are relatively minor. An underground train could also go more quickly, but given how close stations are to each other, this again is a small benefit (unless we remove stations).
    Consider also that if I were to get off the tram at a hypothetical St. Peter's Square underground station, I would be a good 90 seconds or so further from my destination than the existing St. Peter's Square tram stop due to the need to funnel up to street level. That time cost has to be offset against any time saving.

    In conclusion, the advantages of putting Metrolink underground in central Manchester would be surprisingly modest. I'd take it, if it was offered, but it wouldn't be the massive step change you might imagine.

    As against that, the costs of an underground railway in Manchester would also be less than you might think. We have the best rock in the country for tunneling here (Sherwood Sandstone - in common with much of Central and Northern England) - much easier for TBMs to make progress and much less work to shore up afterwards. Far, far easier than tunneling through the clays of London.

    My proposal is that Metrolink stay at surface level - although there may be possible advantages for cut-and-covering the Piccadilly Gardens section where progress is particularly slow and station arrangements a tad sub-optimal. I would, however, like a heavy rail tunnel under Central Manchester to address the issues of Central Manchester capacity (originally to be addressed through widening the Castlefield Corridor, though this would now involve so much demolition that it would be as expensive as tunneling): a Manchester equivalent of the St. Pancras-Blackfriars route, and serving the same sort of middle-distance market - though a suburban market or an intercity market could also work. I would go underground south east of Piccadilly and have stops somewhere in Central Manchester, somewhere in Central Salford, and at Salford Quays. This would address the issue of how long it takes to get from one end to the other of the combined central Manchester/Salford/Salford Quays area (known as the regional centre) - the tram is currently quickest, but it's a slow old journey on the tram through Salford Quays, which is more like a bus - and also address the issue of the lack of Central Manchester capacity.

    Even outside the city centre, the amount of Metrolink running on street is / looks to be not much - broadly a bit across Droylsden in the east, the odd junction crossing, bits in Oldham and Rochdale that deviate from the rail bed specifically to serve those centres. The rest is dedicated, and even on street a lot of separation is achieved.

    The slowness at Salford Quays is more to do with a winding route that serves every nook than a lot of road sharing.
    Yes, Metrolink is a bit of a curious hybrid. Some lines are basically suburban rail, some are essentially buses with delusions of grandeur, some fall midway between the two; and average speeds vary greatly across the network.
    The one thing I'd change about Manchester trams is, in all seriousness, the horns. A Manchester tram, if it turned up.in Sodor, would experience intolerable bullying at the hands of Thomas and friends for the lame "poop" it issues as a warning. I couldn't work near any junction where there is a "sound horn" instruction for fear of eventually becoming a crazed rampager.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    algarkirk said:

    .

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes, York is great. The best fun with railways is when you have all day, nowhere you have to get to at any particular time and can train and people watch.

    And think of all those people whose first experience of 'It's grim up north' is York Station followed by seeing Durham from the train in winter mist followed by crossing the Tyne into Newcastle. Though I live in north west not north east the memory still moves me.

    The ECML gets almost uniformly beautiful from York onwards, with the best views probably on the stretch running up the Northumberland coast, followed by the bit between South Queensferry and Kirkcaldy.
    Absolutely and it is vital that you are on the correct (ie right) side of the train as it passes through there and eg Berwick.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    TOPPING said:

    algarkirk said:

    .

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    I like this conversation. I have often thought this - my favourite station in this regard is York. Which still retains an air of what it must have been like in rail's heyday.
    Yes, York is great. The best fun with railways is when you have all day, nowhere you have to get to at any particular time and can train and people watch.

    And think of all those people whose first experience of 'It's grim up north' is York Station followed by seeing Durham from the train in winter mist followed by crossing the Tyne into Newcastle. Though I live in north west not north east the memory still moves me.

    The ECML gets almost uniformly beautiful from York onwards, with the best views probably on the stretch running up the Northumberland coast, followed by the bit between South Queensferry and Kirkcaldy.
    Absolutely and it is vital that you are on the correct (ie right) side of the train as it passes through there and eg Berwick.
    It's worth booking on LNER not the Trainline so you can choose your seats.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited May 2023
    An amazing fact is that 1 in 6 rail journeys in the UK are now made on the Elizabeth Line. I don't think even the most optimistic supporters of Crossrail were expecting that it would become so successful so quickly.

  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    Carnyx said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostock or Yerevan with a few changes

    My favourite is not the terminus but the major intersection where there is activity all the time - literally every minute or two. Preston or Peterborough are good. Leeds is terminus and intersection, so is good too.

    This captures my feelings exactly! Perth is one of my favourite stations, nice and empty, lots of nods to past glories, and a good variety of trains passing through to destinations exotic (Inverness), metropolitan (Edinburgh, Glasgow and London) and mundane (Dundee). The trip from Edinburgh via the beautiful single track line from Ladybank, past Lindores Loch, Newburgh and finally along the south bank of the silvery Tay, is perfect too.
    Wemyss Bay is good even if a terminus. It compensates by having the ferry to Rothesay a short step away.
    I never understood how Wemyss Bay and Wemyss are on opposite sides of Scotland. Presumably one is named after an aristocratic landowner who in turn was named after the other place?
    UNhelpfully, West Wemyss is on the east side of Scotland, too ... The eastern one called West W. seems to be a Gaelic or Brythonic derivation, cf Gaelic Uamh for the caves, but no idea re the western one called just W.
    According to wiki Wemyss Bay may be named after an old fisherman with that surname who rented out boats in the area in the 18C but I'm not sure I believe that.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 6,773

    Leon said:

    Britain has been outpaced by Egypt

    Anyone who disagrees with this is in de nile.
    That pun is rael? It’s awful
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Andy_JS said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It's the price we pay for living in a free country. I've read reports of people visiting North Korea and saying how much they enjoyed the lack of things like shopping malls and adverts, even though they knew what sort of country it was.
    The point is that anyone older than 45 remembers a time before late capitalism…
    True and if they had any sense they would prefer today's version to the one 45 years ago.

    I appreciate that the PB demographic is one that can afford to reminisce about there being no choice on the shelves (for poor people) or how wonderful it must be in North Korea without all those shops selling ghastly tat but in the real world capitalism develops in line with the majority of its constituents and people want that stuff.

    Not refined people like you and me who find the whole "Duty Free" thing quite distasteful, but *those* people. They like it.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401
    edited May 2023
    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    algarkirk said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom. They benefit from tax avoidance by selling fags and booze (which are taxed highly for a reason, not just revenue) free of tax, resulting either in cut-price ways to kill yourself or obscene profit margins or both.

    Otherwise, yes, they're fine.
    Yes my blood boils as I am forced to meander through some obscene temple to overpriced and undertaxed consumer bullshit, under boiling hot lights and bombarded by the stink of some vile "fragrance" called Tart's Boudoir or something similar, before arriving at the waiting area which invariably has too few seats because so much space has been given over to hawking said consumer bullshit to all the basic leisureware morons at the airport. A good bookshop and somewhere to buy snacks, plug adaptors and tiny tubes of toothpaste is all you need. Everything else is just the monetisation of boredom, late capitalism's most profitable income stream.
    It is possible to have a life and never go near an airport. Hunter gatherer communities manage this feat. So do some non- hunter gatherers in the UK. It helps save the planet too.
    I rather like airports in general. They are archetypal liminal spaces. So are large railway terminals (and trains themselves for that matter). And ferry ports. But ferry ports are generally not very well appointed or pleasant.

    Of all those, my ideal is a large railway terminus with a grand cafe with high ceilings where you can sit and daydream for an hour or so before the overnight express train pulls in. Followed by a very large hub airport with long travelators and the varied peoples of the world wandering about in it, or a smaller European airport with pleasant half-empty lounges like the Eventyr lounge in Copenhagen.
    A railway station is infinitely preferable to an airport IMHO, as it usually has some nice Victorian architecture, much more space and fresh air, fewer aggressive attempts to rob you blind, and contains trains, the finest machines ever created. The ideal station is a little delapidated and broken, evoking romantic memories of a vanished age, and contains a grubby caff selling tea, crisps and unappetising sandwiches, with blue clouds of diesel smoke lingering under the canopy.
    Numerous ideals are available. Adlestrop, or King's Cross, Rannoch, or ghosts like March. St Pancras with its sense that you can go from there to Vladivostok or Yerevan with a few changes

    [snip]
    Been there, done that.

    (Well, not Yerevan, but Vladivostok and Bishkek).

    For me, the abiding memory is of disembarking a Sealink ferry one humid August evening at Calais Maritime - barely a station; more of a halt at the dock - and the light from the sleeper train windows shining through the dark; whiter and warmer than the sulphur yellow illuminating the expanse in between, devoid of lorries at that time. The air was a mix of diesel fumes, sea salt and tarmac still hot from the day. A smell of seaside industry for sure but more: the smell of adventure and the unknown.

    I woke the next morning as the train was passing into the high Alps of Switzerland. There are faster ways to arrive. There are more comfortable ways to arrive. There are cheaper ways to arrive (though not then). But none of them can match rail for the same experience.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    eek said:

    Taz said:



    What's wrong with shopping malls?

    Its a pleasant way to kill time while awaiting the flight. If you don't want to buy something, nobody puts a gun to your head to make you - they couldn't get that past security and this isn't America.

    Airport shopping malls strike me as universally seedy. You are literally forced to walk through them to get to your flight, usually along a winding route to maximise boredom
    You are perfectly describing the layout at Newcastle Airport.

    Drives me mad. Hate it. Especially when it is busy and you get people milling around gawping at all the product like they have never seen a bottle of Smirnoff or some Chanel No 5 before.

    It wouldn't be so bad - if it had always been like that. But the shop "blocking" your route in is a relatively recent addition at both Newcastle and Teesside.

    Also Newcastle seems to have got rid of all seating that doesn't have a bar or cafe attached.
    Yes, I remember it before the work to change the layout. It was far better and far less commercial. Never flown from Durham Tees even though it is closer to me. Mind you when I was flying for work Durham Tees was a handful of flights a day. One blessing of COVID was me stopping travelling for business. Not something I wish to re-staret.

    There is some seating outside of WH Smith/Boots in Newcastle but, yes, most of it has gone and The Beer House is hell on earth, if you can get a seat.
This discussion has been closed.