"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
Even the mammals. Platypus males have toxic glands and spurs to inject the stuff.
I was looking in the Flavour Thesaurus for things to do with cucumber and saw the suggestion of raw rhubarb and cucumber salad; apparently an Iranian recipe
I'm going to try it this evening with smoked mackerel. I don't think I've had raw rhubarb before
Fresh rhubarb dipped in sugar used to be a treat for kids
That's how the Flavour Thesaurus starts its section on rhubarb and cucumber!
Raw rhubarb just tastes like slightly sourer apple. I was surprised to be given it by a friend's mother once as a child, having only had it cooked before. It's not the best use of rhubarb.
You'd want smaller stems, to avoid the stringiness.
Best to just avoid it all together, TBH. It's like swede and turnip (sorry, Malc): something you got from the field because you couldn't afford proper potato.
I had to buy a pack of rhubarb that would be enough for about a month of the salad if I ate it twice a day
I'm going to make Khoresh with the rest of it this weekend. It's another Iranian dish, of lamb and rhubarb stew
@soph_husk Junior doctors vow to keep striking as 'derisory pay offer means just 84p extra an hour'
Why do doctors insist in using the hourly rate of pay? No other sector does this. Are they just afraid that if the public learned how much they take home annually (even based on average numbers) that sympathy would melt away?
The union is using a very specific starting point on the scale, where no-one stays for long, and career progression is rapid. Overtime is also paid per hour over 40, at escalating rates from 1.2 up to 2.0.
I was looking in the Flavour Thesaurus for things to do with cucumber and saw the suggestion of raw rhubarb and cucumber salad; apparently an Iranian recipe
I'm going to try it this evening with smoked mackerel. I don't think I've had raw rhubarb before
Fresh rhubarb dipped in sugar used to be a treat for kids
That's how the Flavour Thesaurus starts its section on rhubarb and cucumber!
Raw rhubarb just tastes like slightly sourer apple. I was surprised to be given it by a friend's mother once as a child, having only had it cooked before. It's not the best use of rhubarb.
You'd want smaller stems, to avoid the stringiness.
Best to just avoid it all together, TBH. It's like swede and turnip (sorry, Malc): something you got from the field because you couldn't afford proper potato.
I had to buy a pack of rhubarb that would be enough for about a month of the salad if I ate it twice a day
I'm going to make Khoresh with the rest of it this weekend. It's another Iranian dish, of lamb and rhubarb stew
That's great - please PM me along with any slight tasting morsels you feed to the PB pack! If only there was a PB rhubarb channel!
Rhubarb freezes fine by the way - chopped up into 2-3cm lengths ready to stew and serve swqeetened with ground rice pudding or custard, or put into crumbles.
Methods wise, they've cocked up a bit here, particularly with the about right bit. People will pick a point for about right and then put higher/lower as too high/too low. You can see that here with the peaks for about right at 5% and 10% - people like round(er) numbers.
Better approach is to do a referendum style question - should employers be offering at least this amount? (with amount chosen at random for each respondent) and then logistic model or similar from the yes/no answers.
I'm available for hire/consultancy
I have 10p burning a hole in my pocket, call me.
Any chance of a 35% pay rise?
Well, if you reckon it in pounds..... SCOTTTTTTSSSS!
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
I’m surprised you didn’t know how ferocious geordies are. Ants the worst, Dec not so bad though.
The government didn't have any choice, really, either on the pay rises or the financing of them. They've used the recommendations of the pay review bodies in the past to justify resisting higher pay claims, making it hard to ignore the recommendations now. In any case, the acute problems of recruitment and retention of staff in all of these sectors mean that pay has to increase. The suggested rises are reasonable in the circumstances, although of course unions will scream that they are not. Private-sector pay (albeit not quite comparable, because of the large hidden-pay element of pensions in the public sector) are in the same ballpark, or even higher. Increasing borrowing to even higher levels at the moment is not realistic, and increasing taxes even more than they are already being increased is also not politically realistic.
Financing from the underspend is a short-term fudge, of course, so the problem isn't going to go away. We need more economic growth, better productivity, and better-managed public services, especially better management in the NHS. But none of that can be done quickly, and meanwhile we have the long-term deadweight of Brexit red tape dragging us down and stifling investment. The medium-term future is pretty bleak, to be honest. Labour are going to inherit a very, very difficult situation.
"And meanwhile we have the long term deadweight of Brexit dragging us down and stifling investment"
Interesting that this key passage had 'likes' from three of the most vociferous Brexiteers who post here. It's almost as though we're dealing with alter egos.
Not sure that's right, Roger. The 'likes' include only one vociferous Brexiteer and this is the almost spookily unrepresentative Richard Tyndall, who seems to agree with his fellow Leavers about very little.
Leavers, like Remainers, are a broad church. Which is as you would expect. It would be very odd if people all had one of only two possible packages of opinions covering everything from Brexit to the environment to taxation to outdoors carpets to organ shoes.
Edit: though I do agree with Richard Tyndall about quite a lot, and I don't find his package of views particularly strange. But then I also find things to agree with you about, and also Leon, HYUFD and Sandy Rentool. Most people really.
Leavers and Remainers are indeed broad churches. That's because the issue is about a foundational constitutional issue, and leaves entirely alone what our practical polity might be. I am a Leaver but pro EFTA/EEA, SM and so on, so have almost nothing in common with Farage and co, except that in the long run I think that the envisaged political 'ever closer union' of most of Europe may be right for them but not for us.
In the same way it is odd that the only sizable nationalist party in Scotland has a fairly leftish mindset. To support Scottish independence (I don't BTW) is nothing to do with left, right or whatever. The best reason for unionism at the moment is Scotland is the uselessness of the SNP.
But the only sizable Brexit party in England - the Tories - has a rightish mindset. A very rightish mindset. Although tbf there's some self-fulfilment there in that the whole Brexit saga itself has pushed them to the right. It delivered power to their right wing and caused others to abandon ship.
Re broad church, yes Leavers are one. By definition they are, given it's half the population. However, very few (proportionately) are social liberals, pro open borders, strikingly non-nationalistic, which is what I was thinking of when describing the Tyndall as extremely atypical of the genre.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
There’s loads there I’d love to visit - but the knowledge that the place is full of things that want to kill you, can be rather concerning to put it mildly!
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
Probably effective politics from Sunak as it will make it tricky for the TUs - accepting review body recommendations in full is correct, but funding part of it from "efficiency gains" is cowardly, imo. We need taxes somewhat increasing and rebalancing.
I doubt the teachers are going to accept further cuts to education budgets. Work to rule next @dixiedean?
Private companies only pay what they can afford and if they go above that then heads have to disappear to pay for it. Take your pick , nice job and pension for life or more money and have to do much more work or go elsewhere if you can get a better deal.
They pay what they can get away with, yes?
This seems exactly what the government is trying. Although most of us need a good state education not one janked together.
This is true though education have in main better pensions and significantly more holidays than private sector. You cannot have it all ways.
Just got a great beer deal at Waitrose - four pack of Blue Moon for £2.29 (had a yellow sticker on because its best before date 31/12/23 is now less than six months away)
I bought two packs and am celebrating my find with the first can
"Blue Moon Belgian White American Craft Wheat Beer." A lot to unpack there. But enjoy!
And brewed in the UK!
So it is Carling in disguise and you overpaid for it
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
The eucalyptus woods, even in the drying period (late austral spring), are quite disconcerting, with all that oil-soaked leaf litter, fallen branches ditto, and frayed bark just waiting to go whomph.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
Australia. Where fighting a war with the wildlife is a plan. And losing seems quite understandable
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
Mission Impossible had a little motif, usually played at the end when the gang were packing up and getting into the car to drive off, whist their victim screamed "No, No, THIS CANNOT BE". It's called "The Plot" and it's featured in many (all?) MI films. It sounds like this:
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
The eucalyptus woods, even in the drying period (late austral spring), are quite disconcerting, with all that oil-soaked leaf litter, fallen branches ditto, and frayed bark just waiting to go whomph.
There are terrible stories
One I heard of was three guys - possibly on an official run - who got caught in a eucalyptus forest fire. They realised that eventually - quickly - they'd be overtaken by the flames. Because they spread so fast. They decided their only choice was to run AT the flames, and burst through them to the other side. They'd get burned but they might survive
They did it and - as was told to me - they survived. But with brutal life-changing burns
Eucalyptus fires must be terrifying. Also noisy: as another tree full of sap explodes like a bomb
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
"It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback"
It is exactly that. All species are pre-programmed to have a population explosion of their own. When that happens the constraints of the environment curtail it. At the edge cases those individuals that are better suited to dealing with the constraint prosper. And so it goes on.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
The government didn't have any choice, really, either on the pay rises or the financing of them. They've used the recommendations of the pay review bodies in the past to justify resisting higher pay claims, making it hard to ignore the recommendations now. In any case, the acute problems of recruitment and retention of staff in all of these sectors mean that pay has to increase. The suggested rises are reasonable in the circumstances, although of course unions will scream that they are not. Private-sector pay (albeit not quite comparable, because of the large hidden-pay element of pensions in the public sector) are in the same ballpark, or even higher. Increasing borrowing to even higher levels at the moment is not realistic, and increasing taxes even more than they are already being increased is also not politically realistic.
Financing from the underspend is a short-term fudge, of course, so the problem isn't going to go away. We need more economic growth, better productivity, and better-managed public services, especially better management in the NHS. But none of that can be done quickly, and meanwhile we have the long-term deadweight of Brexit red tape dragging us down and stifling investment. The medium-term future is pretty bleak, to be honest. Labour are going to inherit a very, very difficult situation.
"And meanwhile we have the long term deadweight of Brexit dragging us down and stifling investment"
Interesting that this key passage had 'likes' from three of the most vociferous Brexiteers who post here. It's almost as though we're dealing with alter egos.
Not sure that's right, Roger. The 'likes' include only one vociferous Brexiteer and this is the almost spookily unrepresentative Richard Tyndall, who seems to agree with his fellow Leavers about very little.
Leavers, like Remainers, are a broad church. Which is as you would expect. It would be very odd if people all had one of only two possible packages of opinions covering everything from Brexit to the environment to taxation to outdoors carpets to organ shoes.
Edit: though I do agree with Richard Tyndall about quite a lot, and I don't find his package of views particularly strange. But then I also find things to agree with you about, and also Leon, HYUFD and Sandy Rentool. Most people really.
Leavers and Remainers are indeed broad churches. That's because the issue is about a foundational constitutional issue, and leaves entirely alone what our practical polity might be. I am a Leaver but pro EFTA/EEA, SM and so on, so have almost nothing in common with Farage and co, except that in the long run I think that the envisaged political 'ever closer union' of most of Europe may be right for them but not for us.
In the same way it is odd that the only sizable nationalist party in Scotland has a fairly leftish mindset. To support Scottish independence (I don't BTW) is nothing to do with left, right or whatever. The best reason for unionism at the moment is Scotland is the uselessness of the SNP.
I think we are quite close in our vies - with the exception of Scotland where I am pro-Independence for them and hope (probably against expectation) that if and when they vote for independence we can be grown up about it and do our best to make it work for and with them rather than following the EU stated policy of punishing them for voting the 'wrong' way.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
The eucalyptus woods, even in the drying period (late austral spring), are quite disconcerting, with all that oil-soaked leaf litter, fallen branches ditto, and frayed bark just waiting to go whomph.
The devastating forest fires in Portugal a few years back were a result of some numpty deciding it would be a good idea to establish eucalyptus plantations.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
Australia seems to be home to more than its fair share of the world's most venomous lifeforms. There's also the box jellyfish, and the blue ringed octopus.
And the most deadly creature of all, although thankfully not seen in its natural habitat for many years now - the Lillee'n'Thomson.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Conversely it is said an Australian tourist board carried out painstaking investigations to identify the most lethal animal in all Australia. Answer: the horse.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
I enjoyed it - but it was Sydney and I was young and 2 years was enough.
Looks like the handcuffs are being polished up........ Wings Over Scotland @WingsScotland Hearing from numerous sources that the Operation Branchform clock is ticking VERY loudly now. Like, within-days loudly.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Conversely it is said an Australian tourist board carried out painstaking investigations to identify the most lethal animal in all Australia. Answer: the horse.
That’s like the most dangerous (to humans) animal in Africa.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Very much off-topic. I have had to engage with Aberdeenshire council's planning department as they're requiring listed building consent to install a wood burning stove in my Category C listed house. So have gone through 3 rounds of submitting documents this week, and keep getting the same copy and paste "I don't have enough information" response back from this planning officer with then details as to what he is unhappy about.
For the last few days he has been rejecting my submission because of an issue with scale drawings of a site plan. Initially this was "we need to see the layout of the site and where the fireplace is on the building.
Now he's arsing about with scale bars not measuring to scale, e.g. (on the 1:200 plan the scale bar measured 12.99m at the 20m bar". Well I've got a wall that's marked as 19.79m and the scale bar fits ever so slightly longer than that, so it shows the scale of the drawing.
What is this guy doing with it? Also he says on the template response "please call with queries". Have been doing so for 3 days and leaving voicemails and not getting a call back, only shitty emails.
For small internals such as this is it not very common to just go ahead and do it without getting formal permission? A risk, yes, but quite small because after a number of years any objection becomes unactionable (ie you're safe).
Yes that's what both we and the stove people thought. But I was speaking to planning about something external which will need their approval (replacing a fence with a simpler design) and the stove came up in conversation.
I've got the council's built heritage officer visiting in a few weeks for the external stuff, and having now spoken to a human in their planning team I know what I need to do to fix the drawings. Is the scale relevant to what needs to be looked at? No. Are they following ticky boxes? Yes.
Far more fun is that she's stressed twice that as the owner I'm criminally liable for any alterations they aren't happy with. Including the ones that were done before I bought it! "It depends on what was there when it was listed" - which was in 1971, and as Cat B which has since been downgraded to Cat C specifically because of the "group interest" of it being part of a planned village. Whatever in practice that means...
Ah, bad luck. But I'm sure you'll get there in the end. Re liability, don't take my word for it (obviously) but I did get into this area recently and my understanding is that after a certain period (and 1971 certainly exceeds it) legal action by the planning people becomes a zero risk.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
It's faintly odd, reassuring and counterintuitive that on these figures the great majority of USA people live private lives recognisable from the works of Jane Austen.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Conversely it is said an Australian tourist board carried out painstaking investigations to identify the most lethal animal in all Australia. Answer: the horse.
I think kangaroos can be a bit punchy - literally. Cassowaries have a weird ankle spike that they use to rake your flesh open (I have encountered a cassowary). Koalas will infest you with shite. Cane toads are poisonous. Those fucking spiders that love.... toilets. Jeezo
And the snakes. My god the snakes. I did a safari in Queensland once and it was brilliant but I have never seen so many snakes in my life
The guide who took me around was a genius Brit naturalist with a home there, he was completely nonchalant about most of the wildlife but he confessed even he got freaked when he woke up one day to find that a twelve foot long snake had got into his bedroom
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
The government didn't have any choice, really, either on the pay rises or the financing of them. They've used the recommendations of the pay review bodies in the past to justify resisting higher pay claims, making it hard to ignore the recommendations now. In any case, the acute problems of recruitment and retention of staff in all of these sectors mean that pay has to increase. The suggested rises are reasonable in the circumstances, although of course unions will scream that they are not. Private-sector pay (albeit not quite comparable, because of the large hidden-pay element of pensions in the public sector) are in the same ballpark, or even higher. Increasing borrowing to even higher levels at the moment is not realistic, and increasing taxes even more than they are already being increased is also not politically realistic.
Financing from the underspend is a short-term fudge, of course, so the problem isn't going to go away. We need more economic growth, better productivity, and better-managed public services, especially better management in the NHS. But none of that can be done quickly, and meanwhile we have the long-term deadweight of Brexit red tape dragging us down and stifling investment. The medium-term future is pretty bleak, to be honest. Labour are going to inherit a very, very difficult situation.
"And meanwhile we have the long term deadweight of Brexit dragging us down and stifling investment"
Interesting that this key passage had 'likes' from three of the most vociferous Brexiteers who post here. It's almost as though we're dealing with alter egos.
Not sure that's right, Roger. The 'likes' include only one vociferous Brexiteer and this is the almost spookily unrepresentative Richard Tyndall, who seems to agree with his fellow Leavers about very little.
Leavers, like Remainers, are a broad church. Which is as you would expect. It would be very odd if people all had one of only two possible packages of opinions covering everything from Brexit to the environment to taxation to outdoors carpets to organ shoes.
Edit: though I do agree with Richard Tyndall about quite a lot, and I don't find his package of views particularly strange. But then I also find things to agree with you about, and also Leon, HYUFD and Sandy Rentool. Most people really.
Leavers and Remainers are indeed broad churches. That's because the issue is about a foundational constitutional issue, and leaves entirely alone what our practical polity might be. I am a Leaver but pro EFTA/EEA, SM and so on, so have almost nothing in common with Farage and co, except that in the long run I think that the envisaged political 'ever closer union' of most of Europe may be right for them but not for us.
In the same way it is odd that the only sizable nationalist party in Scotland has a fairly leftish mindset. To support Scottish independence (I don't BTW) is nothing to do with left, right or whatever. The best reason for unionism at the moment is Scotland is the uselessness of the SNP.
I think we are quite close in our vies - with the exception of Scotland where I am pro-Independence for them and hope (probably against expectation) that if and when they vote for independence we can be grown up about it and do our best to make it work for and with them rather than following the EU stated policy of punishing them for voting the 'wrong' way.
Not possible. IndyRef can only be won if SNP persuade voters they will better off. Of course, they won't in the event. In fact it could well prove economically catastrophic. As SNP are unlikely to blame themselves for this, the default will be a war of words with rUK over who who should pay for the mess.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
So, Ofsted gives Rye College a clean bill of health. Following an inspection ordered by Kemi Badenoch, in response to tabloid outrage at the content of a lesson leaked.
Fans of Kemi should reconsider their fanship. It's wholly inappropriate for a SoS to order an inspection based on a media report of an individual lesson - just imagine if Ofsted had to concede to every such demand. I'm not defending the teacher - if it's as reported, then action should be taken by the Head and/or governors. But it's no business of the SoS. Indeed, it's an abuse of her power to order an inspection for such a reason. Ofsted should have refused.
Probably effective politics from Sunak as it will make it tricky for the TUs - accepting review body recommendations in full is correct, but funding part of it from "efficiency gains" is cowardly, imo. We need taxes somewhat increasing and rebalancing.
Everything being possible is akin to the reform fairy and magic money tree in terms of politicians selling an easy solution - even now there will be efficiencies to make, but endlessly expecting such to achieve everything us no different to promising bankers bonuses will fund all policies, or some vague reform will solve it all.
Very much off-topic. I have had to engage with Aberdeenshire council's planning department as they're requiring listed building consent to install a wood burning stove in my Category C listed house. So have gone through 3 rounds of submitting documents this week, and keep getting the same copy and paste "I don't have enough information" response back from this planning officer with then details as to what he is unhappy about.
For the last few days he has been rejecting my submission because of an issue with scale drawings of a site plan. Initially this was "we need to see the layout of the site and where the fireplace is on the building.
Now he's arsing about with scale bars not measuring to scale, e.g. (on the 1:200 plan the scale bar measured 12.99m at the 20m bar". Well I've got a wall that's marked as 19.79m and the scale bar fits ever so slightly longer than that, so it shows the scale of the drawing.
What is this guy doing with it? Also he says on the template response "please call with queries". Have been doing so for 3 days and leaving voicemails and not getting a call back, only shitty emails.
For small internals such as this is it not very common to just go ahead and do it without getting formal permission? A risk, yes, but quite small because after a number of years any objection becomes unactionable (ie you're safe).
Yes that's what both we and the stove people thought. But I was speaking to planning about something external which will need their approval (replacing a fence with a simpler design) and the stove came up in conversation.
I've got the council's built heritage officer visiting in a few weeks for the external stuff, and having now spoken to a human in their planning team I know what I need to do to fix the drawings. Is the scale relevant to what needs to be looked at? No. Are they following ticky boxes? Yes.
Far more fun is that she's stressed twice that as the owner I'm criminally liable for any alterations they aren't happy with. Including the ones that were done before I bought it! "It depends on what was there when it was listed" - which was in 1971, and as Cat B which has since been downgraded to Cat C specifically because of the "group interest" of it being part of a planned village. Whatever in practice that means...
Ah, bad luck. But I'm sure you'll get there in the end. Re liability, don't take my word for it (obviously) but I did get into this area recently and my understanding is that after a certain period (and 1971 certainly exceeds it) legal action by the planning people becomes a zero risk.
My case is interesting because it was listed Cat B in 1971, then downgraded in 2006 specifically with reference to it being in a planned development. That sounds like so much of what has already been done won't be relevant to the listing. As an example, BoS have festooned wires at the back - almost certainly won't have had LBC but sounds like wouldn't need it anyway. Hope not as I installed a chargepoint and outdoor sockets.
Similarly the bank ripped out much of the actual bank infrastructure when it closed in 2016 and they sold that part of the building. I've then repaired the damage left (and completed the ripping out to repair walls / floor etc which I am allowed to do. None of what was ripped out was there in 1971, so again it should be fine.
Hopefully the built heritage guy is a Human Being and we get on ok...
Well tough, we have inflation rising at 8%, average pay only rising at 7% and if you give public sector workers a pay rise beyond the 6% the pay body recommends then you will have an inflationary wage spiral.
Voters who want big pay rises for public sector workers will vote Labour anyway
The public sector has had fifteen years of below inflation pay rises. Politically, asking them to continue to take real terms pay cuts in the face of rapidly rising prices is extremely difficult, as the wave of public sector strikes is showing.
In contrast to wealthy Tory-voting pensioners and their beneficiaries, especially where houses in the SE are concerned. *Extremely* inflationary, those people. @HYUFD should direct his ire at those people and the party which stoked the inflation of house prices and the inflation of inheritances on top of that by reducing IHT.
House price inflation rose fastest under Blair, exacerbated by lax immigration controls and not enough new housing built.
Cutting inheritance tax was one of the most popular Tory policies this century, so why should we care less what leftwingers like you think about it?
So, when the Tories came into power, they stoked up inflation, and made sure that thje sellers could keep even more of the money? That's inflationary.
The Tories halved unemployment and ended the recession that Labour left you mean
I'm a Tory voter, and I find it quite hard to imagine how Boris managed to do absolutely nothing with the huge mandate he had.
The problem is that Brexit so fixated everyone that it's still in the mirrors.
It felt like a tenuous majority government scared of every hint of dissent. The one biggish thing I can remember them pushing through they later reversed.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
It's faintly odd, reassuring and counterintuitive that on these figures the great majority of USA people live private lives recognisable from the works of Jane Austen.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
And let's not forget the salties. The crocs of the north
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
Very much off-topic. I have had to engage with Aberdeenshire council's planning department as they're requiring listed building consent to install a wood burning stove in my Category C listed house. So have gone through 3 rounds of submitting documents this week, and keep getting the same copy and paste "I don't have enough information" response back from this planning officer with then details as to what he is unhappy about.
For the last few days he has been rejecting my submission because of an issue with scale drawings of a site plan. Initially this was "we need to see the layout of the site and where the fireplace is on the building.
Now he's arsing about with scale bars not measuring to scale, e.g. (on the 1:200 plan the scale bar measured 12.99m at the 20m bar". Well I've got a wall that's marked as 19.79m and the scale bar fits ever so slightly longer than that, so it shows the scale of the drawing.
What is this guy doing with it? Also he says on the template response "please call with queries". Have been doing so for 3 days and leaving voicemails and not getting a call back, only shitty emails.
For small internals such as this is it not very common to just go ahead and do it without getting formal permission? A risk, yes, but quite small because after a number of years any objection becomes unactionable (ie you're safe).
Actually he probably doesn't need listed building consent for this. It's a very badly defined area, but what the legislation actually says is:
Subject to the following provisions of this Act, no person shall execute or cause to be executed any works for the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised
If you ask the council, they will ALWAYS say it needs listed building consent, but actually installing a fitting is hardly doing something which will affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest. Still, you probably don't want to have to argue it in court!
It's not the case that "after a number of years any objection becomes unactionable (ie you're safe)". That's true of most normal planning-permission cases, but not listed building consent.
Ah yes, if you ask. Ask and ye shall receive ... no end of hassle. Re the time cut-off, yes the rules depend on whether listed, and on the type of listing. In practice (for listed) the risk of legal action is usually still small after a long time has passed but it might not be zero. Also depends on what was done; for something large scale and against the character of the building it will take longer for the legal risk to dissipate.
Very much off-topic. I have had to engage with Aberdeenshire council's planning department as they're requiring listed building consent to install a wood burning stove in my Category C listed house. So have gone through 3 rounds of submitting documents this week, and keep getting the same copy and paste "I don't have enough information" response back from this planning officer with then details as to what he is unhappy about.
For the last few days he has been rejecting my submission because of an issue with scale drawings of a site plan. Initially this was "we need to see the layout of the site and where the fireplace is on the building.
Now he's arsing about with scale bars not measuring to scale, e.g. (on the 1:200 plan the scale bar measured 12.99m at the 20m bar". Well I've got a wall that's marked as 19.79m and the scale bar fits ever so slightly longer than that, so it shows the scale of the drawing.
What is this guy doing with it? Also he says on the template response "please call with queries". Have been doing so for 3 days and leaving voicemails and not getting a call back, only shitty emails.
For small internals such as this is it not very common to just go ahead and do it without getting formal permission? A risk, yes, but quite small because after a number of years any objection becomes unactionable (ie you're safe).
Yes that's what both we and the stove people thought. But I was speaking to planning about something external which will need their approval (replacing a fence with a simpler design) and the stove came up in conversation.
I've got the council's built heritage officer visiting in a few weeks for the external stuff, and having now spoken to a human in their planning team I know what I need to do to fix the drawings. Is the scale relevant to what needs to be looked at? No. Are they following ticky boxes? Yes.
Far more fun is that she's stressed twice that as the owner I'm criminally liable for any alterations they aren't happy with. Including the ones that were done before I bought it! "It depends on what was there when it was listed" - which was in 1971, and as Cat B which has since been downgraded to Cat C specifically because of the "group interest" of it being part of a planned village. Whatever in practice that means...
I am in no position to give legal advicc especially given you are dealing with a different legal system.
But when we bought our Grade 2* listed building back in 2009, we had a specialist survey done which identified a huge amount of illegal alterations that had been done to the building including replacing all the Georgian windows which faced away from the road (so could not be seen) with UPVC. On the advise of the surveyor we got the Built Heritage officer in and pointed out all the stuff that had been done that we had had no part in.
There was a lot of other work to be done on the place as well and the BHO basically said that as long as he saw progress eventually on putting right the illegal changes he was content to see us concentrate on the stuff that could cause damage to the house (roof, rotting windows etc). He has been true to his word and has been a huge help to us over the last decade in slowly getting the pace put right. And not once has he tried to push us to get the UPVC replaced ahead of when we could afford it and had the time in the schedule. We have one small window and a back door left to do and the whole experience with the BHO has been first class. At no time has there ever been any hint we might be held criminally liable for stuff we had not done. Indeed I suspect they would find it very difficult to enforce that as long as you could show the alterations were done befoe you bought.
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
The eucalyptus woods, even in the drying period (late austral spring), are quite disconcerting, with all that oil-soaked leaf litter, fallen branches ditto, and frayed bark just waiting to go whomph.
The devastating forest fires in Portugal a few years back were a result of some numpty deciding it would be a good idea to establish eucalyptus plantations.
In one SF book, the engineering was all genetic engineering. So rockets were grown as “Stage trees” - solid fuel rockets, complete with grain (void in the middle).
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
It's faintly odd, reassuring and counterintuitive that on these figures the great majority of USA people live private lives recognisable from the works of Jane Austen.
Though they could be open to Persuasion.
I reckon Fanny Price is to blame. Bloody inflation.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
And let's not forget the salties. The crocs of the north
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
I've spent the last month in Turkey, mostly on the west coast. Here are my impressions, for anyone interested:
- English-speaking Turks are, unsurprisingly, annoyed with their government and its nationalist, Islamist tilt at the moment. Undoubtedly unrepresentative of the country as a whole - Despite that, there are pictures and statues of Ataturk, the modernising, secularising dictator of a century ago everywhere - the country has massively developed in the last decade since I was there: Istanbul had two or three metro lines, now it has 15, and there is a lot of new construction - despite that, most male Turks still seem to find time to spend endless hours in cafes drinking tea and playing backgammon - rather more women wear veils than the last time I was here, but that may be due to the large number of Syrian refugees - rapid inflation (80% officially last year, probably much higher in reality) has odd effects, because, as so often, some prices are adjusted immediately and some, particularly for government services, aren't. So public transport is laughably cheap, as is food that Turks eat, and taxis can't make a living, but foreign hotels and restaurants, priced mostly in euros, are fairly expensive - loads of fat, pasty Russian tourists everywhere remotely on the beaten path. All one can do not to shout "Slava Ukraini" at the top of one's voice - I've spoken to more than one Syrian refugee who has told me that the tolerance the Turks initially showed has long since worn thin, and all of them ask how they can get to the EU or the UK.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
And let's not forget the salties. The crocs of the north
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
I know a few people who've been attacked by crocs, around the world. It's not a bundle of fun
One was a young white Zimbabwean man - a guide in the Kafue National Park in Zambia. The croc got him firmly by the arm and was dragging him to a nasty death but he managed to wrench the croc's jaws open by stabbing it in the eye (IIRC) and so it let go in shock, but he was left with tremendous scars up to his shoulder. Brrrr
@soph_husk Junior doctors vow to keep striking as 'derisory pay offer means just 84p extra an hour'
Why do doctors insist in using the hourly rate of pay? No other sector does this. Are they just afraid that if the public learned how much they take home annually (even based on average numbers) that sympathy would melt away?
The union is using a very specific starting point on the scale, where no-one stays for long, and career progression is rapid. Overtime is also paid per hour over 40, at escalating rates from 1.2 up to 2.0.
Very much off-topic. I have had to engage with Aberdeenshire council's planning department as they're requiring listed building consent to install a wood burning stove in my Category C listed house. So have gone through 3 rounds of submitting documents this week, and keep getting the same copy and paste "I don't have enough information" response back from this planning officer with then details as to what he is unhappy about.
For the last few days he has been rejecting my submission because of an issue with scale drawings of a site plan. Initially this was "we need to see the layout of the site and where the fireplace is on the building.
Now he's arsing about with scale bars not measuring to scale, e.g. (on the 1:200 plan the scale bar measured 12.99m at the 20m bar". Well I've got a wall that's marked as 19.79m and the scale bar fits ever so slightly longer than that, so it shows the scale of the drawing.
What is this guy doing with it? Also he says on the template response "please call with queries". Have been doing so for 3 days and leaving voicemails and not getting a call back, only shitty emails.
For small internals such as this is it not very common to just go ahead and do it without getting formal permission? A risk, yes, but quite small because after a number of years any objection becomes unactionable (ie you're safe).
Yes that's what both we and the stove people thought. But I was speaking to planning about something external which will need their approval (replacing a fence with a simpler design) and the stove came up in conversation.
I've got the council's built heritage officer visiting in a few weeks for the external stuff, and having now spoken to a human in their planning team I know what I need to do to fix the drawings. Is the scale relevant to what needs to be looked at? No. Are they following ticky boxes? Yes.
Far more fun is that she's stressed twice that as the owner I'm criminally liable for any alterations they aren't happy with. Including the ones that were done before I bought it! "It depends on what was there when it was listed" - which was in 1971, and as Cat B which has since been downgraded to Cat C specifically because of the "group interest" of it being part of a planned village. Whatever in practice that means...
I am in no position to give legal advicc especially given you are dealing with a different legal system.
But when we bought our Grade 2* listed building back in 2009, we had a specialist survey done which identified a huge amount of illegal alterations that had been done to the building including replacing all the Georgian windows which faced away from the road (so could not be seen) with UPVC. On the advise of the surveyor we got the Built Heritage officer in and pointed out all the stuff that had been done that we had had no part in.
There was a lot of other work to be done on the place as well and the BHO basically said that as long as he saw progress eventually on putting right the illegal changes he was content to see us concentrate on the stuff that could cause damage to the house (roof, rotting windows etc). He has been true to his word and has been a huge help to us over the last decade in slowly getting the pace put right. And not once has he tried to push us to get the UPVC replaced ahead of when we could afford it and had the time in the schedule. We have one small window and a back door left to do and the whole experience with the BHO has been first class. At no time has there ever been any hint we might be held criminally liable for stuff we had not done. Indeed I suspect they would find it very difficult to enforce that as long as you could show the alterations were done befoe you bought.
Thanks for that - it fits in with what I was thinking. And when heritage jobbie comes I can show him how I have done repairs to fit what was already there.
As an example the bank demolished an internal doorway, leaving a big hole. I've restored the door, and had a new frame made which exactly copies the design of the extant doorway next to it. I've also removed surplus wires from the front which a planning application 20 years ago asked to be removed which weren't.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
Instinctively those numbers for 3 and 4 partners look seriously weird.
3 - Men 12% Women 3% 4 - Men 2% Women 7%
with the rest of the curve similar? Really?
It's a survey subject to sampling error so you probably can't really be that precise about the numbers. But you can probably be fairly sure that the majority had a single sexual partner while about 10-20% had none. Which sounds plausible. I can happily report that as I have only had one sexual partner my entire life I am doing my bit to contain the incel problem.
I've spent the last month in Turkey, mostly on the west coast. Here are my impressions, for anyone interested:
- English-speaking Turks are, unsurprisingly, annoyed with their government and its nationalist, Islamist tilt at the moment. Undoubtedly unrepresentative of the country as a whole - Despite that, there are pictures and statues of Ataturk, the modernising, secularising dictator of a century ago everywhere - the country has massively developed in the last decade since I was there: Istanbul had two or three metro lines, now it has 15, and there is a lot of new construction - despite that, most male Turks still seem to find time to spend endless hours in cafes drinking tea and playing backgammon - rather more women wear veils than the last time I was here, but that may be due to the large number of Syrian refugees - rapid inflation (80% officially last year, probably much higher in reality) has odd effects, because, as so often, some prices are adjusted immediately and some, particularly for government services, aren't. So public transport is laughably cheap, as is food that Turks eat, and taxis can't make a living, but foreign hotels and restaurants, priced mostly in euros, are fairly expensive - loads of fat, pasty Russian tourists everywhere remotely on the beaten path. All one can do not to shout "Slava Ukraini" at the top of one's voice - I've spoken to more than one Syrian refugee who has told me that the tolerance the Turks initially showed has long since worn thin, and all of them ask how they can get to the EU or the UK.
I was in Instanbul a couple of months ago, just before the elections.
I wrote down my thoughts at the time but didn’t post them anywhere. So here goes:
City very well organised, tour guides are licensed and wear ID. English widely spoken. Queues not too bad and mostly well-ordered. Feels much safer than I thought it would be, even at night. Lots of police around, and bag scanners at the entrances to most buildings. Parks and squares have police at the entrances, to keep out unlicensed sellers and tour guides, scooters and other undesirables. Surprisingly few homeless or beggars. Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque are free to enter. Museums are $10-$15 and the palace is $20, all have really good multi-lingual audio guides. Loads of travel agent shops, who will sell more organised guided tours. Public transport good and cheap, traffic totally chaos though, especially on approaches to bridges and in the old town, and motorcyclists not wearing helmets, I thought everywhere had banned that by now! Surprised at the number of shops selling fake branded goods, proper shops not just market stalls, and often not far from the shops selling the real stuff! Restaurants and bars all had proper menus with prices on, although the prices did vary a lot. No bill surprises, as used to be the case in many tourist cities. Pretty much everywhere accepted both cash and cards, budget around £50/ day per person for spending money.
Airport immigration lines are “Turkish” and “Other”, for those who pay attention to such things, and don’t expect to get the Wi-Fi to work, for some reason it requires data roaming to submit the registration form, which is then supposed to send an SMS access code. Nope, me neither.
First time as a tourist anywhere for three years, so interesting to watch all the people. 90% of tourists don’t have cameras any more, they’re all using their phones. A huge number of people seem more interested in taking photos of themselves, than the places they are visiting, even inside religious buildings.
Stories about Turkey being the European capital of cheap plastic surgery do appear to be true, saw a couple of dozen women (and one man!) with nose-job plasters, a handful of men with hair transplant scars, and literally thousands of white and Arab women in their 20s with hideous duck lips! What on Earth makes them think that’s an attractive look? I’m sure in a decade’s time, they will all laugh at their (very over-posed) photos from 2023!
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
What is it with Australia and needlessly venomous wildlife? Everything in Australia seems to have the potential to kill massive things several times over, while actually subsisting on something small and innocuous like crickets. A 'that escalated quickly' of the natural world.
It is absolutely fascinating
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
The eucalyptus woods, even in the drying period (late austral spring), are quite disconcerting, with all that oil-soaked leaf litter, fallen branches ditto, and frayed bark just waiting to go whomph.
The devastating forest fires in Portugal a few years back were a result of some numpty deciding it would be a good idea to establish eucalyptus plantations.
In one SF book, the engineering was all genetic engineering. So rockets were grown as “Stage trees” - solid fuel rockets, complete with grain (void in the middle).
Banks's Player of Games is another one obviously inspired by eucalyptus forests - the climax of the book is set in an alien version of the things.
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
The government didn't have any choice, really, either on the pay rises or the financing of them. They've used the recommendations of the pay review bodies in the past to justify resisting higher pay claims, making it hard to ignore the recommendations now. In any case, the acute problems of recruitment and retention of staff in all of these sectors mean that pay has to increase. The suggested rises are reasonable in the circumstances, although of course unions will scream that they are not. Private-sector pay (albeit not quite comparable, because of the large hidden-pay element of pensions in the public sector) are in the same ballpark, or even higher. Increasing borrowing to even higher levels at the moment is not realistic, and increasing taxes even more than they are already being increased is also not politically realistic.
Financing from the underspend is a short-term fudge, of course, so the problem isn't going to go away. We need more economic growth, better productivity, and better-managed public services, especially better management in the NHS. But none of that can be done quickly, and meanwhile we have the long-term deadweight of Brexit red tape dragging us down and stifling investment. The medium-term future is pretty bleak, to be honest. Labour are going to inherit a very, very difficult situation.
"And meanwhile we have the long term deadweight of Brexit dragging us down and stifling investment"
Interesting that this key passage had 'likes' from three of the most vociferous Brexiteers who post here. It's almost as though we're dealing with alter egos.
Not sure that's right, Roger. The 'likes' include only one vociferous Brexiteer and this is the almost spookily unrepresentative Richard Tyndall, who seems to agree with his fellow Leavers about very little.
Leavers, like Remainers, are a broad church. Which is as you would expect. It would be very odd if people all had one of only two possible packages of opinions covering everything from Brexit to the environment to taxation to outdoors carpets to organ shoes.
Edit: though I do agree with Richard Tyndall about quite a lot, and I don't find his package of views particularly strange. But then I also find things to agree with you about, and also Leon, HYUFD and Sandy Rentool. Most people really.
Leavers and Remainers are indeed broad churches. That's because the issue is about a foundational constitutional issue, and leaves entirely alone what our practical polity might be. I am a Leaver but pro EFTA/EEA, SM and so on, so have almost nothing in common with Farage and co, except that in the long run I think that the envisaged political 'ever closer union' of most of Europe may be right for them but not for us.
In the same way it is odd that the only sizable nationalist party in Scotland has a fairly leftish mindset. To support Scottish independence (I don't BTW) is nothing to do with left, right or whatever. The best reason for unionism at the moment is Scotland is the uselessness of the SNP.
I think we are quite close in our vies - with the exception of Scotland where I am pro-Independence for them and hope (probably against expectation) that if and when they vote for independence we can be grown up about it and do our best to make it work for and with them rather than following the EU stated policy of punishing them for voting the 'wrong' way.
Not possible. IndyRef can only be won if SNP persuade voters they will better off. Of course, they won't in the event. In fact it could well prove economically catastrophic. As SNP are unlikely to blame themselves for this, the default will be a war of words with rUK over who who should pay for the mess.
Then again it could by Eldorado, we will not know till a few years after Independence at least. It will take a while to combat the disasters that UK have lumbered on us. Lots more to Independence than SNP.
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
And let's not forget the salties. The crocs of the north
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
I know a few people who've been attacked by crocs, around the world. It's not a bundle of fun
One was a young white Zimbabwean man - a guide in the Kafue National Park in Zambia. The croc got him firmly by the arm and was dragging him to a nasty death but he managed to wrench the croc's jaws open by stabbing it in the eye (IIRC) and so it let go in shock, but he was left with tremendous scars up to his shoulder. Brrrr
I assume the minute hand on the doomsday clock has been turned back a couple of degrees and you’ve cast your net wider for things to be scared shitless by.
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
Clearly crocodile numbers are out of control there and they need more hunters to control them in rural Australia especially.
Wrong way round. Badly depleted by hunting which is still going on illegally.
Nope, I was right 'The hunting and culling of crocodiles was banned in the 1970s and since then the population has increased exponentially.
In the Northern Territory alone, the population has grown from 3,000 in the 1970s to around 100,000. There are also significant saltwater croc populations in neighbouring Queensland and Western Australia.'
“I think it’s time for us to consider - do we need to go back to culling, considering the significant increase in the crocodile population, and the impact it’s happening, not just on our tourists and visitors, but also locals,” Natasha Fyles, the chief minister of the Northern Territory, told a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a conversation that I think needs to be had.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/11/crocodile-cull-debate-pensioner-mauled-australia-swimming/
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
And let's not forget the salties. The crocs of the north
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
I know a few people who've been attacked by crocs, around the world. It's not a bundle of fun
One was a young white Zimbabwean man - a guide in the Kafue National Park in Zambia. The croc got him firmly by the arm and was dragging him to a nasty death but he managed to wrench the croc's jaws open by stabbing it in the eye (IIRC) and so it let go in shock, but he was left with tremendous scars up to his shoulder. Brrrr
I assume the minute hand on the doomsday clock has been turned back a couple of degrees and you’ve cast your net wider for things to be scared shitless by.
I must admit "death by wild animals" wasn't on my list of Things PB Gets Hysterical About This Week
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
Clearly crocodile numbers are out of control there and they need more hunters to control them in rural Australia especially.
Wrong way round. Badly depleted by hunting which is still going on illegally.
Nope, I was right 'The hunting and culling of crocodiles was banned in the 1970s and since then the population has increased exponentially.
In the Northern Territory alone, the population has grown from 3,000 in the 1970s to around 100,000. There are also significant saltwater croc populations in neighbouring Queensland and Western Australia.'
“I think it’s time for us to consider - do we need to go back to culling, considering the significant increase in the crocodile population, and the impact it’s happening, not just on our tourists and visitors, but also locals,” Natasha Fyles, the chief minister of the Northern Territory, told a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a conversation that I think needs to be had.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/11/crocodile-cull-debate-pensioner-mauled-australia-swimming/
That's about 100K cvrocodiles for 142000k square km.
And some of those victims are people go into known croc terrain and go swimming?
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
Instinctively those numbers for 3 and 4 partners look seriously weird.
3 - Men 12% Women 3% 4 - Men 2% Women 7%
with the rest of the curve similar? Really?
It's a survey subject to sampling error so you probably can't really be that precise about the numbers. But you can probably be fairly sure that the majority had a single sexual partner while about 10-20% had none. Which sounds plausible. I can happily report that as I have only had one sexual partner my entire life I am doing my bit to contain the incel problem.
I usually try and restrict myself to no more than two sexual partners per day.
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
"Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation.
Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. "
The pain of its sting is so acute, prolonged, and incurable, it has caused suicide. Ouch
Typical of Moss to be slagging off plants.
I remember when I encountered a solitary ant north of Sydney in a national park: the ant was blithely wandering down a path. I bent down to have a look, it was an unusual insect. At this point the ant actually turned on me, and forced me back, with a menacing glare. I thought the little fucker was having a laugh - I mean, OK, he had a tough stare, but let's face it, this was an ant - but I quickly googled the species and discovered it was THIS:
Not only is it infamously aggressive, it can deliver one of the fiercest insect bites in the world, the bite can actually be fatal within fifteen minutes (if you get an allergic shock)... and the fucking ant can JUMP AT YOU, up to a foot or more
I decided to let the ant go about his business
You have to be insane to go to or live in Australia
In this 14 year study, 56 people in Australia died from poisoned wildlife, or about 4 per year. Only 3 from stingers (box jellyfish) in the entire period. Anaphylaxis to bee or wasp stings being the most frequent.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
Yes, the actual stats on death and injury aren't THAT bad
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Acvtually, the biggest risk of all and one where I had to wear protective clothing and eye protection and prophylactic creams was: the sun. Not joking. Fair freckled Scottish skin - I apologised when holding up the tour 4x4 on Kangaroo Island a few moments while slapping on the gunge and the chap said on the contrary - it was good to seem someone being sensible. I daresay also it saved having a grizzling sunburnt client later on.
Absolutely
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
And you forgot the kangaroos on the road. Smash through the car windscreen like deer in the UK, but then starty kicking and punching with those sharp claws. Relative of our tour expert ...
And let's not forget the salties. The crocs of the north
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
I know a few people who've been attacked by crocs, around the world. It's not a bundle of fun
One was a young white Zimbabwean man - a guide in the Kafue National Park in Zambia. The croc got him firmly by the arm and was dragging him to a nasty death but he managed to wrench the croc's jaws open by stabbing it in the eye (IIRC) and so it let go in shock, but he was left with tremendous scars up to his shoulder. Brrrr
I assume the minute hand on the doomsday clock has been turned back a couple of degrees and you’ve cast your net wider for things to be scared shitless by.
I must admit "death by wild animals" wasn't on my list of Things PB Gets Hysterical About This Week
Especially animals who get interfered with by humans who are so unreasonable as to get in their way, complain when they find animals living in animal habitat, etc. etc.
Just catching up on news of the rejection of the Government pay offer by the BMA. The doctors are going to end up behaving like the train drivers and going on strike at regular intervals all the way until the next General Election, aren't they?
What happens if and when they finally get Labour ministers to negotiate with and they discover that they're not willing to cough up any more either, Lord alone knows.
I've spent the last month in Turkey, mostly on the west coast. Here are my impressions, for anyone interested:
- English-speaking Turks are, unsurprisingly, annoyed with their government and its nationalist, Islamist tilt at the moment. Undoubtedly unrepresentative of the country as a whole - Despite that, there are pictures and statues of Ataturk, the modernising, secularising dictator of a century ago everywhere - the country has massively developed in the last decade since I was there: Istanbul had two or three metro lines, now it has 15, and there is a lot of new construction - despite that, most male Turks still seem to find time to spend endless hours in cafes drinking tea and playing backgammon - rather more women wear veils than the last time I was here, but that may be due to the large number of Syrian refugees - rapid inflation (80% officially last year, probably much higher in reality) has odd effects, because, as so often, some prices are adjusted immediately and some, particularly for government services, aren't. So public transport is laughably cheap, as is food that Turks eat, and taxis can't make a living, but foreign hotels and restaurants, priced mostly in euros, are fairly expensive - loads of fat, pasty Russian tourists everywhere remotely on the beaten path. All one can do not to shout "Slava Ukraini" at the top of one's voice - I've spoken to more than one Syrian refugee who has told me that the tolerance the Turks initially showed has long since worn thin, and all of them ask how they can get to the EU or the UK.
I was in Instanbul a couple of months ago, just before the elections.
I wrote down my thoughts at the time but didn’t post them anywhere. So here goes:
City very well organised, tour guides are licensed and wear ID. English widely spoken. Queues not too bad and mostly well-ordered. Feels much safer than I thought it would be, even at night. Lots of police around, and bag scanners at the entrances to most buildings. Parks and squares have police at the entrances, to keep out unlicensed sellers and tour guides, scooters and other undesirables. Surprisingly few homeless or beggars. Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque are free to enter. Museums are $10-$15 and the palace is $20, all have really good multi-lingual audio guides. Loads of travel agent shops, who will sell more organised guided tours. Public transport good and cheap, traffic totally chaos though, especially on approaches to bridges and in the old town, and motorcyclists not wearing helmets, I thought everywhere had banned that by now! Surprised at the number of shops selling fake branded goods, proper shops not just market stalls, and often not far from the shops selling the real stuff! Restaurants and bars all had proper menus with prices on, although the prices did vary a lot. No bill surprises, as used to be the case in many tourist cities. Pretty much everywhere accepted both cash and cards, budget around £50/ day per person for spending money.
Airport immigration lines are “Turkish” and “Other”, for those who pay attention to such things, and don’t expect to get the Wi-Fi to work, for some reason it requires data roaming to submit the registration form, which is then supposed to send an SMS access code. Nope, me neither.
First time as a tourist anywhere for three years, so interesting to watch all the people. 90% of tourists don’t have cameras any more, they’re all using their phones. A huge number of people seem more interested in taking photos of themselves, than the places they are visiting, even inside religious buildings.
Stories about Turkey being the European capital of cheap plastic surgery do appear to be true, saw a couple of dozen women (and one man!) with nose-job plasters, a handful of men with hair transplant scars, and literally thousands of white and Arab women in their 20s with hideous duck lips! What on Earth makes them think that’s an attractive look? I’m sure in a decade’s time, they will all laugh at their (very over-posed) photos from 2023!
Interesting to compare your observations with mine. I think yours really relate to Istanbul - I was only there for a couple of days at the start and end of my trip. For instance, in the rest of Turkey, English is much less widely spoken, and you can get by comfortably on much less than £50/day (though I spent about that, and travelled in reasonable style) unless you're in tourist resorts.
I agree that Turks rip foreigners off much less than they did when I was last there - I only had a couple of bad experiences and it was only a few pounds each time. But the government rips them off far more - the two week museum pass is 40x for foreigners what it is for Turks. They disguise that by advertising museum entrance prices for Turks in Turkish only of course.
The point you raise about airport wifi is because the Turkish government doesn't allow anonymous access - they want to know who is messaging. You can either do it through SMS or scan your passport at the airport.
I agree about plastic surgery. Indeed, while I was there, a friend flew out from London to get some botox done - what would have cost £500 in London cost him £150 in Istanbul after a little shopping around.
Probably effective politics from Sunak as it will make it tricky for the TUs - accepting review body recommendations in full is correct, but funding part of it from "efficiency gains" is cowardly, imo. We need taxes somewhat increasing and rebalancing.
Everything being possible is akin to the reform fairy and magic money tree in terms of politicians selling an easy solution - even now there will be efficiencies to make, but endlessly expecting such to achieve everything us no different to promising bankers bonuses will fund all policies, or some vague reform will solve it all.
Efficiencies of 2% per year are built into the NHS workforce plans of last week too, on equally dubious grounds.
I am planning to cut my real terms work in line with my recent real terms pay cuts. Why should I sweat to get stuff done?
I've spent the last month in Turkey, mostly on the west coast. Here are my impressions, for anyone interested:
- English-speaking Turks are, unsurprisingly, annoyed with their government and its nationalist, Islamist tilt at the moment. Undoubtedly unrepresentative of the country as a whole - Despite that, there are pictures and statues of Ataturk, the modernising, secularising dictator of a century ago everywhere - the country has massively developed in the last decade since I was there: Istanbul had two or three metro lines, now it has 15, and there is a lot of new construction - despite that, most male Turks still seem to find time to spend endless hours in cafes drinking tea and playing backgammon - rather more women wear veils than the last time I was here, but that may be due to the large number of Syrian refugees - rapid inflation (80% officially last year, probably much higher in reality) has odd effects, because, as so often, some prices are adjusted immediately and some, particularly for government services, aren't. So public transport is laughably cheap, as is food that Turks eat, and taxis can't make a living, but foreign hotels and restaurants, priced mostly in euros, are fairly expensive - loads of fat, pasty Russian tourists everywhere remotely on the beaten path. All one can do not to shout "Slava Ukraini" at the top of one's voice - I've spoken to more than one Syrian refugee who has told me that the tolerance the Turks initially showed has long since worn thin, and all of them ask how they can get to the EU or the UK.
I was in Instanbul a couple of months ago, just before the elections.
I wrote down my thoughts at the time but didn’t post them anywhere. So here goes:
City very well organised, tour guides are licensed and wear ID. English widely spoken. Queues not too bad and mostly well-ordered. Feels much safer than I thought it would be, even at night. Lots of police around, and bag scanners at the entrances to most buildings. Parks and squares have police at the entrances, to keep out unlicensed sellers and tour guides, scooters and other undesirables. Surprisingly few homeless or beggars. Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque are free to enter. Museums are $10-$15 and the palace is $20, all have really good multi-lingual audio guides. Loads of travel agent shops, who will sell more organised guided tours. Public transport good and cheap, traffic totally chaos though, especially on approaches to bridges and in the old town, and motorcyclists not wearing helmets, I thought everywhere had banned that by now! Surprised at the number of shops selling fake branded goods, proper shops not just market stalls, and often not far from the shops selling the real stuff! Restaurants and bars all had proper menus with prices on, although the prices did vary a lot. No bill surprises, as used to be the case in many tourist cities. Pretty much everywhere accepted both cash and cards, budget around £50/ day per person for spending money.
Airport immigration lines are “Turkish” and “Other”, for those who pay attention to such things, and don’t expect to get the Wi-Fi to work, for some reason it requires data roaming to submit the registration form, which is then supposed to send an SMS access code. Nope, me neither.
First time as a tourist anywhere for three years, so interesting to watch all the people. 90% of tourists don’t have cameras any more, they’re all using their phones. A huge number of people seem more interested in taking photos of themselves, than the places they are visiting, even inside religious buildings.
Stories about Turkey being the European capital of cheap plastic surgery do appear to be true, saw a couple of dozen women (and one man!) with nose-job plasters, a handful of men with hair transplant scars, and literally thousands of white and Arab women in their 20s with hideous duck lips! What on Earth makes them think that’s an attractive look? I’m sure in a decade’s time, they will all laugh at their (very over-posed) photos from 2023!
Interesting to compare your observations with mine. I think yours really relate to Istanbul - I was only there for a couple of days at the start and end of my trip. For instance, in the rest of Turkey, English is much less widely spoken, and you can get by comfortably on much less than £50/day (though I spent about that, and travelled in reasonable style) unless you're in tourist resorts.
I agree that Turks rip foreigners off much less than they did when I was last there - I only had a couple of bad experiences and it was only a few pounds each time. But the government rips them off far more - the two week museum pass is 40x for foreigners what it is for Turks. They disguise that by advertising museum entrance prices for Turks in Turkish only of course.
The point you raise about airport wifi is because the Turkish government doesn't allow anonymous access - they want to know who is messaging. You can either do it through SMS or scan your passport at the airport.
I agree about plastic surgery. Indeed, while I was there, a friend flew out from London to get some botox done - what would have cost £500 in London cost him £150 in Istanbul after a little shopping around.
"The average salary in the most recent year (2023) in Turkey is about 94,000 Turkish Lira (TRY) per year. That's roughly about 4,872 US Dollars, as per the April 2023 exchange rate." 40 times that is $195,000 or £148,000. Against that background and giving them home advantage, I think a 40x markup is entirely OK.
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
Clearly crocodile numbers are out of control there and they need more hunters to control them in rural Australia especially.
Wrong way round. Badly depleted by hunting which is still going on illegally.
Nope, I was right 'The hunting and culling of crocodiles was banned in the 1970s and since then the population has increased exponentially.
In the Northern Territory alone, the population has grown from 3,000 in the 1970s to around 100,000. There are also significant saltwater croc populations in neighbouring Queensland and Western Australia.'
“I think it’s time for us to consider - do we need to go back to culling, considering the significant increase in the crocodile population, and the impact it’s happening, not just on our tourists and visitors, but also locals,” Natasha Fyles, the chief minister of the Northern Territory, told a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a conversation that I think needs to be had.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/11/crocodile-cull-debate-pensioner-mauled-australia-swimming/
That's about 100K cvrocodiles for 142000k square km.
And some of those victims are people go into known croc terrain and go swimming?
It is an over three hundred per cent croc rise there since the 1970s.
Why should locals and their pets be terrorised by excess crocs, just shoot them!
Probably effective politics from Sunak as it will make it tricky for the TUs - accepting review body recommendations in full is correct, but funding part of it from "efficiency gains" is cowardly, imo. We need taxes somewhat increasing and rebalancing.
Everything being possible is akin to the reform fairy and magic money tree in terms of politicians selling an easy solution - even now there will be efficiencies to make, but endlessly expecting such to achieve everything us no different to promising bankers bonuses will fund all policies, or some vague reform will solve it all.
Efficiencies of 2% per year are built into the NHS workforce plans of last week too, on equally dubious grounds.
I am planning to cut my real terms work in line with my recent real terms pay cuts. Why should I sweat to get stuff done?
You miss the point as you focus on your pay. The point is do we get value for money from state services. Often the answer is no but we can't just go fuck you we will go over here to another company instead and vote with our wallet.
Probably effective politics from Sunak as it will make it tricky for the TUs - accepting review body recommendations in full is correct, but funding part of it from "efficiency gains" is cowardly, imo. We need taxes somewhat increasing and rebalancing.
Everything being possible is akin to the reform fairy and magic money tree in terms of politicians selling an easy solution - even now there will be efficiencies to make, but endlessly expecting such to achieve everything us no different to promising bankers bonuses will fund all policies, or some vague reform will solve it all.
Efficiencies of 2% per year are built into the NHS workforce plans of last week too, on equally dubious grounds.
I am planning to cut my real terms work in line with my recent real terms pay cuts. Why should I sweat to get stuff done?
That hippocratic oath left a permanent mark on you, didn't it?
Feck. There really are a LOT of saltie attacks in Australia
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
Clearly crocodile numbers are out of control there and they need more hunters to control them in rural Australia especially.
Wrong way round. Badly depleted by hunting which is still going on illegally.
Nope, I was right 'The hunting and culling of crocodiles was banned in the 1970s and since then the population has increased exponentially.
In the Northern Territory alone, the population has grown from 3,000 in the 1970s to around 100,000. There are also significant saltwater croc populations in neighbouring Queensland and Western Australia.'
“I think it’s time for us to consider - do we need to go back to culling, considering the significant increase in the crocodile population, and the impact it’s happening, not just on our tourists and visitors, but also locals,” Natasha Fyles, the chief minister of the Northern Territory, told a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a conversation that I think needs to be had.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/11/crocodile-cull-debate-pensioner-mauled-australia-swimming/
That's about 100K cvrocodiles for 142000k square km.
And some of those victims are people go into known croc terrain and go swimming?
It is an over three hundred per cent croc rise there since the 1970s.
Why should locals and their pets be terrorised by excess crocs, just shoot them!
Why should Essex residents have to pay a tax to drive into London because leftwing inner London eco warriors who don't care about rural and small town residents who need a car want to tax drivers out of existence?
Even on those numbers as many suburban Londoners oppose the ULEZ as back it too
Off-topic: 20,000 new surveillance cameras are to be installed in Sao Paulo with real-time data analysis using AI. An equal number of "third-party and private" cameras are to be integrated into the network.
"The new cameras will enable the city to monitor schools, medical practices, public spaces such as squares and parks, as well as social media content relevant to public administration." (BBM)
That last bit is straight out of the Chinese regime's playbook in Xinjiang. Not the surveillance of social media of course - social media is always under permanent surveillance as well as spooking from the inside, in every country. I mean doing it on a grid system. In parts of Urumqi there are pop-up police stations every 100 or so metres with this among their functions.
Mustn't forget to vote in the Wall End by-election.
7.30am: The Conservative candidate is alone near the polling station, having a ciggie and talking to someone about something. Not more than 200 yards away, Sir Stephen Timms MP is delivering Good Morning leaflets to Labour supporters.
5.30pm: Coming home from work, the Conservatives seem to be out doing some form of knock-up and a surpridingly brisk flow of voters in and out the nearby polling station. Labour out in force at the polling station.
Why should Essex residents have to pay a tax because leftwing inner London eco warriors who don't care about rural and small town residents who need a car want to tax drivers out of existence?
Even on those numbers as many suburban Londoners oppose the ULEZ as back it anyway
That - if I am following this correctly - would be because they want to drive vehicles with excessive emissions into London, which do not get exemptions.
No one is forcing them to drive into London, of course.
But I guess that they have all heard about it by now.
I would think that, like the Outer London boroughs, the vast majority of vehicles are already compliant, so the scaremongering pols are (to borrow a phrase from Cycling Mikey) almost all fart and no poo.
I've spent the last month in Turkey, mostly on the west coast. Here are my impressions, for anyone interested:
- English-speaking Turks are, unsurprisingly, annoyed with their government and its nationalist, Islamist tilt at the moment. Undoubtedly unrepresentative of the country as a whole - Despite that, there are pictures and statues of Ataturk, the modernising, secularising dictator of a century ago everywhere - the country has massively developed in the last decade since I was there: Istanbul had two or three metro lines, now it has 15, and there is a lot of new construction - despite that, most male Turks still seem to find time to spend endless hours in cafes drinking tea and playing backgammon - rather more women wear veils than the last time I was here, but that may be due to the large number of Syrian refugees - rapid inflation (80% officially last year, probably much higher in reality) has odd effects, because, as so often, some prices are adjusted immediately and some, particularly for government services, aren't. So public transport is laughably cheap, as is food that Turks eat, and taxis can't make a living, but foreign hotels and restaurants, priced mostly in euros, are fairly expensive - loads of fat, pasty Russian tourists everywhere remotely on the beaten path. All one can do not to shout "Slava Ukraini" at the top of one's voice - I've spoken to more than one Syrian refugee who has told me that the tolerance the Turks initially showed has long since worn thin, and all of them ask how they can get to the EU or the UK.
I was in Instanbul a couple of months ago, just before the elections.
I wrote down my thoughts at the time but didn’t post them anywhere. So here goes:
City very well organised, tour guides are licensed and wear ID. English widely spoken. Queues not too bad and mostly well-ordered. Feels much safer than I thought it would be, even at night. Lots of police around, and bag scanners at the entrances to most buildings. Parks and squares have police at the entrances, to keep out unlicensed sellers and tour guides, scooters and other undesirables. Surprisingly few homeless or beggars. Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque are free to enter. Museums are $10-$15 and the palace is $20, all have really good multi-lingual audio guides. Loads of travel agent shops, who will sell more organised guided tours. Public transport good and cheap, traffic totally chaos though, especially on approaches to bridges and in the old town, and motorcyclists not wearing helmets, I thought everywhere had banned that by now! Surprised at the number of shops selling fake branded goods, proper shops not just market stalls, and often not far from the shops selling the real stuff! Restaurants and bars all had proper menus with prices on, although the prices did vary a lot. No bill surprises, as used to be the case in many tourist cities. Pretty much everywhere accepted both cash and cards, budget around £50/ day per person for spending money.
Airport immigration lines are “Turkish” and “Other”, for those who pay attention to such things, and don’t expect to get the Wi-Fi to work, for some reason it requires data roaming to submit the registration form, which is then supposed to send an SMS access code. Nope, me neither.
First time as a tourist anywhere for three years, so interesting to watch all the people. 90% of tourists don’t have cameras any more, they’re all using their phones. A huge number of people seem more interested in taking photos of themselves, than the places they are visiting, even inside religious buildings.
Stories about Turkey being the European capital of cheap plastic surgery do appear to be true, saw a couple of dozen women (and one man!) with nose-job plasters, a handful of men with hair transplant scars, and literally thousands of white and Arab women in their 20s with hideous duck lips! What on Earth makes them think that’s an attractive look? I’m sure in a decade’s time, they will all laugh at their (very over-posed) photos from 2023!
The trout pout lips are done with fillers, so will gradually absorb, so not so bad.
There are quite a few stories circulating of patients who came back with some discount new boobs, but minus a kidney from Turkyie. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
Meanwhile, you remember that conversation in the previous thread about how a small number of promiscuous people were getting all the sex and others were going without?
Turns out that it's not really the case. Data for 2022 from the United States General Social Survey;
Instinctively those numbers for 3 and 4 partners look seriously weird.
3 - Men 12% Women 3% 4 - Men 2% Women 7%
with the rest of the curve similar? Really?
It's a survey subject to sampling error so you probably can't really be that precise about the numbers. But you can probably be fairly sure that the majority had a single sexual partner while about 10-20% had none. Which sounds plausible. I can happily report that as I have only had one sexual partner my entire life I am doing my bit to contain the incel problem.
I usually try and restrict myself to no more than two sexual partners per day.
Why should Essex residents have to pay a tax to drive into London because leftwing inner London eco warriors who don't care about rural and small town residents who need a car want to tax drivers out of existence?
Even on those numbers as many suburban Londoners oppose the ULEZ as back it anyway
The first principle is one that sailed some years ago, when Boris introduced the central London ULEZ. Everything since then has been haggling over price and extent.
As for the second, the usual pattern is that anti car measures are least popular just before their introduction. Fears are greatest, benefits are still invisible. For it to be net neutral now doesn't bode well for the anti ULEZ future.
But to return to my point. By refusing to put up signs, Essex CC doesn't stop the scheme, does make it more likely Essex drivers get fined. It's a dumb, self harming gesture, isn't it?
Comments
Re broad church, yes Leavers are one. By definition they are, given it's half the population. However, very few (proportionately) are social liberals, pro open borders, strikingly non-nationalistic, which is what I was thinking of when describing the Tyndall as extremely atypical of the genre.
My personal theory is that it is like an arms race has taken place. Once one species develops a hideously nasty sting protruding from its anus (the Platypus, which can kill a dog) then the next animal - the Koala - will become unusually nasty as well, and then the flowers and snakes and spiders and ants all take up arms, and go nuclear, until basically eveything is lethal
However, why did it start in the first place? It's not like these hostile critters are confined to the outback, where they have to scrap over every drop of water or nutrition, it's the same in lush temperate areas: eg those horrible ants are common in New South Wales and Tasmania
I kinda love it, but it is a little offputting in terms of living there. Then you have to factor in the fires and floods... eucalyptus wood fires can spread faster than a car can DRIVE (let alone a man run) - the combustible gum means they sometimes explode outwards, and there ain't nothing you can do, even in an Aston Martin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
3 - Men 12% Women 3%
4 - Men 2% Women 7%
with the rest of the curve similar? Really?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47nignA3dF4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAE04EBBdiw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuR33gDEVsQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhbzW7Vz-j4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNIHzrTh4-I
https://biomedicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/departments/department-of-biochemistry-and-pharmacology/engage/avru/research/avip#:~:text=During the study period, 64,27 deaths during this period.
To keep perspective there are a half dozen deaths in the UK each year from stings.
One I heard of was three guys - possibly on an official run - who got caught in a eucalyptus forest fire. They realised that eventually - quickly - they'd be overtaken by the flames. Because they spread so fast. They decided their only choice was to run AT the flames, and burst through them to the other side. They'd get burned but they might survive
They did it and - as was told to me - they survived. But with brutal life-changing burns
Eucalyptus fires must be terrifying. Also noisy: as another tree full of sap explodes like a bomb
It is exactly that. All species are pre-programmed to have a population explosion of their own. When that happens the constraints of the environment curtail it. At the edge cases those individuals that are better suited to dealing with the constraint prosper. And so it goes on.
3 - Men 22.78% Women 0.49%
4 - Men 2.2% Women 15.87%
Thats just not at all plausible, and the decimal points suggest not just a small sample.
But this is partly because Australia is so sparsely populated, and partly because Australians are taught from birth to be wary of everything wild
Which is not fun. So even if your chances of dying from ants, bees, jellyfish, spiders in the bog, are theoretically low, there is always this persistent hum of mild dread. And the stingers really do stop you swimming
Wings Over Scotland
@WingsScotland
Hearing from numerous sources that the Operation Branchform clock is ticking VERY loudly now. Like, within-days loudly.
Another anomaly is that this is the 18-35 age breakdown, so people in this group wil be reporting relationships with those in other age groups.
Dare I say it, but there might be a tendency for women to under-report, and men to over-report, their body count in a survey like this?
Also, are these numbers overall total, or just for the survey year?
https://gss.norc.org/faq
the total sample is about 6000, so the 18-35 subsample will be a thousand or so?
So probably noise, coupled with spurious precision (Teacher Voice: you don't really know if it 6.29% or 7%, do you?)
ETA: I suppose the bigger problem is that the people Leon worries about are too busy having sex to answer sociological questionaires.
And the snakes. My god the snakes. I did a safari in Queensland once and it was brilliant but I have never seen so many snakes in my life
The guide who took me around was a genius Brit naturalist with a home there, he was completely nonchalant about most of the wildlife but he confessed even he got freaked when he woke up one day to find that a twelve foot long snake had got into his bedroom
Probably this species:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_scrub_python#/media/File:Amethystine_Python_visiting.JPG
No more partners (Men 65% Women 2%)
Exactly 1 more partner (Men 6% Women 51%)
More than 1 more partner (Men 29% Women 47%)
Men 30 times more likely to stop at exactly 3 partners is not plausible. Nor is it plausible that that is what was reported.
You see some terrible skin cancers in Oz. Then you REALLY slap on the Factor 90
Fans of Kemi should reconsider their fanship. It's wholly inappropriate for a SoS to order an inspection based on a media report of an individual lesson - just imagine if Ofsted had to concede to every such demand. I'm not defending the teacher - if it's as reported, then action should be taken by the Head and/or governors. But it's no business of the SoS. Indeed, it's an abuse of her power to order an inspection for such a reason. Ofsted should have refused.
Similarly the bank ripped out much of the actual bank infrastructure when it closed in 2016 and they sold that part of the building. I've then repaired the damage left (and completed the ripping out to repair walls / floor etc which I am allowed to do. None of what was ripped out was there in 1971, so again it should be fine.
Hopefully the built heritage guy is a Human Being and we get on ok...
Biggest land predator on earth? - and prone to grumpiness
They are pretty scary, and I have met a few. And now they have started to team up to take us out
"The death of a fisher taken from a boat and eaten by two crocodiles in northern Australia marks the first time a human has been preyed upon by more than one of the reptiles, the Queensland environment department believes."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/07/queensland-inquiry-hears-fatal-crocodile-attack-likely-first-involving-two-of-the-reptiles
Two people a year killed by salties in Oz, many more terrified out of their wits
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11871223/Teenage-girl-attacked-huge-2-2m-saltwater-crocodile.html
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/man-treated-for-injuries-after-saltwater-crocodile-attack-at-popular-top-end-swimming-hole-in-the-northern-territory/news-story/8f78cbc5cc3f16a99bce38125a18ae4b
But when we bought our Grade 2* listed building back in 2009, we had a specialist survey done which identified a huge amount of illegal alterations that had been done to the building including replacing all the Georgian windows which faced away from the road (so could not be seen) with UPVC. On the advise of the surveyor we got the Built Heritage officer in and pointed out all the stuff that had been done that we had had no part in.
There was a lot of other work to be done on the place as well and the BHO basically said that as long as he saw progress eventually on putting right the illegal changes he was content to see us concentrate on the stuff that could cause damage to the house (roof, rotting windows etc). He has been true to his word and has been a huge help to us over the last decade in slowly getting the pace put right. And not once has he tried to push us to get the UPVC replaced ahead of when we could afford it and had the time in the schedule. We have one small window and a back door left to do and the whole experience with the BHO has been first class. At no time has there ever been any hint we might be held criminally liable for stuff we had not done. Indeed I suspect they would find it very difficult to enforce that as long as you could show the alterations were done befoe you bought.
"Australian snorkeller survives crocodile attack by ‘levering its jaws’ off his head
Incident is fifth crocodile attack in almost eight weeks in North Queensland"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/crocodile-attack-snorkelling-cape-york-b2347578.html
Bloody inflation.
I've spent the last month in Turkey, mostly on the west coast. Here are my impressions, for anyone interested:
- English-speaking Turks are, unsurprisingly, annoyed with their government and its nationalist, Islamist tilt at the moment. Undoubtedly unrepresentative of the country as a whole
- Despite that, there are pictures and statues of Ataturk, the modernising, secularising dictator of a century ago everywhere
- the country has massively developed in the last decade since I was there: Istanbul had two or three metro lines, now it has 15, and there is a lot of new construction
- despite that, most male Turks still seem to find time to spend endless hours in cafes drinking tea and playing backgammon
- rather more women wear veils than the last time I was here, but that may be due to the large number of Syrian refugees
- rapid inflation (80% officially last year, probably much higher in reality) has odd effects, because, as so often, some prices are adjusted immediately and some, particularly for government services, aren't. So public transport is laughably cheap, as is food that Turks eat, and taxis can't make a living, but foreign hotels and restaurants, priced mostly in euros, are fairly expensive
- loads of fat, pasty Russian tourists everywhere remotely on the beaten path. All one can do not to shout "Slava Ukraini" at the top of one's voice
- I've spoken to more than one Syrian refugee who has told me that the tolerance the Turks initially showed has long since worn thin, and all of them ask how they can get to the EU or the UK.
One was a young white Zimbabwean man - a guide in the Kafue National Park in Zambia. The croc got him firmly by the arm and was dragging him to a nasty death but he managed to wrench the croc's jaws open by stabbing it in the eye (IIRC) and so it let go in shock, but he was left with tremendous scars up to his shoulder. Brrrr
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12296081/Thats-pay-cleaner-BMA-chair-sparks-outrage-remark-junior-doctors-pay.html
Fair to say that the comments are not exactly in favour of his position.
As an example the bank demolished an internal doorway, leaving a big hole. I've restored the door, and had a new frame made which exactly copies the design of the extant doorway next to it. I've also removed surplus wires from the front which a planning application 20 years ago asked to be removed which weren't.
"iNudgeyou – The Applied Behavioural Science Centre
@iNudgeyou_com
From July 1st, Danes have to sort their waste into 10 different fractions "
https://twitter.com/iNudgeyou_com/status/1676533353497894913
I can happily report that as I have only had one sexual partner my entire life I am doing my bit to contain the incel problem.
I wrote down my thoughts at the time but didn’t post them anywhere. So here goes:
City very well organised, tour guides are licensed and wear ID. English widely spoken.
Queues not too bad and mostly well-ordered.
Feels much safer than I thought it would be, even at night. Lots of police around, and bag scanners at the entrances to most buildings.
Parks and squares have police at the entrances, to keep out unlicensed sellers and tour guides, scooters and other undesirables. Surprisingly few homeless or beggars.
Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque are free to enter. Museums are $10-$15 and the palace is $20, all have really good multi-lingual audio guides.
Loads of travel agent shops, who will sell more organised guided tours.
Public transport good and cheap, traffic totally chaos though, especially on approaches to bridges and in the old town, and motorcyclists not wearing helmets, I thought everywhere had banned that by now!
Surprised at the number of shops selling fake branded goods, proper shops not just market stalls, and often not far from the shops selling the real stuff!
Restaurants and bars all had proper menus with prices on, although the prices did vary a lot. No bill surprises, as used to be the case in many tourist cities.
Pretty much everywhere accepted both cash and cards, budget around £50/ day per person for spending money.
Airport immigration lines are “Turkish” and “Other”, for those who pay attention to such things, and don’t expect to get the Wi-Fi to work, for some reason it requires data roaming to submit the registration form, which is then supposed to send an SMS access code. Nope, me neither.
First time as a tourist anywhere for three years, so interesting to watch all the people. 90% of tourists don’t have cameras any more, they’re all using their phones. A huge number of people seem more interested in taking photos of themselves, than the places they are visiting, even inside religious buildings.
Stories about Turkey being the European capital of cheap plastic surgery do appear to be true, saw a couple of dozen women (and one man!) with nose-job plasters, a handful of men with hair transplant scars, and literally thousands of white and Arab women in their 20s with hideous duck lips! What on Earth makes them think that’s an attractive look? I’m sure in a decade’s time, they will all laugh at their (very over-posed) photos from 2023!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-66193089
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-66181446?fbclid=IwAR3YETkq7N9ou23Q-MRWXFnyYs0QZBb2CY_DXXrqP3PqBmjWeN31bdXbfjU
In the Northern Territory alone, the population has grown from 3,000 in the 1970s to around 100,000. There are also significant saltwater croc populations in neighbouring Queensland and Western Australia.'
“I think it’s time for us to consider - do we need to go back to culling, considering the significant increase in the crocodile population, and the impact it’s happening, not just on our tourists and visitors, but also locals,” Natasha Fyles, the chief minister of the Northern Territory, told a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a conversation that I think needs to be had.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/11/crocodile-cull-debate-pensioner-mauled-australia-swimming/
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/13/parents-in-huw-edwards-case-offered-tens-of-thousands-for-talktv-interview
All this decision does is mean that drivers from Essex going into London won't be warned.
I'd say they were cutting of their noses to spite their faces, except their noses are probably clogged with toxic fumes.
Incidentally, this is less negative on ULEZ expansion in outer London than I'd have expected;
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1679473489269473281
And some of those victims are people go into known croc terrain and go swimming?
What happens if and when they finally get Labour ministers to negotiate with and they discover that they're not willing to cough up any more either, Lord alone knows.
I agree that Turks rip foreigners off much less than they did when I was last there - I only had a couple of bad experiences and it was only a few pounds each time. But the government rips them off far more - the two week museum pass is 40x for foreigners what it is for Turks. They disguise that by advertising museum entrance prices for Turks in Turkish only of course.
The point you raise about airport wifi is because the Turkish government doesn't allow anonymous access - they want to know who is messaging. You can either do it through SMS or scan your passport at the airport.
I agree about plastic surgery. Indeed, while I was there, a friend flew out from London to get some botox done - what would have cost £500 in London cost him £150 in Istanbul after a little shopping around.
I am planning to cut my real terms work in line with my recent real terms pay cuts. Why should I sweat to get stuff done?
Why should locals and their pets be terrorised by excess crocs, just shoot them!
Even on those numbers as many suburban Londoners oppose the ULEZ as back it too
"The new cameras will enable the city to monitor schools, medical practices, public spaces such as squares and parks, as well as social media content relevant to public administration." (BBM)
That last bit is straight out of the Chinese regime's playbook in Xinjiang. Not the surveillance of social media of course - social media is always under permanent surveillance as well as spooking from the inside, in every country. I mean doing it on a grid system. In parts of Urumqi there are pop-up police stations every 100 or so metres with this among their functions.
Coming to everywhere soon.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/13/facial-recognition-surveillance-in-sao-paulo-could-worsen-racism
Mustn't forget to vote in the Wall End by-election.
7.30am: The Conservative candidate is alone near the polling station, having a ciggie and talking to someone about something. Not more than 200 yards away, Sir Stephen Timms MP is delivering Good Morning leaflets to Labour supporters.
5.30pm: Coming home from work, the Conservatives seem to be out doing some form of knock-up and a surpridingly brisk flow of voters in and out the nearby polling station. Labour out in force at the polling station.
No one is forcing them to drive into London, of course.
But I guess that they have all heard about it by now.
I would think that, like the Outer London boroughs, the vast majority of vehicles are already compliant, so the scaremongering pols are (to borrow a phrase from Cycling Mikey) almost all fart and no poo.
There are quite a few stories circulating of patients who came back with some discount new boobs, but minus a kidney from Turkyie. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
The first principle is one that sailed some years ago, when Boris introduced the central London ULEZ. Everything since then has been haggling over price and extent.
As for the second, the usual pattern is that anti car measures are least popular just before their introduction. Fears are greatest, benefits are still invisible. For it to be net neutral now doesn't bode well for the anti ULEZ future.
But to return to my point. By refusing to put up signs, Essex CC doesn't stop the scheme, does make it more likely Essex drivers get fined. It's a dumb, self harming gesture, isn't it?