Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
It's because austerity fell on councils.
I wonder if the public realm could be a big vote winner for Labour.
Lots of my generation, and even people in the mid/late 30s, live in tiny flats with arsehole landlords. Labour can't or won't do much about that, but improving the places we all share (young/old, poor/rich) would find little opposition while being progressive - these areas are more important, relatively, to those likely to vote Labour.
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Get wardens out with cattle prods and they are allowed to zap any dirty scumbag dropping litter, twice if it is a lot of litter.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees ar emassively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Wych Elm should eventually develop resistance to Dutch Elm disease as it does set seed, unlike English Elm, which does not. English Elms are/were all identical clones taken from a Roman source about 2000 years ago which is why it all went horribly wrong so quickly.
[For a similar reason Ash dieback is unlikely to wipe _all_ ash trees, despite the devastation]
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Get wardens out with cattle prods and they are allowed to zap any dirty scumbag dropping litter, twice if it is a lot of litter.
I was in a queue of traffic at Broxden roundabout a few weeks ago and saw someone ejecting about 4 bags of McDonald's onto the road. Enraging. Baffling.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Awww, with little plastic tree guards? And, don't tell me, a handful of bone meal in the holes? and some beneficial microfungal additive that you bought specially? Bless.
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
To be fair they have plausible denials about both sexism and racism here. Hard to claim racism as it might have been sexism. Hard to claim sexism as it might have been racism.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Get wardens out with cattle prods and they are allowed to zap any dirty scumbag dropping litter, twice if it is a lot of litter.
I was in a queue of traffic at Broxden roundabout a few weeks ago and saw someone ejecting about 4 bags of McDonald's onto the road. Enraging. Baffling.
I see the UK's litter problem and raise you India's
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
To be fair they have plausible denials about both sexism and racism here. Hard to claim racism as it might have been sexism. Hard to claim sexism as it might have been racism.
I find that new verb "de-arrested" a curious one. Perhaps it's intended to imply that no ma'am/sir, there was no arrest at all, what arrest? As opposed to being 'released'.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Get wardens out with cattle prods and they are allowed to zap any dirty scumbag dropping litter, twice if it is a lot of litter.
Crucifixion. Since we are dealing with an Environmental Policy, anyone who opposes this is EVUL and deserves. Crucifixion, as well.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Get wardens out with cattle prods and they are allowed to zap any dirty scumbag dropping litter, twice if it is a lot of litter.
I was in a queue of traffic at Broxden roundabout a few weeks ago and saw someone ejecting about 4 bags of McDonald's onto the road. Enraging. Baffling.
It beggars belief why you would not just stop at nearest bin or stick in bin when you get home, could easily stick it in boot, just scumbags.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Get wardens out with cattle prods and they are allowed to zap any dirty scumbag dropping litter, twice if it is a lot of litter.
I was in a queue of traffic at Broxden roundabout a few weeks ago and saw someone ejecting about 4 bags of McDonald's onto the road. Enraging. Baffling.
It beggars belief why you would not just stop at nearest bin or stick in bin when you get home, could easily stick it in boot, just scumbags.
The birthplace of Leopold von Sacher Masoch, author of Venus in Furs and the “first masochist”
Weird. Just read about him in Chris Clarke's new book on 1848!
His novel Graf Donski was inspired by riots in Galicia. Full of hot sex and gore and violence apparently. The new term sado-masochist was used by someone else without his permission.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
I'm on the edge of the Surrey Hills which has been completely devastated in my neck of the woods. Not an Ash left, although I note from the size of them they have all grown since the 87 storm or were very young then. I assume all the big ones came down in 87.
I have a number of old Ash in my garden. One has a girth of about 4 metres so I am guessing is about 350 years old, which is about as old as they get. The rest are about 150 years old going by their girth.
I am dreading the dieback getting to me, but I think it is inevitable.
I am assuming they have survived so far either because of the lack of density in my garden or because of their maturity.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
It's because austerity fell on councils.
I wonder if the public realm could be a big vote winner for Labour.
Lots of my generation, and even people in the mid/late 30s, live in tiny flats with arsehole landlords. Labour can't or won't do much about that, but improving the places we all share (young/old, poor/rich) would find little opposition while being progressive - these areas are more important, relatively, to those likely to vote Labour.
Also a lot of litter collection (eg by the side of roads) used to be done by people on community service.
Now health & safety says that’s too dangerous for the poor dears
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Awww, with little plastic tree guards? And, don't tell me, a handful of bone meal in the holes? and some beneficial microfungal additive that you bought specially? Bless.
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
All the questions you ask just show your ignorance. As I have said before. Genuinely every time you type something on here you reveal how little you know about the subject. A coupe of decades of an ash tree before it sucumbs to die back is more than enough to provide habitat for hundreds of species. Even when it dies it continues to do that. And if you keep planting in cycles you maintain the environment going forward. And of course as Flatlander points out some Ash is resistant so it is not an inevitable death.
My guess is you are one of the 'Chemical Brothers' farmers spreading your monoculture across the countryside. In other words, part of the problem not the solution. You really are a bit of an arse aren't you.
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
The police statement also said that she became abusive and tried to walk away when the police offices asked to see her ticket
But I guess the Guardian didn’t think that was relevant information for their readers
Reports that a Saudi team have offered €300m for Mbappe
With a salary of - wait for it - €700m A YEAR
Obscene.
It’s quite possibly nonsense. Maybe spread by the Saudis themselves just to say: Look how much money we have
Mbappe, a sublime talent, just 24, stripped of his dignity, turned into a circus act. That's what this would do if it's true (which I hope it isn't).
Yeah but even for him… €700m?!
And it’s just one season then he goes to Real for free
PSG really want this to happen as the alternative seems to be Mbappe sulking on the bench for a whole season (he and the team have entirely fallen out) then his contract expires and he goes to Real and PSG get nothing
Fair play if he's actually offered it, I guess. I mean, it is obscene; he's a bloody good player but he's not going to get any better playing out there. As with any of these startup/money leagues, it's a few (usually aging) megastars, a smattering of higher-tier journeymen and then the local players who are usually around the League 2/National League sort of level.
With the US, they've slowly (and after a notable false start in NASL) built a viable and popular league by learning to focus on fan experience as much as recruitment. Average attendance is roughly the same as the Championship, and typically one of the top ten football leagues in the world - plus of course they have the college sports system to recruit from.
The path to viability for the Saudi league seems more difficult, even with bottomless wealth. Football is not just about stars.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Awww, with little plastic tree guards? And, don't tell me, a handful of bone meal in the holes? and some beneficial microfungal additive that you bought specially? Bless.
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
Mrs Flatlander planted about 6000 trees not so long ago and they look pretty good to me. Not a high failure rate. We had to use tree guards because deer, but they were all removed at an appropriate time.
The problem with just leaving a field is that you usually just end up with hawthorn scrub. Whilst that's a fine habitat for birds, if you haven't got a particularly diverse woodland next to it it will take a long time to mature.
Not much use if you are trying to conserve Hairstreaks.
Not all habitat creation needs to be a slave to climate mitigation. Habitat loss is what is currently killing most UK species, not +1C.
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
It's because austerity fell on councils.
I wonder if the public realm could be a big vote winner for Labour.
Lots of my generation, and even people in the mid/late 30s, live in tiny flats with arsehole landlords. Labour can't or won't do much about that, but improving the places we all share (young/old, poor/rich) would find little opposition while being progressive - these areas are more important, relatively, to those likely to vote Labour.
Also a lot of litter collection (eg by the side of roads) used to be done by people on community service.
Now health & safety says that’s too dangerous for the poor dears
"Picking it up here boss" "Sure, Dragline, pick it up"
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
I'm on the edge of the Surrey Hills which has been completely devastated in my neck of the woods. Not an Ash left, although I note from the size of them they have all grown since the 87 storm or were very young then. I assume all the big ones came down in 87.
I have a number of old Ash in my garden. One has a girth of about 4 metres so I am guessing is about 350 years old, which is about as old as they get. The rest are about 150 years old going by their girth.
I am dreading the dieback getting to me, but I think it is inevitable.
I am assuming they have survived so far either because of the lack of density in my garden or because of their maturity.
We have some Ash dieback in the area but not much as yet and like Dutch Elm disease it takes years for it to get established in some trees. As a result as long as you can keep planting each year you get a sustainable rotation for the wildlife. We get almost all of our seedling trees from people who don't want them in their gardens. Rather than just digging hem up and burning them they give them to us and we replant them as we expand the woodland. It is a far better way than the whips Miklosvar talks about as survival rates are about 90% compared to around 50% for bare root whips. You also don't need as much protection as the trees are a bit larger.
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
Without Mbappe and Messi, PSG are beginning to look like a redundant and highly expensive plaything for their Qatari owners
Sure, they will win the French league every year, but who gives a fuck about that?
Without those two players, what chance do they have of the Champions League against Real and the EPL?
If I was weird enough to be a PSG fan, I’d be concerned
I see a depressing number of kids *IN MANCHESTER* wearing PSG tops*. My eldest (just turning 10) expressed a vague interest in the kit before regretting it instantly as I launched into a tirade him about what a plastic shithouse club it is and always has been for its short life, then marching him down to Edgeley Park to get a County kit (he also supports City, the club of his mum and grandpa, which is fine at his age still).
*Only Barcelona comes close in terms of foreign kits you see being worn.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Awww, with little plastic tree guards? And, don't tell me, a handful of bone meal in the holes? and some beneficial microfungal additive that you bought specially? Bless.
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
All the questions you ask just show your ignorance. As I have said before. Genuinely every time you type something on here you reveal how little you know about the subject. A coupe of decades of an ash tree before it sucumbs to die back is more than enough to provide habitat for hundreds of species. Even when it dies it continues to do that. And if you keep planting in cycles you maintain the environment going forward. And of course as Flatlander points out some Ash is resistant so it is not an inevitable death.
My guess is you are one of the 'Chemical Brothers' farmers spreading your monoculture across the countryside. In other words, part of the problem not the solution. You really are a bit of an arse aren't you.
LOL no, my benign inactivity extends to a virtually no lime, no fertilizer deal (and I'm not going to be much of a barley baron on 10 acres am I, now?). My common spotted orchids seem OK with the regime.
Talking an aggressive game of tree related knowitallery, and planting or claiming to plant hardwoods in England in July, is just pure comedy. The environmental disbenefits, never mind the cost and chance of failure, are mind blowing. How many plastic pots have you sent to landfill today? It's not like people can't google "best time of year to plant trees."
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
"“In the end, in democracy, sometimes you all do crazy things together,” Simons said. “And what becomes more important is not whether the crazy thing was a good or bad thing to do. It’s that you’re doing it together." "
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
It's because austerity fell on councils.
I wonder if the public realm could be a big vote winner for Labour.
Lots of my generation, and even people in the mid/late 30s, live in tiny flats with arsehole landlords. Labour can't or won't do much about that, but improving the places we all share (young/old, poor/rich) would find little opposition while being progressive - these areas are more important, relatively, to those likely to vote Labour.
Also a lot of litter collection (eg by the side of roads) used to be done by people on community service.
Now health & safety says that’s too dangerous for the poor dears
Seriously?!
The police cancelled operation "Close Pass" (undercover bike cop catching drivers not giving cyclists enough space) because it failed a risk assessment 🤦♂️
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
The police statement also said that she became abusive and tried to walk away when the police offices asked to see her ticket
But I guess the Guardian didn’t think that was relevant information for their readers
The police claim she was abusive and walked away, in their incorrect and hasty arrest?
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
The good people of X are contrasting the arrest of the woman who paid her bus fare, with the continued freedom of Baroness Mone.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Awww, with little plastic tree guards? And, don't tell me, a handful of bone meal in the holes? and some beneficial microfungal additive that you bought specially? Bless.
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
All the questions you ask just show your ignorance. As I have said before. Genuinely every time you type something on here you reveal how little you know about the subject. A coupe of decades of an ash tree before it sucumbs to die back is more than enough to provide habitat for hundreds of species. Even when it dies it continues to do that. And if you keep planting in cycles you maintain the environment going forward. And of course as Flatlander points out some Ash is resistant so it is not an inevitable death.
My guess is you are one of the 'Chemical Brothers' farmers spreading your monoculture across the countryside. In other words, part of the problem not the solution. You really are a bit of an arse aren't you.
LOL no, my benign inactivity extends to a virtually no lime, no fertilizer deal (and I'm not going to be much of a barley baron on 10 acres am I, now?). My common spotted orchids seem OK with the regime.
Talking an aggressive game of tree related knowitallery, and planting or claiming to plant hardwoods in England in July, is just pure comedy. The environmental disbenefits, never mind the cost and chance of failure, are mind blowing. How many plastic pots have you sent to landfill today? It's not like people can't google "best time of year to plant trees."
I must be imagining that wood I have growing successfully alonsgide the meadows then. Strange that since practically every tree was planted in the summer and practically every one of them survived. I plant them when they are available so can't dictate when that is.
And no plastic. I don't use it at all.
I suspect that it is you who have been doing the googling since you are relying on 'received' wisdom rather than what actually works on a practical level. I suspect the highways agency also relied on that for those hundreds of thousands of new trees they managed to kill along the A14.
The advantage I have here as I have mentioned before is that a fair few people on here know me personally and have followed my work creating the new landscape on my land. Where as you are just some anonymous troll on the internet who really shoudl know better.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
"“In the end, in democracy, sometimes you all do crazy things together,” Simons said. “And what becomes more important is not whether the crazy thing was a good or bad thing to do. It’s that you’re doing it together." "
Nice try, but we're arguing about trees today. Brexit tomorrow.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
The NYTimes is a little one note on this issue. Like Mathew Goodwin, you know what an article will say without any of that tedious reading business.
Yes. I look forward to that surprising NYT article “actually, Brexit turns out to be great”
It’s just never going to happen. Even if Brexit Britain gains the per capita income of Monaco and the geopolitical dominance of China it would still be a terrible idea that went predictably wrong, and any other positive developments will either be a fluke or a lie or proof of Brexity racism
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
I'm on the edge of the Surrey Hills which has been completely devastated in my neck of the woods. Not an Ash left, although I note from the size of them they have all grown since the 87 storm or were very young then. I assume all the big ones came down in 87.
I have a number of old Ash in my garden. One has a girth of about 4 metres so I am guessing is about 350 years old, which is about as old as they get. The rest are about 150 years old going by their girth.
I am dreading the dieback getting to me, but I think it is inevitable.
I am assuming they have survived so far either because of the lack of density in my garden or because of their maturity.
We have some Ash dieback in the area but not much as yet and like Dutch Elm disease it takes years for it to get established in some trees. As a result as long as you can keep planting each year you get a sustainable rotation for the wildlife. We get almost all of our seedling trees from people who don't want them in their gardens. Rather than just digging hem up and burning them they give them to us and we replant them as we expand the woodland. It is a far better way than the whips Miklosvar talks about as survival rates are about 90% compared to around 50% for bare root whips. You also don't need as much protection as the trees are a bit larger.
Good point re the Ash. We moved into our house in 2011 and soon after a storm snapped a young Ash (about 3m up) that had grown through one of our hedges. I sawed through the break and nearly came a cropper as the broken bit fell (it was much heavier than I could cope with) and the trunk whipped up. However the tree survived and the top of the canopy is now higher than our house. Very small by the standards of our other Ash trees, but a proper tree still.
I have 3 stoves and the Ash provide a lot of wood. They drop substantial branches regularly and I have also had one come down and a major branch broken off another when a neighbour's huge pine came down into my garden.
Since 2011 I have never had to buy wood for the stoves and have never cut down a tree that didn't need removing.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
The NYTimes is a little one note on this issue. Like Mathew Goodwin, you know what an article will say without any of that tedious reading business.
Yes. I look forward to that surprising NYT article “actually, Brexit turns out to be great”
It’s just never going to happen. Even if Brexit Britain gains the per capita income of Monaco and the geopolitical dominance of China it would still be a terrible idea that went predictably wrong, and any other positive developments will either be a fluke or a lie or proof of Brexity racism
You are forgetting the quotes from locals in the U.K. who just happen to express themselves in American idiom.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Awww, with little plastic tree guards? And, don't tell me, a handful of bone meal in the holes? and some beneficial microfungal additive that you bought specially? Bless.
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
All the questions you ask just show your ignorance. As I have said before. Genuinely every time you type something on here you reveal how little you know about the subject. A coupe of decades of an ash tree before it sucumbs to die back is more than enough to provide habitat for hundreds of species. Even when it dies it continues to do that. And if you keep planting in cycles you maintain the environment going forward. And of course as Flatlander points out some Ash is resistant so it is not an inevitable death.
My guess is you are one of the 'Chemical Brothers' farmers spreading your monoculture across the countryside. In other words, part of the problem not the solution. You really are a bit of an arse aren't you.
LOL no, my benign inactivity extends to a virtually no lime, no fertilizer deal (and I'm not going to be much of a barley baron on 10 acres am I, now?). My common spotted orchids seem OK with the regime.
Talking an aggressive game of tree related knowitallery, and planting or claiming to plant hardwoods in England in July, is just pure comedy. The environmental disbenefits, never mind the cost and chance of failure, are mind blowing. How many plastic pots have you sent to landfill today? It's not like people can't google "best time of year to plant trees."
I must be imagining that wood I have growing successfully alonsgide the meadows then. Strange that since practically every tree was planted in the summer and practically every one of them survived. I plant them when they are available so can't dictate when that is.
And no plastic. I don't use it at all.
I suspect that it is you who have been doing the googling since you are relying on 'received' wisdom rather than what actually works on aprcatical level. I suspect the highways agency also relied on that for those hundreds of thousands of new trees they managed to kill along the A14.
The advantage I have here as I have mentioned before is that a fair few people on here know me personally and have followed my work creating the new landscape on my land. Where as you are just some anonymous troll on the internet who really shoudl know better.
Nope. You want to call me a liar, we can have a bet about it. A big bet. You still haven't explained the "trees retain water" claim, which is the most striking misconception of the lot, and I am not sure you understand how simple the rule about blanting bare whips in winter really is. Winter - min water requirement, max rain water. In leaf, other way round. But with your extraordinary misunderstanding of how trees function, who knows?
Trees have got themselves some good PR having wildfires called that - they are tree fires. Sure, gorse or heather will also burn, but they burn quickly and burn out - less fuel. 300,000 hectares of Spain burned last year, which is 300,000 hectares of trees. Surely as a tree person you think that's a bad thing, and something we should think about when advocating tree planting?
The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
"Although one of our most populous native trees, as mentioned on our seedling ash page, the disease that has killed 90% of the ash in Denmark and which has infected a huge proportion of the ash trees in 21 European countries is present in the UK. In a somewhat belated attempt to stop the spread of ash die back, the Government has forbidden the importation of all ash varieties grown abroad including but not limited to Fraxinus excelsior, Fraxinus angustifolia, Fraxinus americana and Fraxinus ornus. There is now also a ban on the transport of any live ash inside the UK. The effect of these measures is that the sale of all ash trees (irrespective of size, variety or origin) in the UK is no longer possible and will remain impossible for the foreseeable future. We are therefore no longer selling any form of Ash (Fraxinus) until further notice.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
The NYTimes is a little one note on this issue. Like Mathew Goodwin, you know what an article will say without any of that tedious reading business.
The article is actually about how no one in UK politics wants to talk about Brexit.
Khan calls it the "elephant in the room" apparently.
Doesn't apply here - not even slightly - but yes I think it does in national politics. The Tories are embarrassed to talk about it because they sold what has turned out to be a pig in a poke. And Labour are scared to talk about it because they need the votes of Leavers to win the election. It will crumble over the next few years but right now we have this rather strange omerta.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
"Although one of our most populous native trees, as mentioned on our seedling ash page, the disease that has killed 90% of the ash in Denmark and which has infected a huge proportion of the ash trees in 21 European countries is present in the UK. In a somewhat belated attempt to stop the spread of ash die back, the Government has forbidden the importation of all ash varieties grown abroad including but not limited to Fraxinus excelsior, Fraxinus angustifolia, Fraxinus americana and Fraxinus ornus. There is now also a ban on the transport of any live ash inside the UK. The effect of these measures is that the sale of all ash trees (irrespective of size, variety or origin) in the UK is no longer possible and will remain impossible for the foreseeable future. We are therefore no longer selling any form of Ash (Fraxinus) until further notice.
I think he made it quite clear he didn't buy them, but was given them by friends and neighbours. I have Ash sprouting up all over my garden. It wouldn't even cross my mind that it would constitute 'transport' if I gave some to a neighbour rather than mow them.
I'm not entirely sure that I agree with that kind of sentiment, as both Democratic and Republican Senators say information is being held back, but should be an interesting week, nonethless.
"Although one of our most populous native trees, as mentioned on our seedling ash page, the disease that has killed 90% of the ash in Denmark and which has infected a huge proportion of the ash trees in 21 European countries is present in the UK. In a somewhat belated attempt to stop the spread of ash die back, the Government has forbidden the importation of all ash varieties grown abroad including but not limited to Fraxinus excelsior, Fraxinus angustifolia, Fraxinus americana and Fraxinus ornus. There is now also a ban on the transport of any live ash inside the UK. The effect of these measures is that the sale of all ash trees (irrespective of size, variety or origin) in the UK is no longer possible and will remain impossible for the foreseeable future. We are therefore no longer selling any form of Ash (Fraxinus) until further notice.
Not at all. I am not buying them as I said. And if I am breaking the law then the law can happily come and talk to me about it. I am not exactly hiding now am I. And I will continue to plant trees if for no ther reason than it clearly annoys you.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
Edit to add, global audiences will be able to watch the Saudi league without any background of political and social issues being brought into the game which most will be happy about.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Re dreaming of winning etc; plenty (most) do, but it's still a job. If someone offered me ridiculous money I might be tempted to put my professional aspirations aside for a year.
On changing views of Saudi, it's not just football of course or even just sport. There's that mad planned city that's a big long line, for example. But I agree with the point. Watching Mbappe + 10 jobbers take on Ronaldo + 10 jobbers (I know that's a bit unfair but YKWIM) in a match between two teams I know nowt about isn't really going to get me to change the channel.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
"“In the end, in democracy, sometimes you all do crazy things together,” Simons said. “And what becomes more important is not whether the crazy thing was a good or bad thing to do. It’s that you’re doing it together." "
The line about referendums having "a political gravity that is hard for an outsider like me to understand" is inadvertently quite funny. The US has its fair share of political taboos.
@Leon, @Sandpit, you are both on the discussion group I created about Ukraine. The TLDR is that both sides have to burn up a goodly number of men and materiel to capture very small areas. The Ukraine counter offensive has over the past two months retaken two rectangles each about 50sq km in the Zaporhizia oblast. The Russian capture of Bakhmut took about 25sq km in a similar period. These moves are each less than 0.5% of the area of 2014 Ukraine.
In that discussion group @LostPassword made some good points about attriting (yes, it's a word) the Russians: although I agree with him he thinks it'll take months and I think it'll take over a year. The war is following a similar structure to WW1: a war of manoeuvre expected to last month's becomes congested due to new weapons, movement ceases, trenches are laid, artillery uses up shells in their millions, there is a Shell Crisis as prewar stocks are used up and production must ramp up to keep the sides supplied.
In the discussion group I gave links to three or four videos discussing the situation. The total watch time is about 3hrs so you would be forgiven for not watching them but they explain the supply and attrition issue in much greater depth.
(Ps @rcs1000 do you want to join in? I'm on the tablet so I don't know how to add you) (PPS it takes a long time to burn up millions of men. Ukraine has a while to go yet)
I would be interested in joining if it's an option? I encounter a fair number of alt-right/kremlin-line-trotting people so it would be good to have a balanced view of what's going on.
Oh - and if it's any use to summarising long youtube videos, I wrote a little script the other day that can extract the transcripts and give a summary and/or a sentiment score to them. I'm looking to extend it to extract the audio and do speech-to-text on them so I can then summarise them.
"Although one of our most populous native trees, as mentioned on our seedling ash page, the disease that has killed 90% of the ash in Denmark and which has infected a huge proportion of the ash trees in 21 European countries is present in the UK. In a somewhat belated attempt to stop the spread of ash die back, the Government has forbidden the importation of all ash varieties grown abroad including but not limited to Fraxinus excelsior, Fraxinus angustifolia, Fraxinus americana and Fraxinus ornus. There is now also a ban on the transport of any live ash inside the UK. The effect of these measures is that the sale of all ash trees (irrespective of size, variety or origin) in the UK is no longer possible and will remain impossible for the foreseeable future. We are therefore no longer selling any form of Ash (Fraxinus) until further notice.
What it means is that ashridgetrees could be one of those companies that exports seeds to Holland, gets them grown on, and then reimports them (along with some added extras) as "native stock".
This type of trade should really have been banned earlier.
"Although one of our most populous native trees, as mentioned on our seedling ash page, the disease that has killed 90% of the ash in Denmark and which has infected a huge proportion of the ash trees in 21 European countries is present in the UK. In a somewhat belated attempt to stop the spread of ash die back, the Government has forbidden the importation of all ash varieties grown abroad including but not limited to Fraxinus excelsior, Fraxinus angustifolia, Fraxinus americana and Fraxinus ornus. There is now also a ban on the transport of any live ash inside the UK. The effect of these measures is that the sale of all ash trees (irrespective of size, variety or origin) in the UK is no longer possible and will remain impossible for the foreseeable future. We are therefore no longer selling any form of Ash (Fraxinus) until further notice.
Not at all. I am not buying them as I said. And if I am breaking the law then the law can happily come and talk to me about it. I am not exactly hiding now am I. And I will continue to plant trees if for no ther reason than it clearly annoys you.
Sure. I take that as a brag that you are breaking the law, which was made by people who know even more about trees than you do (including in which direction transpiration operates) to protect the environment. Congratulations. Fanboi ism is no substitute for having a working understanding of what you are talking about. Tree planting in July, LOL.
What effect do you think Corbyn entering the London Mayor race would have? Do you think he has a chance of galvanising a large vote? People might just be fed up enough. Jamie Driscoll has crowdfunded over 100K for his campaign in the North East, Corbyn could easily match that
"Although one of our most populous native trees, as mentioned on our seedling ash page, the disease that has killed 90% of the ash in Denmark and which has infected a huge proportion of the ash trees in 21 European countries is present in the UK. In a somewhat belated attempt to stop the spread of ash die back, the Government has forbidden the importation of all ash varieties grown abroad including but not limited to Fraxinus excelsior, Fraxinus angustifolia, Fraxinus americana and Fraxinus ornus. There is now also a ban on the transport of any live ash inside the UK. The effect of these measures is that the sale of all ash trees (irrespective of size, variety or origin) in the UK is no longer possible and will remain impossible for the foreseeable future. We are therefore no longer selling any form of Ash (Fraxinus) until further notice.
Not at all. I am not buying them as I said. And if I am breaking the law then the law can happily come and talk to me about it. I am not exactly hiding now am I. And I will continue to plant trees if for no ther reason than it clearly annoys you.
Sure. I take that as a brag that you are breaking the law, which was made by people who know even more about trees than you do (including in which direction transpiration operates) to protect the environment. Congratulations. Fanboi ism is no substitute for having a working understanding of what you are talking about. Tree planting in July, LOL.
Don't knock until you have tried it. As I say it works. And my success rate is far better than those 'experts' who advised on the A14 and killed half a million trees as a result.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
No. Not going to happen
Why? Because the EPL was in a unique position to take over the top spot of club football leagues. It has the pedigree, the history and the supporters. If you talk to people abroad who really follow English football, this means an enormous amount to them. By supporting Villa or Spurs or Liverpool or Man U or - God knows -Wrexham! - they are buying into an ancient story, a 100 year old club with its bloodlines and taboos, its history of triumphs and disasters. This is absorbed and becomes emotionally meaningful
You cannot confect this out of nothing (and it doesn’t help if your language is Arabic not English)
This is exactly why French luxury goods sell so well. L’Oreal to Chanel to Louis Vuitton to French wine, fashion and cognac. They have a pedigree, A cachet which absolutely cannot be replicated. A Chinese company could start selling perfume or moisturiser “technically superior” to Chanel but Jeez it would have to be incredibly superior to get people buying Xi Biang number 9 not Chanel number 5. And it won’t be superior coz in the end it is just perfume. A pong
English/British sports have the cachet of French luxury goods. The history and pedigree
For the same reason, Saudi cannot actually replace the Masters, or the Open at St Andrews. They can BUY a form of control, but that is different
One thing that holds Bulgaria back: it's atrocious customer service.
Never rude but proper communist era computer-says-no stuff: restaurants that can't serve you because they are too busy, despite being empty, menus where few things are available, which they don't tell you until you try to order, food taking well over an hour to arrive, and waiters shrugging when a complaint is made - and still expecting to be paid - and entirely tolerated by almost everyone who lives here. Feedback met with more shrugs, mild incredulity and, at best, comments of that's just how things are here.
The only ones who "get it" are those who've lived and worked abroad, but there aren't very many of them.
Basically unchanged, perhaps a bit of a drift away from REF. I would generally look for a Lib Dem bounce after a byelection like last week, but the 14% is already at the top of their range.
There's a big controversy over Friedrich Merz saying he'd be open to working with the AfD.
Merz seems to be a bit stupid. Also he didn't really say he'd be open to working with the AfD. I think the offending statement was
"Wir sind doch selbstverständlich verpflichtet, demokratische Wahlen zu akzeptieren. Und wenn dort ein Landrat, ein Bürgermeister gewählt wird, der der AfD angehört, ist es selbstverständlich, dass man nach Wegen sucht, wie man dann in dieser Stadt weiter arbeiten kann."
But even that was really stupid and he has had to row back from it.
Compare with CSU leader Söder today "ein Nein heißt ein Nein."
The new CEO of Twitter appears to be an even bigger bullshitter than Musk (and without any compensating achievements).
There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world. https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683214311957594113
I know confidently delivered nonsense is a big part of marketing, but you'd think changing a social media site name and mentioning AI every 5 seconds was going to immediately cure cancer from the dramatic descriptions they give of its importance.
What effect do you think Corbyn entering the London Mayor race would have? Do you think he has a chance of galvanising a large vote? People might just be fed up enough. Jamie Driscoll has crowdfunded over 100K for his campaign in the North East, Corbyn could easily match that
I would expect and hope he would get a measly little vote. It could be the cathartic moment - rather like when Johnson realised he didn't have enough support to win the leadership after Truss - that everyone realises a leader is finally finished.
By which time he could very easily be the presumptive nominee, and he’d be pushing for a postponement.
The judge does have a record of being very generous to him. Overly so in fact, with her judgements overturned by an appeals court as a result. But on administrative issues like this I assume it's pretty much in her hands and that's that - and he has 10 months to come up with more reasons for delay (being after the first primaries already helped him).
I remain convinced he will never see a day in prison, and possibly no convictions come the election. He'll just have a whole load of indictments and trial dates.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
Edit to add, global audiences will be able to watch the Saudi league without any background of political and social issues being brought into the game which most will be happy about.
But no one will give a fuck. Al Hillal versus Al Jibbal. All in the desert. No one in Bangkok or Shanghai or Nairobi is gonna watch that over Man U versus Arsenal, or Liverpool v City, or Real v Barca, or Inter v AC
You need the passion and the crowds and the history and, dare I say, a bit of boozy fun
I don’t even think the Saudis are trying to do this. They must know it is impossible. I believe this is almost pure sports washing. They want people to see Saudi Arabia in a different light. The interesting place that hosted Mbappe and Ronaldo for a year. The place where they build new cities. Hmm. Saudi Arabia. They have new ideas and do interesting things!
Anything that stops people thinking: Saudi Arabia = beheadings, jihadism, torture, and women in cages
Once they have washed their image, they can move to being more like Qatar or UAE
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Why am I getting the impression of a bloke pretending to be held back by his mates, giving all verbal to an amused rugby team?
Worth remembering he's been in a pretty weak position himself - unlike Putin he cannot always stop discontent from spreading to mass protests. He's basically had to cleave even tighter to Russia for protection, which must be a little humiliating for a man who was a dictator before Putin even arrived on the scene. Will he even get to pass on him kingdom to his favoured son, as is the peferred method of many authoritarian 'republics' in the world?
The new CEO of Twitter appears to be an even bigger bullshitter than Musk (and without any compensating achievements).
There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world. https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683214311957594113
I know confidently delivered nonsense is a big part of marketing, but you'd think changing a social media site name and mentioning AI every 5 seconds was going to immediately cure cancer from the dramatic descriptions they give of its importance.
I've decided if Twitter falls into terminal decline I'm going to do what's best and not migrate on to Threads or any other platform. Good opportunity to stop wasting so much time on a social media platform that just gets me worked up.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
Edit to add, global audiences will be able to watch the Saudi league without any background of political and social issues being brought into the game which most will be happy about.
But no one will give a fuck. Al Hillal versus Al Jibbal. All in the desert. No one in Bangkok or Shanghai or Nairobi is gonna watch that over Man U versus Arsenal, or Liverpool v City, or Real v Barca, or Inter v AC
You need the passion and the crowds and the history and, dare I say, a bit of boozy fun
I don’t even think the Saudis are trying to do this. They must know it is impossible. I believe this is almost pure sports washing. They want people to see Saudi Arabia in a different light. The interesting place that hosted Mbappe and Ronaldo for a year. The place where they build new cities. Hmm. Saudi Arabia. They have new ideas and do interesting things!
Anything that stops people thinking: Saudi Arabia = beheadings, jihadism, torture, and women in cages
Once they have washed their image, they can move to being more like Qatar or UAE
I know they have the money to waste, but it is pretty expensive sportswashing even for them, which doesn't even seem very likely to be effective.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
No. Not going to happen
Why? Because the EPL was in a unique position to take over the top spot of club football leagues. It has the pedigree, the history and the supporters. If you talk to people abroad who really follow English football, this means an enormous amount to them. By supporting Villa or Spurs or Liverpool or Man U or - God knows -Wrexham! - they are buying into an ancient story, a 100 year old club with its bloodlines and taboos, its history of triumphs and disasters. This is absorbed and becomes emotionally meaningful
You cannot confect this out of nothing (and it doesn’t help if your language is Arabic not English)
This is exactly why French luxury goods sell so well. L’Oreal to Chanel to Louis Vuitton to French wine, fashion and cognac. They have a pedigree, A cachet which absolutely cannot be replicated. A Chinese company could start selling perfume or moisturiser “technically superior” to Chanel but Jeez it would have to be incredibly superior to get people buying Xi Biang number 9 not Chanel number 5. And it won’t be superior coz in the end it is just perfume. A pong
English/British sports have the cachet of French luxury goods. The history and pedigree
For the same reason, Saudi cannot actually replace the Masters, or the Open at St Andrews. They can BUY a form of control, but that is different
Couldn't they at least pay ridiculous amounts for Cricket? It'd be cheaper, Cricket needs the money more, and you can actually get 5 days play there.
What effect do you think Corbyn entering the London Mayor race would have? Do you think he has a chance of galvanising a large vote? People might just be fed up enough. Jamie Driscoll has crowdfunded over 100K for his campaign in the North East, Corbyn could easily match that
Count Binface got 1%, it seems incredible if Corbyn couldn't challenge for third place ahead of the Greens.
There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.
"“In the end, in democracy, sometimes you all do crazy things together,” Simons said. “And what becomes more important is not whether the crazy thing was a good or bad thing to do. It’s that you’re doing it together." "
The line about referendums having "a political gravity that is hard for an outsider like me to understand" is inadvertently quite funny. The US has its fair share of political taboos.
Say - “Title 9 and racism”. The NYT will start gibbering.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
No. Not going to happen
Why? Because the EPL was in a unique position to take over the top spot of club football leagues. It has the pedigree, the history and the supporters. If you talk to people abroad who really follow English football, this means an enormous amount to them. By supporting Villa or Spurs or Liverpool or Man U or - God knows -Wrexham! - they are buying into an ancient story, a 100 year old club with its bloodlines and taboos, its history of triumphs and disasters. This is absorbed and becomes emotionally meaningful
You cannot confect this out of nothing (and it doesn’t help if your language is Arabic not English)
This is exactly why French luxury goods sell so well. L’Oreal to Chanel to Louis Vuitton to French wine, fashion and cognac. They have a pedigree, A cachet which absolutely cannot be replicated. A Chinese company could start selling perfume or moisturiser “technically superior” to Chanel but Jeez it would have to be incredibly superior to get people buying Xi Biang number 9 not Chanel number 5. And it won’t be superior coz in the end it is just perfume. A pong
English/British sports have the cachet of French luxury goods. The history and pedigree
For the same reason, Saudi cannot actually replace the Masters, or the Open at St Andrews. They can BUY a form of control, but that is different
This is right. Export goods for the global market have in them an essence of that country's character, or perceptions of character. They have to, to succeed. It's not just the intrinsic product itself but the emotion that the consumer gains from it; the culture they're buying in to. And you can't manufacture that out of nothing.
The new CEO of Twitter appears to be an even bigger bullshitter than Musk (and without any compensating achievements).
There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world. https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683214311957594113
I know confidently delivered nonsense is a big part of marketing, but you'd think changing a social media site name and mentioning AI every 5 seconds was going to immediately cure cancer from the dramatic descriptions they give of its importance.
I'm not going to rule out this being a bold stride into a world of tech I don't yet appreciate but will one day become essential - but on balance of probability I'm guessing it isn't, and is more the floundering of a man and his personality cult losing in a cage fight with reality.
PSG accept the £259m bid for Mbappé from Al Hilal.
He’s really going to play in SAUDI ARABIA for a year?
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
I wonder how much footballers dream of winning the FA Cup these days as opposed to signing a contract at Mercenary Utd.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
Way back in the mists of time when Serie A and Primera Liga were the big leagues that everyone watched in the world the Premier League got excited by singing a few big name players - the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit. They weren’t at the peak of their careers but they brought a bit of style and stardom.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
No. Not going to happen
Why? Because the EPL was in a unique position to take over the top spot of club football leagues. It has the pedigree, the history and the supporters. If you talk to people abroad who really follow English football, this means an enormous amount to them. By supporting Villa or Spurs or Liverpool or Man U or - God knows -Wrexham! - they are buying into an ancient story, a 100 year old club with its bloodlines and taboos, its history of triumphs and disasters. This is absorbed and becomes emotionally meaningful
You cannot confect this out of nothing (and it doesn’t help if your language is Arabic not English)
This is exactly why French luxury goods sell so well. L’Oreal to Chanel to Louis Vuitton to French wine, fashion and cognac. They have a pedigree, A cachet which absolutely cannot be replicated. A Chinese company could start selling perfume or moisturiser “technically superior” to Chanel but Jeez it would have to be incredibly superior to get people buying Xi Biang number 9 not Chanel number 5. And it won’t be superior coz in the end it is just perfume. A pong
English/British sports have the cachet of French luxury goods. The history and pedigree
For the same reason, Saudi cannot actually replace the Masters, or the Open at St Andrews. They can BUY a form of control, but that is different
Couldn't they at least pay ridiculous amounts for Cricket? It'd be cheaper, Cricket needs the money more, and you can actually get 5 days play there.
The Saudis are reported to be investing in Yorkshire Cricket Club.
The new CEO of Twitter appears to be an even bigger bullshitter than Musk (and without any compensating achievements).
There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world. https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683214311957594113
I know confidently delivered nonsense is a big part of marketing, but you'd think changing a social media site name and mentioning AI every 5 seconds was going to immediately cure cancer from the dramatic descriptions they give of its importance.
I've decided if Twitter falls into terminal decline I'm going to do what's best and not migrate on to Threads or any other platform. Good opportunity to stop wasting so much time on a social media platform that just gets me worked up.
I assume it'll be fine, but telling people tweets should no longer be called tweets (whever the official name is) would be like telling people not to talk about googling things, even when using another search engine. It ain't happening.
Comments
I wonder if the public realm could be a big vote winner for Labour.
Lots of my generation, and even people in the mid/late 30s, live in tiny flats with arsehole landlords. Labour can't or won't do much about that, but improving the places we all share (young/old, poor/rich) would find little opposition while being progressive - these areas are more important, relatively, to those likely to vote Labour.
Met Police show the results of sensitivity training:
Video footage that circulated on social media on Saturday showed the woman being arrested and handcuffed by two male Met officers in front of her child, who was distressed and crying.
The woman is heard asking one of the officers to let go, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong,” while a member of the public films what is happening and asks why she is being arrested.
The police said in a statement that the woman was asked to provide her ticket but failed to do so, and was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and handcuffed. The woman was later de-arrested when it was confirmed that she had paid for her ticket.
[For a similar reason Ash dieback is unlikely to wipe _all_ ash trees, despite the devastation]
What is a Whytch elm? How do you convert a paddock back to grass? If it wasn't grass in the first place, it wasn't a paddock. Why plant ash given its inevitable fate? Why plant trees in midsummer at all when you could plant whips in winter at one fifth the cash and environmental cost and waste of little plastic pots and with 5x the success rate? Trees don't retain water, they siphon it up and disperse it in the atmosphere in quite astonishing quantities - 100 gallons of day for a big oak in leaf - the very reverse of what you imply.
More questions than answers here.
I am responsible for 10 or so acres of "the environment" including probably 500 odd trees just counting standards, 10x that including hedging. I find the best way to deal with it is masterly inactivity rather than pratting about. If you want trees just fence it and leave it and trees will come, or at least don't waste your time planting ash trees in july.
Hard to claim racism as it might have been sexism.
Hard to claim sexism as it might have been racism.
Line the roads with them.
His novel Graf Donski was inspired by riots in Galicia. Full of hot sex and gore and violence apparently. The new term sado-masochist was used by someone else without his permission.
I'm on the edge of the Surrey Hills which has been completely devastated in my neck of the woods. Not an Ash left, although I note from the size of them they have all grown since the 87 storm or were very young then. I assume all the big ones came down in 87.
I have a number of old Ash in my garden. One has a girth of about 4 metres so I am guessing is about 350 years old, which is about as old as they get. The rest are about 150 years old going by their girth.
I am dreading the dieback getting to me, but I think it is inevitable.
I am assuming they have survived so far either because of the lack of density in my garden or because of their maturity.
Now health & safety says that’s too dangerous for the poor dears
My guess is you are one of the 'Chemical Brothers' farmers spreading your monoculture across the countryside. In other words, part of the problem not the solution. You really are a bit of an arse aren't you.
But I guess the Guardian didn’t think that was relevant information for their readers
With the US, they've slowly (and after a notable false start in NASL) built a viable and popular league by learning to focus on fan experience as much as recruitment. Average attendance is roughly the same as the Championship, and typically one of the top ten football leagues in the world - plus of course they have the college sports system to recruit from.
The path to viability for the Saudi league seems more difficult, even with bottomless wealth. Football is not just about stars.
The problem with just leaving a field is that you usually just end up with hawthorn scrub. Whilst that's a fine habitat for birds, if you haven't got a particularly diverse woodland next to it it will take a long time to mature.
Not much use if you are trying to conserve Hairstreaks.
Not all habitat creation needs to be a slave to climate mitigation. Habitat loss is what is currently killing most UK species, not +1C.
https://twitter.com/bbcsimonjack/status/1683496780728524800?s=46
"Sure, Dragline, pick it up"
@JohnRentoul
Current benchmarks for next election, by different levels of Con⇨Lab swing, from
@ElectCalculus & @BNHWalker
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1683465048558125056
(follow link for graphic). Highest is Lab maj or 72
*Only Barcelona comes close in terms of foreign kits you see being worn.
Talking an aggressive game of tree related knowitallery, and planting or claiming to plant hardwoods in England in July, is just pure comedy. The environmental disbenefits, never mind the cost and chance of failure, are mind blowing. How many plastic pots have you sent to landfill today? It's not like people can't google "best time of year to plant trees."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/opinion/brexit-disaster.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
"“In the end, in democracy, sometimes you all do crazy things together,” Simons said. “And what becomes more important is not whether the crazy thing was a good or bad thing to do. It’s that you’re doing it together." "
Pretty clear who it was though. Reckon that he has “The full confidence of the board*”
*in City speak, this is the way of saying “He has a noose round his neck, and we are sawing through the plank he is standing on”
Khan calls it the "elephant in the room" apparently.
https://www.whatcar.com/news/hybrid-vs-plug-in-hybrid-vs-fully-electric/n25638
The police cancelled operation "Close Pass" (undercover bike cop catching drivers not giving cyclists enough space) because it failed a risk assessment 🤦♂️
MRDA here, I think.
And no plastic. I don't use it at all.
I suspect that it is you who have been doing the googling since you are relying on 'received' wisdom rather than what actually works on a practical level. I suspect the highways agency also relied on that for those hundreds of thousands of new trees they managed to kill along the A14.
The advantage I have here as I have mentioned before is that a fair few people on here know me personally and have followed my work creating the new landscape on my land. Where as you are just some anonymous troll on the internet who really shoudl know better.
When did it become this sort of show?
Or is this that pronoun thing?
And what about the double sourcing rule?
Double sourcing in journalism means that you have drunk so much that you see two sources.
It’s just never going to happen. Even if Brexit Britain gains the per capita income of Monaco and the geopolitical dominance of China it would still be a terrible idea that went predictably wrong, and any other positive developments will either be a fluke or a lie or proof of Brexity racism
Throwing Alison Rose under the bus. Her job must be in jeopardy now.
I have 3 stoves and the Ash provide a lot of wood. They drop substantial branches regularly and I have also had one come down and a major branch broken off another when a neighbour's huge pine came down into my garden.
Since 2011 I have never had to buy wood for the stoves and have never cut down a tree that didn't need removing.
Redfield & Wilton Strategies
Labour leads by 17%.
Westminster VI (23 July):
Labour 45% (+1)
Conservative 28% (+1)
Liberal Democrat 14% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (-2)
Green 4% (–)
Scottish National Party 2% (-1)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 16 July
Westminster VI (23 July):
Labour 45% (+1)
Conservative 28% (+1)
Liberal Democrat 14% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (-2)
Green 4% (–)
Scottish National Party 2% (-1)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 16 July
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
https://twitter.com/redfieldwilton/status/1683507335371841536?s=46
It’s rare that I agree with @kinabalu - but I do here. It’s great for bantz but there is also something melancholy about it
One of the world’s greatest athletes in the world’s greatest sport is gonna become a performing seal in a billionaire’s sporting circus
IF this happens. Mbappe might tell ‘em to fuck off. Go on, Kylian
Trees have got themselves some good PR having wildfires called that - they are tree fires. Sure, gorse or heather will also burn, but they burn quickly and burn out - less fuel. 300,000 hectares of Spain burned last year, which is 300,000 hectares of trees. Surely as a tree person you think that's a bad thing, and something we should think about when advocating tree planting?
Edit: what that Twat (a message on Twatter has to be a Twat, right?) means is that Farage will be eligible to be a Coutts client again.
Thanks to the payout he is in line for.
I don't understand what the Saudis intend to do long term, though. They can buy some playthings for a short while but it isn't going to change anyone's view of the place, surely?
https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/ash-trees-fraxinus-excelsior
Puzzling. Very, very puzzling.
"We're about to find out how much we know about UFO's.
Nothing will be the same again."
https://slate.com/technology/2023/07/congress-ufo-hearings-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-real.html"
I'm not entirely sure that I agree with that kind of sentiment, as both Democratic and Republican Senators say information is being held back, but should be an interesting week, nonethless.
Then when the Man City project got going they bought Robinho as a big star.
Gradually these smallish statements were added to and as the Premier League got super savvy with selling global tv rights now that the product was a mix of good fun football and stars they made huge money which enabled more stars and because the money was great for players and stars had started arriving more stars went to the EPL and the Spanish and Italian leagues started disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The Saudi league will start being a popular view in a lot of Asia, South America and Africa and the Saudis won’t charge a lot for rights which will make it attractive to broadcasters so people get to see some big names playing that they recognise - much like the Premier league when it started to take off. And then the cycle continues, more top coaches and players will go, not just in the twilight of their careers, and you will possibly end up with a de-facto super league where everyone in the world can choose their new team based on their players with no old loyalties to their local clubs getting in the way.
They will get the World Cup too and no doubt an offer to host FIFA HQ and then job is done.
Edit to add, global audiences will be able to watch the Saudi league without any background of political and social issues being brought into the game which most will be happy about.
On changing views of Saudi, it's not just football of course or even just sport. There's that mad planned city that's a big long line, for example. But I agree with the point. Watching Mbappe + 10 jobbers take on Ronaldo + 10 jobbers (I know that's a bit unfair but YKWIM) in a match between two teams I know nowt about isn't really going to get me to change the channel.
https://cdn.forestresearch.gov.uk/2022/02/guidance_note_ash_dieback_national_measures_march_2020_.pdf
What it means is that ashridgetrees could be one of those companies that exports seeds to Holland, gets them grown on, and then reimports them (along with some added extras) as "native stock".
This type of trade should really have been banned earlier.
@rcs1000 . Done. Plz go to https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ and look at your inbox
Jamie Driscoll has crowdfunded over 100K for his campaign in the North East, Corbyn could easily match that
Why? Because the EPL was in a unique position to take over the top spot of club football leagues. It has the pedigree, the history and the supporters. If you talk to people abroad who really follow English football, this means an enormous amount to them. By supporting Villa or Spurs or Liverpool or Man U or - God knows -Wrexham! - they are buying into an ancient story, a 100 year old club with its bloodlines and taboos, its history of triumphs and disasters. This is absorbed and becomes emotionally meaningful
You cannot confect this out of nothing (and it doesn’t help if your language is Arabic not English)
This is exactly why French luxury goods sell so well. L’Oreal to Chanel to Louis Vuitton to French wine, fashion and cognac. They have a pedigree, A cachet which absolutely cannot be replicated. A Chinese company could start selling perfume or moisturiser “technically superior” to Chanel but Jeez it would have to be incredibly superior to get people buying Xi Biang number 9 not Chanel number 5. And it won’t be superior coz in the end it is just perfume. A pong
English/British sports have the cachet of French luxury goods. The history and pedigree
For the same reason, Saudi cannot actually replace the Masters, or the Open at St Andrews. They can BUY a form of control, but that is different
Never rude but proper communist era computer-says-no stuff: restaurants that can't serve you because they are too busy, despite being empty, menus where few things are available, which they don't tell you until you try to order, food taking well over an hour to arrive, and waiters shrugging when a complaint is made - and still expecting to be paid - and entirely tolerated by almost everyone who lives here. Feedback met with more shrugs, mild incredulity and, at best, comments of that's just how things are here.
The only ones who "get it" are those who've lived and worked abroad, but there aren't very many of them.
Basically unchanged, perhaps a bit of a drift away from REF. I would generally look for a Lib Dem bounce after a byelection like last week, but the 14% is already at the top of their range.
"Wir sind doch selbstverständlich verpflichtet, demokratische Wahlen zu akzeptieren. Und wenn dort ein Landrat, ein Bürgermeister gewählt wird, der der AfD angehört, ist es selbstverständlich, dass man nach Wegen sucht, wie man dann in dieser Stadt weiter arbeiten kann."
But even that was really stupid and he has had to row back from it.
Compare with CSU leader Söder today "ein Nein heißt ein Nein."
I remain convinced he will never see a day in prison, and possibly no convictions come the election. He'll just have a whole load of indictments and trial dates.
You need the passion and the crowds and the history and, dare I say, a bit of boozy fun
I don’t even think the Saudis are trying to do this. They must know it is impossible. I believe this is almost pure sports washing. They want people to see Saudi Arabia in a different light. The interesting place that hosted Mbappe and Ronaldo for a year. The place where they build new cities. Hmm. Saudi Arabia. They have new ideas and do interesting things!
Anything that stops people thinking: Saudi Arabia = beheadings, jihadism, torture, and women in cages
Once they have washed their image, they can move to being more like Qatar or UAE