In sum, Mr Trump has not provided a single reason for the court to find that there is a likelihood that he will succeed on appeal, let alone a 'strong showing. Accordingly, this factor weighs against Mr Trump.
It's clear many judges are getting frustrated. He waited 3 years to raise a particular defence, then another 7 months before seeking to stay the case on that basis, which as the judge notes means any harm done is his own doing.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
For some reason I misread that was "we should withdraw penises".
Maybe it's the cumulative effect of the transgender debate.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
For some reason I misread that was "we should withdraw penises".
Maybe it's the cumulative effect of the transgender debate.
There's that thing with supermarkets needing you to use a £1 coin to liberate a trolley which you get back when you return it. For years I found this annoying (since I'm not a carrier) but just recently I had a bright idea. The bright idea hinges on the fact that if I'm doing a big shop requiring a trolley I'm always in the car so what I now do is ... dig this ... I keep a £1 coin in the car! I don't even think of it as 'cash' it's just the circular piece of metal that gets me a shopping trolley.
3 As at A level. Degree from Imperial College London. Chartered Accountant. Licenced Dealer of Securities.
You can purchase a device that lives on your keyring and liberates the trolley without depositing the coin...
Ah ha. Well if that costs 99p or less I'm in. But I'd keep it in the car rather than carry it on my person.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
There's that thing with supermarkets needing you to use a £1 coin to liberate a trolley which you get back when you return it. For years I found this annoying (since I'm not a carrier) but just recently I had a bright idea. The bright idea hinges on the fact that if I'm doing a big shop requiring a trolley I'm always in the car so what I now do is ... dig this ... I keep a £1 coin in the car! I don't even think of it as 'cash' it's just the circular piece of metal that gets me a shopping trolley.
3 As at A level. Degree from Imperial College London. Chartered Accountant. Licenced Dealer of Securities.
You can purchase a device that lives on your keyring and liberates the trolley without depositing the coin...
Ah ha. Well if that costs 99p or less I'm in. But I'd keep it in the car rather than carry it on my person.
39p in Home Bargains, rampant inflation notwithstanding.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
For some reason I misread that was "we should withdraw penises".
Maybe it's the cumulative effect of the transgender debate.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
I liked this because I think it's useful to think about politics in different ways, but Myer-Briggs is a really bad model to use. Also I don't think you'd find many woke petrolheads ...
Instead of red tape for pointless cash machines how about doing something about tuition fees which most people will now never pay off and will still be paying into their 50s?
The Tories must go. Their priorities are helping the over 70s not anyone that actually works.
Who introduced tuition fees? New Labour
They never made the fees unaffordable as your lot have done.
They were going to, Mr Bat. Don't you remember? Labour set up a commission to review the level of their top-up fees, and promised to implement whatever the commission came up with.
Then Labour lost the general election, and the Coalition Government took over. The Tories, of course, wanted to raise top-up fees to £15,000 or thereabouts, Labour were supposedly committed to £9000. The Lib Dems, in government, held the increase down to £9000, and were blamed most unjustly by everybody for the increase.
It's an unfair world, of course, but really Labour ought to have taken the blame for all the tuition fees problem.
New Labour were wrong on tuition fees. Tories are wrong on tuition fees.
They've been in government now for 13 years, it is evident they want to saddle us with debt and not ever have us own a home whilst gifting the elderly with a triple locked pension.
Fuck the Tories.
Didn't you say you owned a house?
I do but I am certainly the exception to the rule. Fortunately I have inheritance but mostly all of my friends will sadly never be able to afford to buy if the current trajectory continues.
I am still saddled with university debt and having no help from the government anywhere else. Elderly get a free ride.
Hopefully you will be elderly yourself someday and will have worked a lifetime paying all your taxes and no doubt view things in a very different way
As far as the triple lock is concerned Starmer is fully on board with it so no change there then
The triple lock makes perfect sense. Who has forgotten the political fallout of Labour increasing the OAP by just 75p pa.
Both parties are committed to the triple lock even though it is sending the benefits bill up c.20% in nominal terms over two years.
I think analysts are increasingly clear it will have to go at some stage though. Currently it is a ratchet that ends up bankrupting the country.
Mathematicians knew it would have to go at some stage at its inception. What took analysts so long to grasp simple maths? And more importantly when will the politicians follow suit?
Yet another turd left in the cupboard by David Cameron as a problem for Future Britain. I genuinely believe that he is the worst prime minister of modern times*
*Truss will be the eternal asterisk in such discussions.
David Cameron through his arrogance made some significant errors, but compared to Johnson he was a Titan.
Truss's mis-steps caused a significant but relatively short lived fiscal event, but Johnson drove a coach and horses through parliamentary rules and etiquettes. By promoting some of the most appalling Charlatans ever to cross the threshold of the Palace of Westminster he has changed British politics for the worst and possibly forever. He threw his weight behind leaving the EU, knowing that it would be a disaster for the nation, but understanding it may be his best opportunity to climb the greasy pole. The lies, the corruption, he and his fellow travellers were truly awful. By comparison Cameron was one of Britain's all time greats.
BoJo emulates the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo; two Putinists from same rotten pod.
Fact that Johnson emerged at the Defender of Kyiv just demonstrates flexibility of practical Putinism; similar to Trump trying to work both side of the RUS v UKR war.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
For some reason I misread that was "we should withdraw penises".
Maybe it's the cumulative effect of the transgender debate.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
Now I don't really see the purpose of cash...unless like I did on Wednesday one leaves their wallet at home and has no means of paying for the fuel required to return home. Fortunately I had my phone with my mobile banking app, and I could arrange an emergency cash code to use at a cashpoint. Other than that, cash, why bother?
There's that thing with supermarkets needing you to use a £1 coin to liberate a trolley which you get back when you return it. For years I found this annoying (since I'm not a carrier) but just recently I had a bright idea. The bright idea hinges on the fact that if I'm doing a big shop requiring a trolley I'm always in the car so what I now do is ... dig this ... I keep a £1 coin in the car! I don't even think of it as 'cash' it's just the circular piece of metal that gets me a shopping trolley.
3 As at A level. Degree from Imperial College London. Chartered Accountant. Licenced Dealer of Securities.
You do know they'll let you have tokens for that, don't you?
Mind you, some buggers charge a couple of quid for them.
I do now thanks to this forum. But given its permanent place in my car (following the aforementioned flash of brilliance) I'd say the pukka £1 coin is better for me unless a token comes in under that price (which it sounds like they don't).
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
Ha, a fun exercise.
M A P Y H B
For me, which is why you and I agree on nearly everything but the woke stuff.
There's that thing with supermarkets needing you to use a £1 coin to liberate a trolley which you get back when you return it. For years I found this annoying (since I'm not a carrier) but just recently I had a bright idea. The bright idea hinges on the fact that if I'm doing a big shop requiring a trolley I'm always in the car so what I now do is ... dig this ... I keep a £1 coin in the car! I don't even think of it as 'cash' it's just the circular piece of metal that gets me a shopping trolley.
3 As at A level. Degree from Imperial College London. Chartered Accountant. Licenced Dealer of Securities.
You can purchase a device that lives on your keyring and liberates the trolley without depositing the coin...
Ah ha. Well if that costs 99p or less I'm in. But I'd keep it in the car rather than carry it on my person.
When we bought a car from Arnold Clarke, the fob on the keyring could be used for supermarket trollies.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
So that's 5/6 right. Although if weighted by this government, getting Woke/Anti-woke wrong would be weighted as a big fail.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I thought 1 and 2 'p's had already gone? Not something I've seen for a long long time.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
I will forever remain baffled by the resistance to doing so. We've done it before when denominations became worthless and inconvenient, do so again!
Chief objection to doing away with 1-cent coin in USA appears to be the idea, that stores and others sellers will round UP prices whenever they end in a odd number of cents.
Reinforcing notion that ANY change in coinage (and also paper money) will inevitably screw the little guy and benefit the fat cat.
My guess is psychology is similar - if not identical - in UK?
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
I am in the process of being triggered about having to remind people how useless, institutionally, the NHS is.
Please take as read 20 posts on the matter, while I spare both me writing them or you reading them.
How many institutions wouldn't respond as this hospital did, in worrying more about how it would look than about the necessity to call in the police to conduct an investigation?
No doubt Cyclefree would advise that they anyone thinking that way should worry about how it might look if they fail to investigate, and it later comes to light that was a grievous error of judgment.
It's human nature to hope that bad news isn't true - but those who have a investigative role in the organisation need to know how to perform it. I was an unpaid school governor, and knew that, FFS.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
Now I don't really see the purpose of cash...unless like I did on Wednesday one leaves their wallet at home and has no means of paying for the fuel required to return home. Fortunately I had my phone with my mobile banking app, and I could arrange an emergency cash code to use at a cashpoint. Other than that, cash, why bother?
There's that thing with supermarkets needing you to use a £1 coin to liberate a trolley which you get back when you return it. For years I found this annoying (since I'm not a carrier) but just recently I had a bright idea. The bright idea hinges on the fact that if I'm doing a big shop requiring a trolley I'm always in the car so what I now do is ... dig this ... I keep a £1 coin in the car! I don't even think of it as 'cash' it's just the circular piece of metal that gets me a shopping trolley.
3 As at A level. Degree from Imperial College London. Chartered Accountant. Licenced Dealer of Securities.
My wife bought a little metal disc that fits onto her keyring that's the same size and shape as a pound coin for that purpose. It cost her £1. But she did buy it from a charity.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
Ha, a fun exercise.
M A P Y H B
For me, which is why you and I agree on nearly everything but the woke stuff.
Congratulations, 6/6! Join the Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary candidates shortlist with immediate effect.
In the later part of my career I used a pilot's case as it was useful for carrying books, student essays, and sandwiches.
The best case for carrying laptops is in landscape format, and survey bags are the best since they are set up for them. But go-bags are in rough portrait format and don't work as well, especially if carrying two.
I used to use the poacher's pocket of my Barbour for my Z88 ...
I picked up about half of that.
Game (on checking, not poacher's) pocket = large waterproof pocket in a dangling flap inside Barbour oiled canvas jacket for placing dead pheasants, roadkill, remains of sadistic outings, etc.
Z88 = laptop computer equivalent of Sinclair C5 and made by the same brand
Coincidentally 1988 was the year I bought two Mac II's for £2k each. As I've ruefully observed ever since, if I'd bought £4k worth of Apple stock instead I wouldn't have had to work for the last 35 years.
Why did briefcases go out of fashion for business people?
About 40 years after hats went out of fashion.
I feel like it was still a thing a bit in the 90s, but definitely rare by the millennium.
As soon as mobile phones became ubiquitous it became untenable to have to use a hand to carry a briefcase when that hand could be grasping a phone instead.
What was the other hand used for, I have to ask? Scratching the nether regions?
Opening doors? Or perhaps you prefer kicking, or perhaps head-butting them into submission!
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
'Proper shilllings' were almost exactly the same size as modern 10p pieces, so the latter would need increasing in size too - though that could be done in a redesign if they were 'reduced' to 'coppers'.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
So that's 5/6 right. Although if weighted by this government, getting Woke/Anti-woke wrong would be weighted as a big fail.
For me I'd rate this government as:
S A P N H B
And since I think the final one is a non-issue (its done, move on already), I disagree with it on a majority, three out of five, which kind of explains why I'm disillusioned and not voting for it.
I don't think A/W is a big issue in this country, not as big as people make out sometimes, but in America I would absolutely and wholeheartedly be a Democrat at the moment in no small part because of it. And because the GOP are batshit crazy for supporting criminals who want to overturn democracy, but I supported the Democrats already even before then.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
Ha, a fun exercise.
M A P Y H B
For me, which is why you and I agree on nearly everything but the woke stuff.
Congratulations, 6/6! Join the Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary candidates shortlist with immediate effect.
Unless you're standing somewhere in the green belt in which case adjust to MAPNHB
Instead of red tape for pointless cash machines how about doing something about tuition fees which most people will now never pay off and will still be paying into their 50s?
The Tories must go. Their priorities are helping the over 70s not anyone that actually works.
Who introduced tuition fees? New Labour
They never made the fees unaffordable as your lot have done.
They were going to, Mr Bat. Don't you remember? Labour set up a commission to review the level of their top-up fees, and promised to implement whatever the commission came up with.
Then Labour lost the general election, and the Coalition Government took over. The Tories, of course, wanted to raise top-up fees to £15,000 or thereabouts, Labour were supposedly committed to £9000. The Lib Dems, in government, held the increase down to £9000, and were blamed most unjustly by everybody for the increase.
It's an unfair world, of course, but really Labour ought to have taken the blame for all the tuition fees problem.
New Labour were wrong on tuition fees. Tories are wrong on tuition fees.
They've been in government now for 13 years, it is evident they want to saddle us with debt and not ever have us own a home whilst gifting the elderly with a triple locked pension.
Fuck the Tories.
Didn't you say you owned a house?
I do but I am certainly the exception to the rule. Fortunately I have inheritance but mostly all of my friends will sadly never be able to afford to buy if the current trajectory continues.
I am still saddled with university debt and having no help from the government anywhere else. Elderly get a free ride.
Hopefully you will be elderly yourself someday and will have worked a lifetime paying all your taxes and no doubt view things in a very different way
As far as the triple lock is concerned Starmer is fully on board with it so no change there then
The triple lock makes perfect sense. Who has forgotten the political fallout of Labour increasing the OAP by just 75p pa.
Both parties are committed to the triple lock even though it is sending the benefits bill up c.20% in nominal terms over two years.
I think analysts are increasingly clear it will have to go at some stage though. Currently it is a ratchet that ends up bankrupting the country.
Mathematicians knew it would have to go at some stage at its inception. What took analysts so long to grasp simple maths? And more importantly when will the politicians follow suit?
Yet another turd left in the cupboard by David Cameron as a problem for Future Britain. I genuinely believe that he is the worst prime minister of modern times*
*Truss will be the eternal asterisk in such discussions.
David Cameron through his arrogance made some significant errors, but compared to Johnson he was a Titan.
Truss's mis-steps caused a significant but relatively short lived fiscal event, but Johnson drove a coach and horses through parliamentary rules and etiquettes. By promoting some of the most appalling Charlatans ever to cross the threshold of the Palace of Westminster he has changed British politics for the worst and possibly forever. He threw his weight behind leaving the EU, knowing that it would be a disaster for the nation, but understanding it may be his best opportunity to climb the greasy pole. The lies, the corruption, he and his fellow travellers were truly awful. By comparison Cameron was one of Britain's all time greats.
BoJo emulates the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo; two Putinists from same rotten pod.
Fact that Johnson emerged at the Defender of Kyiv just demonstrates flexibility of practical Putinism; similar to Trump trying to work both side of the RUS v UKR war.
Britain (and Ukraine and Europe) were fortunate at that point that Johnson has always emotionally wanted to be Churchill.
We have been less fortunate in that same Johnsonian aspiration at other times.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
Not much love for the N option on here then. Seems to be universal Ys. I smell a rat.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
Ha, a fun exercise.
M A P Y H B
For me, which is why you and I agree on nearly everything but the woke stuff.
Congratulations, 6/6! Join the Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary candidates shortlist with immediate effect.
The modern Conservative Party is YIMBY?
Or supports market economics?
I don't think so.
The modern Conservative Party is NIMBY and supports high tax socialism, just a warped version of socialism where those in work support those who aren't working regardless of whether they need it or not. Even if those working are poor, and are supporting those not working who are rich.
Rather than traditional socialism where those with money support those without it.
Dear PBers, I am planning to take a visitor from Cambridge to somewhere on the coast. All of East Anglia and Essex look (roughly) similar distances. Could anyone recommend a particularly nice bit to visit? Goals are a) beauty b) interest c) old villages and pubs. Having never been to the coastline on the rump of England I'm at a bit of a loss.
Just back from North Norfolk coast on holiday. Very impressed. Pretty villages with buildings lined with flint, interesting coastal creeks, village pubs aplenty.
Suggested route from Cambridge. A14, then A11, then North on A1065 via RAF Lakenheath (fighter jets including visitor area) and a restored Cromwell tank memorial north of Ickburgh. Then B1355 north to Burnham Market. Then East along coastal road through Holkham (park/hall/beach), Wells, and the small fishing villages of Stiffkey, Morston, Blakeney and Cley (windmill and shingle beach). Then back via Langham (WW2 gunnery practice dome), Binham (small abbey), Walsingham (very holy!)
Tip: Park at Cley beach for £3 and get a £3.50 voucher for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust cafe overlooking the wetlands a mile inland.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
Or we could re-baseline the value of the pound 10:1
Sets us up to manage inflation for the next century.
In the later part of my career I used a pilot's case as it was useful for carrying books, student essays, and sandwiches.
The best case for carrying laptops is in landscape format, and survey bags are the best since they are set up for them. But go-bags are in rough portrait format and don't work as well, especially if carrying two.
I used to use the poacher's pocket of my Barbour for my Z88 ...
I picked up about half of that.
Game (on checking, not poacher's) pocket = large waterproof pocket in a dangling flap inside Barbour oiled canvas jacket for placing dead pheasants, roadkill, remains of sadistic outings, etc.
Z88 = laptop computer equivalent of Sinclair C5 and made by the same brand
The Z88 was an amazing computer: great battery life (off AAs!), fantastic form factor (it's A4, and it wasn't distracting because it didn't put a screen up between you and whoever you're talking to), and a silent keyboard.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
'Proper shilllings' were almost exactly the same size as modern 10p pieces, so the latter would need increasing in size too - though that could be done in a redesign if they were 'reduced' to 'coppers'.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
'Proper shilllings' were almost exactly the same size as modern 10p pieces, so the latter would need increasing in size too - though that could be done in a redesign if they were 'reduced' to 'coppers'.
(Old) 5ps were designed to replace shillings and 10p as two-bob.
I've got a vague memory of someone accepting one in Scotland in a bric-a-brac shop in the 1990s in lieu of 10p (one had slipped into my wallet and looked basically exactly the same) but I can't believe they were still legal tender then.
Maybe he took as a souvenir or to exchange at the bank.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
Now I don't really see the purpose of cash...unless like I did on Wednesday one leaves their wallet at home and has no means of paying for the fuel required to return home. Fortunately I had my phone with my mobile banking app, and I could arrange an emergency cash code to use at a cashpoint. Other than that, cash, why bother?
Why didn't you just pay with ApplePay or GooglePay with your phone?
In the later part of my career I used a pilot's case as it was useful for carrying books, student essays, and sandwiches.
The best case for carrying laptops is in landscape format, and survey bags are the best since they are set up for them. But go-bags are in rough portrait format and don't work as well, especially if carrying two.
I used to use the poacher's pocket of my Barbour for my Z88 ...
I picked up about half of that.
Game (on checking, not poacher's) pocket = large waterproof pocket in a dangling flap inside Barbour oiled canvas jacket for placing dead pheasants, roadkill, remains of sadistic outings, etc.
Z88 = laptop computer equivalent of Sinclair C5 and made by the same brand
The Z88 was an amazing computer: great battery life (off AAs!), fantastic form factor (it's A4, and it wasn't distracting because it didn't put a screen up between you and whoever you're talking to), and a silent keyboard.
I used one for note taking well into the 2000s.
Early 2000s I had an old Psion 5 for note taking. Brilliant little thing. I still miss BlackBerry’s proper keyboards.
Short visit to the hospital, and the treatment seems to be doing well. I'll be going for the actual treatment called Cladribine (4 doses), which according to BNF costs ~£160 per dose as an injection or infusion, but ~£2050 per dose as a tablet for the same active ingredient quantity. Pharmaceuticals !
Also a short visit to to Morrisons, about which I am not hopeful. Range and personal service are decreasing - noted from the range of products in the delicatessen ("that is now on the shelves, over there - in packs of twelve", and they have stopped selling Grape Nuts - gah!). It's going to be much more nearly the same as the rest, as happened to Citroen.
The vertical integration is also in question, which imo is the Morrisons great distinctive. Manufacturing plants are under question, according to staff, but apparently not the close integration farming (yet? I'm not sure if Morrisons own actual farms.).
Lucy Letby deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail but I'm not sure I like this slightly crowing release of footage of the cops knicking her at home.
Why did briefcases go out of fashion for business people?
They were replaced by go-bags which can be carried. Briefcases were for the days when info was on paper. They were big enough for a pad of paper, pens, ruler, rubber, calculator
Then laptops came in, and big manbags were the vogue, big enuf for a chunky pre-Lenovo ThinkPad, adapter, mice, disc drives, etc
Then laptops got thin and sipped electricity like a little mouse, so you could throw a laptop into a go-bag and go to school, uni or work, doing work on the train[1] at need
[1] If you were posh and travelled on nice trains by first class during the daytime when its less crowded. If you are not posh and travel on cattle-truck class on craptrains at night when evil fuckers abound, it is less possible. I hate trains.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
Dear PBers, I am planning to take a visitor from Cambridge to somewhere on the coast. All of East Anglia and Essex look (roughly) similar distances. Could anyone recommend a particularly nice bit to visit? Goals are a) beauty b) interest c) old villages and pubs. Having never been to the coastline on the rump of England I'm at a bit of a loss.
Just back from North Norfolk coast on holiday. Very impressed. Pretty villages with buildings lined with flint, interesting coastal creeks, village pubs aplenty.
Suggested route from Cambridge. A14, then A11, then North on A1065 via RAF Lakenheath (fighter jets including visitor area) and a restored Cromwell tank memorial north of Ickburgh. Then B1355 north to Burnham Market. Then East along coastal road through Holkham (park/hall/beach), Wells, and the small fishing villages of Stiffkey, Morston, Blakeney and Cley (windmill and shingle beach). Then back via Langham (WW2 gunnery practice dome), Binham (small abbey), Walsingham (very holy!)
Tip: Park at Cley beach for £3 and get a £3.50 voucher for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust cafe overlooking the wetlands a mile inland.
Agreed....and note that Binham Priory has an excellent cafe and shop which sells its own fresh milk. Also Holkham Beach is widely acknowledged as one of the best in Europe.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
I liked this because I think it's useful to think about politics in different ways, but Myer-Briggs is a really bad model to use. Also I don't think you'd find many woke petrolheads ...
A fair piece by Anne McElvoy on the current free speech debate. Warning that some culture warriors on the left or right may find it offensive so if that is you best to avoid.
From that article: "...Government events are not obliged to book Private Eye’s great caricature Dave Spart or his EDF-supporting mirror image. But a generous amount of disagreement is good and useful..."
My perennial reminder that free speech debates are never about free speech, they are about where to draw the line between the sayable and the unsayable, and who decides which is which.
It's also remarkable how un-self aware people are.
They will protest about a library banning books they agree with, while finding reasons to support the removal of ones they disagree with.
Remember kids: supporting speech you agree with is easy. It's supporting the stuff you don't that is important.
Instead of red tape for pointless cash machines how about doing something about tuition fees which most people will now never pay off and will still be paying into their 50s?
The Tories must go. Their priorities are helping the over 70s not anyone that actually works.
Cash machines are not pointless. They're vital. And cash represents freedom.
Unless your wallet gets nicked, in which case it represents an irretrievable loss, as my son has just discovered this morning while on holiday. At least he was able to use his phone to lock his card before it could be used; there's no locking cash though.
On the other hand, if you lose your phone, you can use cash to pay for everything while you get a new one and get everything set up again (which, as I discovered takes a few days) and it's much easier to get hold of more cash if needed than another phone.
My wallet lives in a cupboard at home, like my passport. I don't take it out unless I expect to need it, and its there for emergency backup then if I do. All I ever use is my phone.
But replacing a phone can be a lot easier than replacing either your cash or your cards in your wallet.
A few weeks ago while out I dropped my phone, normally nowadays they just bounced but it landed on a rock and smashed the screen. When I got home, I took an old phone out of the cupboard, charged it, then started using it. Got my Samsung Pay and Curve apps which is what I use for payment switched over, and was all done within minutes. No waiting for a replacement card to be delivered.
Lucy Letby deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail but I'm not sure I like this slightly crowing release of footage of the cops knicking her at home.
All feels rather voyeuristic.
Yes, we didn't, as I recall see Wayne Cousins nicked did we?
There's going to be a rerun of the pole dancing in Sunday's Sun too, isn't there?
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
What are sixpences worth? I have a box of those.
There's a niche market for them amongst Brian May guitar wannabes: he uses them as plectrums.
Lucy Letby deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail but I'm not sure I like this slightly crowing release of footage of the cops knicking her at home.
All feels rather voyeuristic.
I don't really see what purpose it served, other than to show even when nicking a suspected serial killer the copper was considerate enough to say she'd shift the front seat forward a bit, but it didn't feel particularly exploitative or voyeuristic of the dreadful affair either.
In the later part of my career I used a pilot's case as it was useful for carrying books, student essays, and sandwiches.
The best case for carrying laptops is in landscape format, and survey bags are the best since they are set up for them. But go-bags are in rough portrait format and don't work as well, especially if carrying two.
I used to use the poacher's pocket of my Barbour for my Z88 ...
I picked up about half of that.
Game (on checking, not poacher's) pocket = large waterproof pocket in a dangling flap inside Barbour oiled canvas jacket for placing dead pheasants, roadkill, remains of sadistic outings, etc.
Z88 = laptop computer equivalent of Sinclair C5 and made by the same brand
The Z88 was an amazing computer: great battery life (off AAs!), fantastic form factor (it's A4, and it wasn't distracting because it didn't put a screen up between you and whoever you're talking to), and a silent keyboard.
I used one for note taking well into the 2000s.
Exactly what I used it for: in the university library, often en route to or from my office. The shallow screen didn't matter for that, and the data and notes transferred OK to my desktop by cable and software prog. It also felt safer in a pocket or rucksack than a briefcase in the darker evenings.
Street cred = very low, but not as low as a C5, and it did the job!
Instead of red tape for pointless cash machines how about doing something about tuition fees which most people will now never pay off and will still be paying into their 50s?
The Tories must go. Their priorities are helping the over 70s not anyone that actually works.
Cash machines are not pointless. They're vital. And cash represents freedom.
Unless your wallet gets nicked, in which case it represents an irretrievable loss, as my son has just discovered this morning while on holiday. At least he was able to use his phone to lock his card before it could be used; there's no locking cash though.
On the other hand, if you lose your phone, you can use cash to pay for everything while you get a new one and get everything set up again (which, as I discovered takes a few days) and it's much easier to get hold of more cash if needed than another phone.
My wallet lives in a cupboard at home, like my passport. I don't take it out unless I expect to need it, and its there for emergency backup then if I do. All I ever use is my phone.
But replacing a phone can be a lot easier than replacing either your cash or your cards in your wallet.
A few weeks ago while out I dropped my phone, normally nowadays they just bounced but it landed on a rock and smashed the screen. When I got home, I took an old phone out of the cupboard, charged it, then started using it. Got my Samsung Pay and Curve apps which is what I use for payment switched over, and was all done within minutes. No waiting for a replacement card to be delivered.
With my bank, you can get a virtual card and you can use that to get money out even if the card is lost.
In the US and some UK places you can get cash out (I've not used it but my uncle did the other day) with contactless.
Why did briefcases go out of fashion for business people?
They were replaced by go-bags which can be carried. Briefcases were for the days when info was on paper. They were big enough for a pad of paper, pens, ruler, rubber, calculator
Then laptops came in, and big manbags were the vogue, big enuf for a chunky pre-Lenovo ThinkPad, adapter, mice, disc drives, etc
Then laptops got thin and sipped electricity like a little mouse, so you could throw a laptop into a go-bag and go to school, uni or work, doing work on the train[1] at need
[1] If you were posh and travelled on nice trains by first class during the daytime when its less crowded. If you are not posh and travel on cattle-truck class on craptrains at night when evil fuckers abound, it is less possible. I hate trains.
What's a Go Bag? I'm a backpack man, myself.
One version of a Go-Bag is the kit the prepper has by the door to grab for survival in the woods when the WEF take over.
Leon probably has one, but with enough kit to reach a Boutique Hotel on the shores of Lake Minniewanka.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I think you're just trying to wind people up with questions like this. But I'm also going to annoy right-wing populists by saying I think that a lot of people who are currently in jail should probably be in mental health facilities instead.
Lucy Letby deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail but I'm not sure I like this slightly crowing release of footage of the cops knicking her at home.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
I liked this because I think it's useful to think about politics in different ways, but Myer-Briggs is a really bad model to use. Also I don't think you'd find many woke petrolheads ...
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
'Proper shilllings' were almost exactly the same size as modern 10p pieces, so the latter would need increasing in size too - though that could be done in a redesign if they were 'reduced' to 'coppers'.
You have seen the original copper pennies after they changed from silver, surely?
I have recently been forced to use cash for the first time in ten years because I went on holiday to countries outside the EU/Schengen where it was still common for places not to accept cards. It was a right palaver and pain in the arse. On one day, the only ATM in the town we were staying in just stopped working, for no good reason, so we had to take a cab to the next village, then have the driver park illegally, while I ran – literally ran – to the ATM on the pedestrianised seafront and back in 30c heat just to withdraw some paper money.
In another case, we went to a great wine bar that was sited on a floating platform in the bay and burned amazingly quickly through £150 in cash because the wine was so good. We would have stayed hours more, and spent a fortune, except they didn't take cards so we had to go home.
The entire experience was a bizarre step back in time. The location was very popular with French tourists and we asked many to recommend places to eat and drink, commonly their opening response was "they take cards!".
A third trip involved us having to ask for change a third party (a lady who ran a market stall) because the guy who sold us a (cash only) boat trip was unable to change the notes we offered him, thus making a transaction impossible.
Cash is pointless. It's an antiquated system with so many flaws it barely needs repeating again. Simple market forces will see it increasingly marginalised to minority interest pursued only by unrepentant luddites and weird nostalgics.
Today's ATM annoucement has all the hallmarks of 'something must be doneism' – banks have stopped offering ATM cash services because they are expensive to run and there is rapidly reducing need for them. Simple as that.
Dear PBers, I am planning to take a visitor from Cambridge to somewhere on the coast. All of East Anglia and Essex look (roughly) similar distances. Could anyone recommend a particularly nice bit to visit? Goals are a) beauty b) interest c) old villages and pubs. Having never been to the coastline on the rump of England I'm at a bit of a loss.
Just back from North Norfolk coast on holiday. Very impressed. Pretty villages with buildings lined with flint, interesting coastal creeks, village pubs aplenty.
Suggested route from Cambridge. A14, then A11, then North on A1065 via RAF Lakenheath (fighter jets including visitor area) and a restored Cromwell tank memorial north of Ickburgh. Then B1355 north to Burnham Market. Then East along coastal road through Holkham (park/hall/beach), Wells, and the small fishing villages of Stiffkey, Morston, Blakeney and Cley (windmill and shingle beach). Then back via Langham (WW2 gunnery practice dome), Binham (small abbey), Walsingham (very holy!)
Tip: Park at Cley beach for £3 and get a £3.50 voucher for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust cafe overlooking the wetlands a mile inland.
Agreed....and note that Binham Priory has an excellent cafe and shop which sells its own fresh milk. Also Holkham Beach is widely acknowledged as one of the best in Europe.
Thank you all for the helpful suggestions. Quick look shows they sell milk in their own printed bottles, always a nice bonus.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
I have recently been forced to use cash for the first time in ten years because I went on holiday to countries outside the EU/Schengen where it was still common for places not to accept cards. It was a right palaver and pain in the arse. On one day, the only ATM in the town we were staying in just stopped working, for no good reason, so we had to take a cab to the next village, then have the driver park illegally, while I ran – literally ran – to the ATM on the pedestrianised seafront and back in 30c heat just to withdraw some paper money.
In another case, we went to a great wine bar that was sited on a floating platform in the bay and burned amazingly quickly through £150 in cash because the wine was so good. We would have stayed hours more, and spent a fortune, except they didn't take cards so we had to go home.
The entire experience was a bizarre step back in time. The location was very popular with French tourists and we asked many to recommend places to eat and drink, commonly their opening response was "they take cards!".
A third trip involved us having to ask for change a third party (a lady who ran a market stall) because the guy who sold us a (cash only) boat trip was unable to change the notes we offered him, thus making a transaction impossible.
Cash is pointless. It's an antiquated system with so many flaws it barely needs repeating again. Simple market forces will see it increasingly marginalised to minority interest pursued only by unrepentant luddites and weird nostalgics.
Today's ATM annoucement has all the hallmarks of 'something must be doneism' – banks have stopped offering ATM cash services because they are expensive to run and there is rapidly reducing need for them. Simple as that.
"Merely the modern version of the whine "Isn't it terrible that you have to use copper ingots in the shape of oxhides?"
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
I liked this because I think it's useful to think about politics in different ways, but Myer-Briggs is a really bad model to use. Also I don't think you'd find many woke petrolheads ...
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
Because justice must both be done and be seen to be done. The justice system is not solely about punishment but that's part of it, and people knowing the guilty is a part of that.
Then there are practical considerations, patrictularly in a case like this - would hearing an unnamed doctor was convicted of 15 murders and suspected of many more be able to be maintained forclong before Shipmans name came out?
Yes there are miscarriages of justice which mean the stigma will never be redressed properly. Yes we should look after those who are released more so they are not forced into a situation which encourages recidivism.
But not to know who did what? Justice has always been about society more than individuals despite talk of victims. That's why states prosecute or not even if someone not want to sometimes.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I think you're just trying to wind people up with questions like this. But I'm also going to annoy right-wing populists by saying I think that a lot of people who are currently in jail should probably be in mental health facilities instead.
No I am not trying to wind people up, I was curious if there was a historical reason for why we name criminals so publicly and what the reasons were for it.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
Not much love for the N option on here then. Seems to be universal Ys. I smell a rat.
I can't think of a local development that I've ever opposed.
Now, maybe I've lived in such woebegone areas that no-one has wanted to develop in them, or nuking the area from orbit would be too good for it, but I think it's possible that NIMBYs are an example of very vocal groups that receive disproportionate attention compared to their size.
Lucy Letby deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail but I'm not sure I like this slightly crowing release of footage of the cops knicking her at home.
All feels rather voyeuristic.
Agree 100%.
I'm not having a good day.
I have found myself agreeing with and "liking" posts by Casino and AndyJS.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
I recall the case of the media naming the alleged murderer of Joanna Yeates. Which they got wrong, basically ruined the person's life.
How is that allowed? What is the defence for such a thing?
Instead of red tape for pointless cash machines how about doing something about tuition fees which most people will now never pay off and will still be paying into their 50s?
The Tories must go. Their priorities are helping the over 70s not anyone that actually works.
Cash machines are not pointless. They're vital. And cash represents freedom.
Unless your wallet gets nicked, in which case it represents an irretrievable loss, as my son has just discovered this morning while on holiday. At least he was able to use his phone to lock his card before it could be used; there's no locking cash though.
On the other hand, if you lose your phone, you can use cash to pay for everything while you get a new one and get everything set up again (which, as I discovered takes a few days) and it's much easier to get hold of more cash if needed than another phone.
My wallet lives in a cupboard at home, like my passport. I don't take it out unless I expect to need it, and its there for emergency backup then if I do. All I ever use is my phone.
But replacing a phone can be a lot easier than replacing either your cash or your cards in your wallet.
A few weeks ago while out I dropped my phone, normally nowadays they just bounced but it landed on a rock and smashed the screen. When I got home, I took an old phone out of the cupboard, charged it, then started using it. Got my Samsung Pay and Curve apps which is what I use for payment switched over, and was all done within minutes. No waiting for a replacement card to be delivered.
I agree and also have a smart watch, which also has Apple Pay so I can use either.
Have no idea what the point of a wallet is these days, other than ruining the line of tailored trousers.
Like you, mine stays in my drawer at home as permanent storage for the cards I no longer need or use.
It's time to withdraw not just 1ps and 2ps from circulation, but credit/debit cards too.
We all use our phone for everything. They are fundamentally more secure (you need a PIN/fingerprint/face scan) to pay for anything. And we carry them with anyway.
Let's start a campaign to get phones accepted anywhere a credit/debit card is. Cash machines. Shops. Public transport. Parking machines*. Etc.
The environmental savings would be enormous. No more little bits of plastic. And we'd no longer need to carry a wallet in addition to our phones for the once in a blue moon occasion when we need our Halifax Cash Card.
* I would, however, ban those stupid parking apps, each of which appears to have been written by an incompetent nine year old.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
An attractive female serial killer? The movie will already be in development.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
They didn't used to be. Bring back proper Shillings!
What are sixpences worth? I have a box of those.
Depends on the date. Before 1946, you can sell them for reasonable money for scrap as their silver content is worth quite a lot.
If they're after 1946, they're worth pretty much sod all.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
Or we could re-baseline the value of the pound 10:1
Sets us up to manage inflation for the next century.
I said they should have done this for the King Charles coins and notes. That would reduce the pain of switching from one to the other.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
Just must be seen to be delivered, and to be fair.
Imagine if people could be prosecuted and imprisoned, with no public record or information as to who was imprisoned and why?
And in the cases where the person wasn't even found guilty, they were still named and shamed. Do you support that? And what about cases where it's been overturned, their life is still ruined and people know who they are.
I would be perfectly content not knowing the identity of this woman.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
The hopsital management are also starting to get lots of loving attention from the DM. Careful details about every last corporate prizegiving with second rate wine and their own families and details of their places of residence.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
The hopsital management are also starting to get lots of loving attention from the DM. Careful details about every last corporate prizegiving with second rate wine and their own families and details of their places of residence.
Innocent until proven guilty. These people deserve anonymity.
In the later part of my career I used a pilot's case as it was useful for carrying books, student essays, and sandwiches.
The best case for carrying laptops is in landscape format, and survey bags are the best since they are set up for them. But go-bags are in rough portrait format and don't work as well, especially if carrying two.
I used to use the poacher's pocket of my Barbour for my Z88 ...
I picked up about half of that.
Game (on checking, not poacher's) pocket = large waterproof pocket in a dangling flap inside Barbour oiled canvas jacket for placing dead pheasants, roadkill, remains of sadistic outings, etc.
Z88 = laptop computer equivalent of Sinclair C5 and made by the same brand
The Z88 was an amazing computer: great battery life (off AAs!), fantastic form factor (it's A4, and it wasn't distracting because it didn't put a screen up between you and whoever you're talking to), and a silent keyboard.
I used one for note taking well into the 2000s.
Exactly what I used it for: in the university library, often en route to or from my office. The shallow screen didn't matter for that, and the data and notes transferred OK to my desktop by cable and software prog. It also felt safer in a pocket or rucksack than a briefcase in the darker evenings.
Street cred = very low, but not as low as a C5, and it did the job!
After I finish with my current business, I think I will start a company that recreates the Z88, only running either Android or ChromeOS and with a really nice display.
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
Or we could re-baseline the value of the pound 10:1
Sets us up to manage inflation for the next century.
I said they should have done this for the King Charles coins and notes. That would reduce the pain of switching from one to the other.
Too late now. Will have to wait for William V.
There's no way the RF would let KCIII be linked with a similar measure today as it would really confuse the elderly royalist generation and they'd blame him for the next 20 years' inflation. Don't know if you were here for decimalisation, but my parents' generation and the one above blamed that for triggering inflation (on the grounds it let shops and traders rip off the public).
I think that's sensible. I'm 1.2 miles from the nearest cashpoint, and exactly 3 miles from a second if that one is out of service. Should be feasible for the whole of England, perhaps some tricky cases in the Scottish Highlands.
Have you any idea of how many additional ATM's that would mean in rural Northumberland? I was living 1.5 miles from the nearest shop let alone ATM. That was 4 plus. And I was in the relatively well populated Tyne Valley.
Well banks can now be fined by the FCA if they don't provide a branch or ATM within 3 miles in rural areas
How does that work? They can simply say "not me, chum, some other bank can do it".
Some rural areas, you'd almost be lucky to have a *commercial building* to put an ATM in.
Nope the FCA can now fine any bank which shuts a branch in a market town or suburb or fails to provide an ATM in them either, no excuse
So does the fine go to the people who are the last to close an ATM in an area then?
This could lead to a rush not to be the last institution with an ATM in the area, and face being trapped doing so indefinitely.
No it goes to banks who sut branches too and who fail to provide ATMs in the area even if they don't have one now
That doesn't make sense. All bank branches have ATMs anyway so "shut a branch and don't have an ATM" is an emopty set.
I’ve been into a bank branch that didn’t have an ATM. Rare, but they occur.
Ah, thanks. I did wonder, but couldn't think of any. But, most of the time, most places, that'll apply. So the problem remains (and also whether FCA will even fine the bank more than 51p in cash).
Well, one was a Coutts office (meeting a friend that worked there). They had a counter for Coutts customers, but no machine.
Mind you, the funniest was a cash machine at Citi in Canary Wharf. That only dispensed £50 notes. I thought it symbolic of something - hubris? Idiocy? Still not entirely clear.
Especially odd seeing as £50 notes are hard to actually spend anywhere without someone pulling out an eye loupe.
True fact - until I moved to London aged 23 I had never seen a £50 note in real life (even though I'd done quite a bit of retail work).
You are right that most people do not see them. Friends gave someone a framed Turing £50 note for an IT worker's 50th birthday. They'd not realised the Turing notes were in general circulation; they thought it was a short-lived special like Peter Rabbit 50p pieces, so bought one on ebay at a large premium.
What's the deal with special 50p pieces which, if you look at them on eBay, vary in asking prices from 51p to £10,000.
Almost the entire purpose of the Royal Mint is to flog overpriced "special" coins to gullible collectors. https://www.royalmint.com/
Their other purpose is to bang out pennies and tuppences as if it was still 1971. Or even 1871.
The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation in December 1984. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator we can see that half a penny in 1984 would today be worth just over 1.5p so there's a good case for withdrawing both the smallest denomination coins from circulation.
Incidentally, the halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation not long after the £1 coin was introduced (1983), which by inflation from then would now be worth the equivalent of £3.22 - so perhaps time to replace the £5 note with a coin?
If the £50 note was also withdrawn, as frequently considered to cut down on criminal use of it, that would leave Britain with only two denominations of banknote. Possibly the fewest denominations of banknote of any currency, and yet perhaps also the greatest variety of different banknotes because of all the Scottish variations...
We don't need to replace the £5 with a coin, which would be of much bigger value than the largest coins in most (all?) other countries - particularly at a time when cash is going out of fashion anyway.
But we should withdraw pennies and twopences from circulation.
I'd go for 5p too. They are so tiny.
Or we could re-baseline the value of the pound 10:1
Sets us up to manage inflation for the next century.
A new improved political compass, in the binary letter-combo style of Myers Briggs. Covering the 6 principal faultlines in British politics and ideology (or at least on PB):
Like Myers-Briggs, a forced preference - you have to fall on one side or other rather than claiming to be in the centre or that it depends.
1. Economics, which instead of left vs right I would define as socialised vs market. The extremes on each side being freewheeling market fundamentalism and communism, but in Britain more a case of believing in more or less state intervention in the economy:
S = socialised M = market
2. Social and identity politics: traditionalist/authoritarian vs liberal. Are you woke or anti-woke? Should we topple statues of slavers? Do we need a lavatory tsar and so on.
W = woke A = anti-woke
3. Green politics: are you an eco-warrior who wants us all on our bikes, stopping drilling in the North Sea and installing heat pumps, or are you a petrolhead who upholds everyone's right to keep 3 gas guzzlers in the cul-de-sac, thinks LTNs are the spawn of the devil, and wonders if the climate crisis stuff isn't just a tad overwrought.
E = eco-warrior P = petrolhead
4. Nimby vs Yimby. Should we concrete over the green belt and build build build because the country needs infrastructure, or protect what remains of our green and pleasant land?
N = nimby Y = yimby
5. Russia and Ukraine: are you a hawk or a dove? Do you despair of keyboard toy soldiers bloodthirstily escalating until the last Ukrainian / global thermonuclear war, and understand Russia's historical concerns on NATO expansion and the rights of Russian speakers in Donbas? Or do you see Putin as a fascist thug who must be defeated to avoid greater problems down the line?
D = dove H = hawk
6. Brexit or remain. In or out?
B = Brexit R = remain [rejoin]
As of today I am MWEYHR, although a couple of those are marginal (S/M and N/Y).
Interesting compass test. Doubt my answers would surprise anyone.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
I liked this because I think it's useful to think about politics in different ways, but Myer-Briggs is a really bad model to use. Also I don't think you'd find many woke petrolheads ...
Erm ... 🙋♂️
M A P Y H B, in my case.
Same
I think MAPYHB is the closest we have to current front-bench Tory orthodoxy. I'd expect Sunak to self-identify as this, as would Truss. Boris and Gove marginally MAEYHB. May MAPNHR.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
It's an important principle of justice that it is open and public. Generally speaking this protects those facing prosecution from the state using illegitimate means to prosecute and convict them.
If we weren't allowed to talk about the Lucy Letby case because it might identify her then it would be a lot easier for the state to persecute people and wrongfully imprison them.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
No, as justice should be open. It also serves to help identify other crimes committed by the same individual.
Jury anonymity is perhaps more interesting. Around the Trump cases, the members of the Grand Jury (who decide whether there is a case strong enough to lay charges) are now receiving threats after social media attacks by Trump. And a Grand Jury is usually anonymous, with anonymity a matter of law - but not in Georgia.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
I recall the case of the media naming the alleged murderer of Joanna Yeates. Which they got wrong, basically ruined the person's life.
How is that allowed? What is the defence for such a thing?
This is post conviction. The teacher from Clifton College should not have been vilified by the press as a person of interest, and he sued their arses.
Question for PB: should people like Letby not be afforded anonymity for life?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
I don't agree with that necessarily, name and shame away.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
I recall the case of the media naming the alleged murderer of Joanna Yeates. Which they got wrong, basically ruined the person's life.
How is that allowed? What is the defence for such a thing?
IIRC the police in that case were sure they’d got the right man. Then further evidence came to light.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/02/nhs-whistleblowers-need-to-be-better-protected-by-the-law-says-bma
In sum, Mr Trump has not provided a single reason for the court to find that there is a likelihood that he will succeed on appeal, let alone a 'strong showing. Accordingly, this factor weighs against Mr Trump.
It's clear many judges are getting frustrated. He waited 3 years to raise a particular defence, then another 7 months before seeking to stay the case on that basis, which as the judge notes means any harm done is his own doing.
Maybe it's the cumulative effect of the transgender debate.
M W P Y H B
Though I am also a strong environmentalist so could have gone E, if the alternative had been a climate change denialist I would have unequivocally gone E. I want to see the end of petrol cars, and a transition to clean electric instead - but I am not anti-car, I'm just anti-pollution which is completely different. So E/P is the only one I could have gone either with.
EDIT: Erm ... 🙋♂️
Fact that Johnson emerged at the Defender of Kyiv just demonstrates flexibility of practical Putinism; similar to Trump trying to work both side of the RUS v UKR war.
Spain 1.99 / 2
England 2/ 2.02
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/football/market/1.193885918
M A P Y H B
For me, which is why you and I agree on nearly everything but the woke stuff.
Reinforcing notion that ANY change in coinage (and also paper money) will inevitably screw the little guy and benefit the fat cat.
My guess is psychology is similar - if not identical - in UK?
It's human nature to hope that bad news isn't true - but those who have a investigative role in the organisation need to know how to perform it.
I was an unpaid school governor, and knew that, FFS.
S A P N H B
And since I think the final one is a non-issue (its done, move on already), I disagree with it on a majority, three out of five, which kind of explains why I'm disillusioned and not voting for it.
I don't think A/W is a big issue in this country, not as big as people make out sometimes, but in America I would absolutely and wholeheartedly be a Democrat at the moment in no small part because of it. And because the GOP are batshit crazy for supporting criminals who want to overturn democracy, but I supported the Democrats already even before then.
We have been less fortunate in that same Johnsonian aspiration at other times.
Or supports market economics?
I don't think so.
The modern Conservative Party is NIMBY and supports high tax socialism, just a warped version of socialism where those in work support those who aren't working regardless of whether they need it or not. Even if those working are poor, and are supporting those not working who are rich.
Rather than traditional socialism where those with money support those without it.
Suggested route from Cambridge. A14, then A11, then North on A1065 via RAF Lakenheath (fighter jets including visitor area) and a restored Cromwell tank memorial north of Ickburgh. Then B1355 north to Burnham Market. Then East along coastal road through Holkham (park/hall/beach), Wells, and the small fishing villages of Stiffkey, Morston, Blakeney and Cley (windmill and shingle beach). Then back via Langham (WW2 gunnery practice dome), Binham (small abbey), Walsingham (very holy!)
Tip: Park at Cley beach for £3 and get a £3.50 voucher for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust cafe overlooking the wetlands a mile inland.
I would have @NickPalmer down as your fellow Swendr. Or possibly a Sweydr.
Sets us up to manage inflation for the next century.
I used one for note taking well into the 2000s.
I've got a vague memory of someone accepting one in Scotland in a bric-a-brac shop in the 1990s in lieu of 10p (one had slipped into my wallet and looked basically exactly the same) but I can't believe they were still legal tender then.
Maybe he took as a souvenir or to exchange at the bank.
Short visit to the hospital, and the treatment seems to be doing well. I'll be going for the actual treatment called Cladribine (4 doses), which according to BNF costs ~£160 per dose as an injection or infusion, but ~£2050 per dose as a tablet for the same active ingredient quantity. Pharmaceuticals !
Also a short visit to to Morrisons, about which I am not hopeful. Range and personal service are decreasing - noted from the range of products in the delicatessen ("that is now on the shelves, over there - in packs of twelve", and they have stopped selling Grape Nuts - gah!). It's going to be much more nearly the same as the rest, as happened to Citroen.
The vertical integration is also in question, which imo is the Morrisons great distinctive. Manufacturing plants are under question, according to staff, but apparently not the close integration farming (yet? I'm not sure if Morrisons own actual farms.).
All feels rather voyeuristic.
https://twitter.com/GeoffDuncanGA/status/1692516059717210385
They will protest about a library banning books they agree with, while finding reasons to support the removal of ones they disagree with.
Remember kids: supporting speech you agree with is easy. It's supporting the stuff you don't that is important.
But replacing a phone can be a lot easier than replacing either your cash or your cards in your wallet.
A few weeks ago while out I dropped my phone, normally nowadays they just bounced but it landed on a rock and smashed the screen. When I got home, I took an old phone out of the cupboard, charged it, then started using it. Got my Samsung Pay and Curve apps which is what I use for payment switched over, and was all done within minutes. No waiting for a replacement card to be delivered.
There's going to be a rerun of the pole dancing in Sunday's Sun too, isn't there?
And indeed, why are the names of criminals publicly available, what good does it serve?
Street cred = very low, but not as low as a C5, and it did the job!
In the US and some UK places you can get cash out (I've not used it but my uncle did the other day) with contactless.
Leon probably has one, but with enough kit to reach a Boutique Hotel on the shores of Lake Minniewanka.
Imagine if people could be prosecuted and imprisoned, with no public record or information as to who was imprisoned and why?
They weren't called 'cartwheels' for nothing.
https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/archives-and-collections/properties-in-care-collections/object/george-iii-cartwheel-penny-1797-18th-century-48186
But I think my positions are mutually exclusive. For S/M and N/Y "it depends".
In another case, we went to a great wine bar that was sited on a floating platform in the bay and burned amazingly quickly through £150 in cash because the wine was so good. We would have stayed hours more, and spent a fortune, except they didn't take cards so we had to go home.
The entire experience was a bizarre step back in time. The location was very popular with French tourists and we asked many to recommend places to eat and drink, commonly their opening response was "they take cards!".
A third trip involved us having to ask for change a third party (a lady who ran a market stall) because the guy who sold us a (cash only) boat trip was unable to change the notes we offered him, thus making a transaction impossible.
Cash is pointless. It's an antiquated system with so many flaws it barely needs repeating again. Simple market forces will see it increasingly marginalised to minority interest pursued only by unrepentant luddites and weird nostalgics.
Today's ATM annoucement has all the hallmarks of 'something must be doneism' – banks have stopped offering ATM cash services because they are expensive to run and there is rapidly reducing need for them. Simple as that.
But I will be uncomfortable with the tabloid expose of her pre- criminality lifestyle choices. Salacious press coverage will also incite nutters to make her parent's life hell, and be of no benefit to the families of her victims.
LAB-S&D: 44% (-4)
CON~ECR: 28% (+4)
LDEM-RE: 10%
REFORM~NI: 7% (+1)
GREENS-G/EFA: 5% (-1)
SNP-G/EFA: 3%
+/- vs. 10-11 August 2023
Fieldwork: 17-18 August 2023
Sample size: 1,315
LLG 59% plays RefCon 35%. That's a fairly high RefCon score.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1692556969842758038?s=20
The parents who must be in utter despair and pain should be the focus of our care, not Letby
Then there are practical considerations, patrictularly in a case like this - would hearing an unnamed doctor was convicted of 15 murders and suspected of many more be able to be maintained forclong before Shipmans name
came out?
Yes there are miscarriages of justice which mean the stigma will never be redressed properly. Yes we should look after those who are released more so they are not forced into a situation which encourages recidivism.
But not to know who did what? Justice has always been about society more than individuals despite talk of victims. That's
why states prosecute or not even if someone not want to sometimes.
Now, maybe I've lived in such woebegone areas that no-one has wanted to develop in them, or nuking the area from orbit would be too good for it, but I think it's possible that NIMBYs are an example of very vocal groups that receive disproportionate attention compared to their size.
I have found myself agreeing with and "liking" posts by Casino and AndyJS.
How is that allowed? What is the defence for such a thing?
Have no idea what the point of a wallet is these days, other than ruining the line of tailored trousers.
Like you, mine stays in my drawer at home as permanent storage for the cards I no longer need or use.
LAB: 36% (-10)
CON: 35% (+7)
LDM: 15% (+4)
RFM: 6% (=)
GRN: 5% (=)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via @Moreincommon_, Aug 2023.
Changes w/ Regular VI.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1692502327880556941?t=X8bfvMQ-SAuYGxTEqjxoMg&s=19
@Bigjohnowls fans please explain.
We all use our phone for everything. They are fundamentally more secure (you need a PIN/fingerprint/face scan) to pay for anything. And we carry them with anyway.
Let's start a campaign to get phones accepted anywhere a credit/debit card is. Cash machines. Shops. Public transport. Parking machines*. Etc.
The environmental savings would be enormous. No more little bits of plastic. And we'd no longer need to carry a wallet in addition to our phones for the once in a blue moon occasion when we need our Halifax Cash Card.
* I would, however, ban those stupid parking apps, each of which appears to have been written by an incompetent nine year old.
If they're after 1946, they're worth pretty much sod all.
Too late now. Will have to wait for William V.
I would be perfectly content not knowing the identity of this woman.
*Insert Cricket Joke Here
If we weren't allowed to talk about the Lucy Letby case because it might identify her then it would be a lot easier for the state to persecute people and wrongfully imprison them.
Jury anonymity is perhaps more interesting. Around the Trump cases, the members of the Grand Jury (who decide whether there is a case strong enough to lay charges) are now receiving threats after social media attacks by Trump. And a Grand Jury is usually anonymous, with anonymity a matter of law - but not in Georgia.