If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Very true. Look at pictures of industrial revolution cities like Manchester or Leeds from the Edwardian era. A beautiful, fine, coherent streetscape. No plate glass windows at street level, no roll shutters, almost no graffiti or litter.
Mind you, some of the housing stock was hideous. We venerate Victorian terraces because it's the better ones which remain: many lived in truly awful conditions.
Even there, though, a mixed picture: this photo from Halifax in 1965 is currently doing the rounds. Yes, the women look prematurely old and haggard (this goes back to a conversation we had on here the other day). But marvel at how clean everything is.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Very true. Look at pictures of industrial revolution cities like Manchester or Leeds from the Edwardian era. A beautiful, fine, coherent streetscape. No plate glass windows at street level, no roll shutters, almost no graffiti or litter.
Mind you, some of the housing stock was hideous. We venerate Victorian terraces because it's the better ones which remain: many lived in truly awful conditions.
Even there, though, a mixed picture: this photo from Halifax in 1965 is currently doing the rounds. Yes, the women look prematurely old and haggard (this goes back to a conversation we had on here the other day). But marvel at how clean everything is.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
Don't know, to be honest. Just popped up on facebook. I aadmire the instinct to check the source, but it feels reasonable for time and place (given the slope of the street!)
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Very true. Look at pictures of industrial revolution cities like Manchester or Leeds from the Edwardian era. A beautiful, fine, coherent streetscape. No plate glass windows at street level, no roll shutters, almost no graffiti or litter.
Mind you, some of the housing stock was hideous. We venerate Victorian terraces because it's the better ones which remain: many lived in truly awful conditions.
Even there, though, a mixed picture: this photo from Halifax in 1965 is currently doing the rounds. Yes, the women look prematurely old and haggard (this goes back to a conversation we had on here the other day). But marvel at how clean everything is.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
Don't know, to be honest. Just popped up on facebook. I aadmire the instinct to check the source, but it feels reasonable for time and place (given the slope of the street!)
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
One way to do this would be to lower the voting age to zero, however those from 0-18 would not be eligible for a postal vote and must request the voting paper themselves from the clerk. It would in effect exclude the very young (My current two year old for instance) but a bright 7 year old might want to vote ! I think said child would probably, but not necessarily vote the same way their parents do - in effect giving more voting power to large families.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
There was a Nevil Shute book 'In the Wet' in which the 'better' a citizen you were, the more votes you got. The things which got you more votes were generally pretty 1950s conservative - getting an education, serving in the armed forces, raising children without divorcing. Even as a fairly instinctively conservative 14 year old, I remember reading it and thinking 'gosh, that's a bit much'. But it was all set out quite approvingly. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something like "Western Australia trialled it, because WA has always been pretty liberal[*]. My God did we get a better class of politician." [*Obviously this puzzled me a lot at 14, but I now know that 'liberal' in the Australian sense means 'Conservative'.] The seventh vote could only be earned by services to the royal family.
The book wasn't really about the consequences of this - though the consequences were generally hinted to be positive - but about the adventure in which the protagonist earns the seventh vote.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
The British and French high command expected Western Front mark II, but instead their static defences, with little in the way of mobile reserves, were blown off balance by the inferior German assault (the allies had more guns, more tanks etc). Once unhinged the defeatism spread at the highest level. No one was more surprised than the Germans, including the heads of the Wehrmacht, who had been against attacking.
Indeed. But the difference in response between the UK and France was marked.
During the Battle of France, the commander of a unit that was training up with Dewoitine D.520 refused to send his unit into battle, for example. Despite the pilot training having been done. All that was required was ammunition. He was waiting for orders....
After the fall of France, a military conference was held in Manchester, regarding the local situation in the event of an invasion. The commander of the heavy AA guns around Manchester announced that
1) The AA guns had been tested as anti-tank weapons. He'd managed to find by nefarious means some anti-armour rounds - could he please have more 2) He was testing the AA as impromptu field artillery. He'd found some men who'd served in the artillery and got them teaching the rest on techniques. He (the commander) had a list of small equipment (tables, sighting stuff) that would help - could he please get some.
Reading the minutes - it was an attitude of "how can I help the fight?" from all the participants.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
I'd wonder about the completeness of her sample of British towns.
I think both Betjeman and Jenkins wrote of the attractiveness of "Northern Market Towns"; by and large I think they are right, and Jenkins is far better writing about things more than 50 years old, than harrumphing away like a Woosterite Great Uncle.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
There was a Nevil Shute book 'In the Wet' in which the 'better' a citizen you were, the more votes you got. The things which got you more votes were generally pretty 1950s conservative - getting an education, serving in the armed forces, raising children without divorcing. Even as a fairly instinctively conservative 14 year old, I remember reading it and thinking 'gosh, that's a bit much'. But it was all set out quite approvingly. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something like "Western Australia trialled it, because WA has always been pretty liberal[*]. My God did we get a better class of politician." [*Obviously this puzzled me a lot at 14, but I now know that 'liberal' in the Australian sense means 'Conservative'.] The seventh vote could only be earned by services to the royal family.
The book wasn't really about the consequences of this - though the consequences were generally hinted to be positive - but about the adventure in which the protagonist earns the seventh vote.
I suppose it wouldn't have seemed so outlandish at that time, considering that in the UK an education to degree level did get you a second vote until 1950.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Not built at the same time, because different styles are falling down at different rates?
More seriously, Poundbury tries, or tried (I have not been recently), to get a mix of styles.
Eg here, if you pan round, Queen Anne brick, render over something (clunch chalk?) and (in the distance) something that could be oolite or very thick Lias from south Somerset (not sure which).
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
There was a Nevil Shute book 'In the Wet' in which the 'better' a citizen you were, the more votes you got. The things which got you more votes were generally pretty 1950s conservative - getting an education, serving in the armed forces, raising children without divorcing. Even as a fairly instinctively conservative 14 year old, I remember reading it and thinking 'gosh, that's a bit much'. But it was all set out quite approvingly. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something like "Western Australia trialled it, because WA has always been pretty liberal[*]. My God did we get a better class of politician." [*Obviously this puzzled me a lot at 14, but I now know that 'liberal' in the Australian sense means 'Conservative'.] The seventh vote could only be earned by services to the royal family.
The book wasn't really about the consequences of this - though the consequences were generally hinted to be positive - but about the adventure in which the protagonist earns the seventh vote.
I suppose it wouldn't have seemed so outlandish at that time, considering that in the UK an education to degree level did get you a second vote until 1950.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
The Democrats absolutely NEED Pennsylvania though. In effect if PA is lost then they'll need to take one of Georgia or North Carolina to prevent Trump hitting 270.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
The British and French high command expected Western Front mark II, but instead their static defences, with little in the way of mobile reserves, were blown off balance by the inferior German assault (the allies had more guns, more tanks etc). Once unhinged the defeatism spread at the highest level. No one was more surprised than the Germans, including the heads of the Wehrmacht, who had been against attacking.
Indeed. But the difference in response between the UK and France was marked.
During the Battle of France, the commander of a unit that was training up with Dewoitine D.520 refused to send his unit into battle, for example. Despite the pilot training having been done. All that was required was ammunition. He was waiting for orders....
After the fall of France, a military conference was held in Manchester, regarding the local situation in the event of an invasion. The commander of the heavy AA guns around Manchester announced that
1) The AA guns had been tested as anti-tank weapons. He'd managed to find by nefarious means some anti-armour rounds - could he please have more 2) He was testing the AA as impromptu field artillery. He'd found some men who'd served in the artillery and got them teaching the rest on techniques. He (the commander) had a list of small equipment (tables, sighting stuff) that would help - could he please get some.
Reading the minutes - it was an attitude of "how can I help the fight?" from all the participants.
I have read widely on both world wars and I am fascinated by both conflicts and how and why people did what they did. The national response to WW1 in the 20's and 30's is starkly different in the three nations (Germany, France and UK). For the Germans there was the widespread mythology about the stab in the back, and for ex landseer, forced to surrender while still on French soil, you can understand it, to some extent. Combined with the punitive nature of Versailles and war guilt etc, and you can see how Nazism was able to get where it did. I think a great many Germans cheered on restoration of the German nation to where it thought it should be. In France the great war was widely seen as a tragedy, and you can see why. For the most part it was French towns and villages that were laid waste (many totally obliterated) and the French lost 1.3 million men. The French army mutinied in 1917 and indeed came close to total collapse (something that should inform those who berate Haig, who acted to support his ally in a time of great crisis). There was no appetite for another war in France. In Britain there was a sense of a hard fought victory and a sense of resignation that more conflict was coming. Later historiography about the war has coloured many contemporary views of the war (great war poets were for the most part posh public school boys) and much of the denigration of WW1 generals was overblown and ignored the realities of command in an era with such poor communication between the front and the commanders.
I think this goes a long way to explain the initial outcomes. The Germans wanted it, the French didn't and the Brits were up for a fight, but didn't really want it.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
There's good pastiche and bad pastiche imo, and good and bad renovations or updatings where the facade is kept.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
Don't know, to be honest. Just popped up on facebook. I aadmire the instinct to check the source, but it feels reasonable for time and place (given the slope of the street!)
It doesn't actually look like anything in Halifax, which is pretty well all local sandstone. The street looks way too big, as well.
Spend a couple of minutes on google street view, and you'll get the idea.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
The British and French high command expected Western Front mark II, but instead their static defences, with little in the way of mobile reserves, were blown off balance by the inferior German assault (the allies had more guns, more tanks etc). Once unhinged the defeatism spread at the highest level. No one was more surprised than the Germans, including the heads of the Wehrmacht, who had been against attacking.
Indeed. But the difference in response between the UK and France was marked.
During the Battle of France, the commander of a unit that was training up with Dewoitine D.520 refused to send his unit into battle, for example. Despite the pilot training having been done. All that was required was ammunition. He was waiting for orders....
After the fall of France, a military conference was held in Manchester, regarding the local situation in the event of an invasion. The commander of the heavy AA guns around Manchester announced that
1) The AA guns had been tested as anti-tank weapons. He'd managed to find by nefarious means some anti-armour rounds - could he please have more 2) He was testing the AA as impromptu field artillery. He'd found some men who'd served in the artillery and got them teaching the rest on techniques. He (the commander) had a list of small equipment (tables, sighting stuff) that would help - could he please get some.
Reading the minutes - it was an attitude of "how can I help the fight?" from all the participants.
I have read widely on both world wars and I am fascinated by both conflicts and how and why people did what they did. The national response to WW1 in the 20's and 30's is starkly different in the three nations (Germany, France and UK). For the Germans there was the widespread mythology about the stab in the back, and for ex landseer, forced to surrender while still on French soil, you can understand it, to some extent. Combined with the punitive nature of Versailles and war guilt etc, and you can see how Nazism was able to get where it did. I think a great many Germans cheered on restoration of the German nation to where it thought it should be. In France the great war was widely seen as a tragedy, and you can see why. For the most part it was French towns and villages that were laid waste (many totally obliterated) and the French lost 1.3 million men. The French army mutinied in 1917 and indeed came close to total collapse (something that should inform those who berate Haig, who acted to support his ally in a time of great crisis). There was no appetite for another war in France. In Britain there was a sense of a hard fought victory and a sense of resignation that more conflict was coming. Later historiography about the war has coloured many contemporary views of the war (great war poets were for the most part posh public school boys) and much of the denigration of WW1 generals was overblown and ignored the realities of command in an era with such poor communication between the front and the commanders.
I think this goes a long way to explain the initial outcomes. The Germans wanted it, the French didn't and the Brits were up for a fight, but didn't really want it.
My grandfather on the other side (Scottish, Gordon Highlanders in WWI) wrote in his diary about a kind of grim determination. Sort of "FFS, right, we need to put these Axis idiots on the ground, properly, this time."
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
I'd wonder about the completeness of her sample of British towns.
I think both Betjeman and Jenkins wrote of the attractiveness of "Northern Market Towns"; by and large I think they are right, and Jenkins is far better writing about things more than 50 years old, than harrumphing away like a Woosterite Great Uncle.
Yes, I believe you (@Leon) have plans to visit the North of England this Autumn? Maybe you could bring her with you. And show her, inter alia, Chester, Nantwich, Clitheroe, Lancaster, Lytham, Kendal, Port Sunlight, Knutsford, Buxton, Lymm, Kirkby Lonsdale, Sandbach, York, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Skipton, Pickering, Ripon, Bedale, Northallerton, Thirsk, Easingwold, Stokesley, Yarm, Richmond, Barnard Castle, Durham, Whitby, Beverley, Hexham and Alnwick. Plus also the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District, the North York Moors and Northumberland National Parks. Britain still has a lot going for it!
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting to look at the Dutch new town of Almere - one of my favourite references for the power of self build. It ticks all the boxes for me. Lots of social housing, lots of self build and a lot of archtectural freedom. You buy your plot of land from teh council ready supplied with services and then can chose from dozens of different architect's plans for the style and type of house you want. Which you can also customise.
Something we should be looking at for the UK new twosn rather than just getting one of the Big 7 to build soulless estates of crap boxes.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
You’re taking her to the Olympics?
There’s women’s football and handball on today, as well as men’s rugby 7s.
I would have thought women's beach volleyball was more Leon's style.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Very true. Look at pictures of industrial revolution cities like Manchester or Leeds from the Edwardian era. A beautiful, fine, coherent streetscape. No plate glass windows at street level, no roll shutters, almost no graffiti or litter.
Mind you, some of the housing stock was hideous. We venerate Victorian terraces because it's the better ones which remain: many lived in truly awful conditions.
Even there, though, a mixed picture: this photo from Halifax in 1965 is currently doing the rounds. Yes, the women look prematurely old and haggard (this goes back to a conversation we had on here the other day). But marvel at how clean everything is.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
It was clean because people took pride in their (largely homogeneous) area. Cobbles are amazingly hard wearing but provide little grip if wet.
The women look like they are scrubbing the step - a routine job until the early 70's.
There was no litter as there was very little disposable plastic, products came in paper, cardboard, glass or tinned steel cans (Coca Cola only started using aluminium in the late 60's). Newspaper was used for toilet paper, other paper and card was burnt, glass and tin cans recycled. It was possible (in Liverpool) to exchange cleaned jars for cinema ticket. The houses were frequently terrible. Damp was endemic, toilets would be outside, the worst housing would be courts where 4 houses either side of a communal area of 40 foot wide. There would be a shared toilet between 8 families.
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
There was a Nevil Shute book 'In the Wet' in which the 'better' a citizen you were, the more votes you got. The things which got you more votes were generally pretty 1950s conservative - getting an education, serving in the armed forces, raising children without divorcing. Even as a fairly instinctively conservative 14 year old, I remember reading it and thinking 'gosh, that's a bit much'. But it was all set out quite approvingly. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something like "Western Australia trialled it, because WA has always been pretty liberal[*]. My God did we get a better class of politician." [*Obviously this puzzled me a lot at 14, but I now know that 'liberal' in the Australian sense means 'Conservative'.] The seventh vote could only be earned by services to the royal family.
The book wasn't really about the consequences of this - though the consequences were generally hinted to be positive - but about the adventure in which the protagonist earns the seventh vote.
I suppose it wouldn't have seemed so outlandish at that time, considering that in the UK an education to degree level did get you a second vote until 1950.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
They’re two good candidates, who appeal to a very different audience than Harris. I’d rather vote for an astronaut than another bloody lawyer.
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
There was a Nevil Shute book 'In the Wet' in which the 'better' a citizen you were, the more votes you got. The things which got you more votes were generally pretty 1950s conservative - getting an education, serving in the armed forces, raising children without divorcing. Even as a fairly instinctively conservative 14 year old, I remember reading it and thinking 'gosh, that's a bit much'. But it was all set out quite approvingly. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something like "Western Australia trialled it, because WA has always been pretty liberal[*]. My God did we get a better class of politician." [*Obviously this puzzled me a lot at 14, but I now know that 'liberal' in the Australian sense means 'Conservative'.] The seventh vote could only be earned by services to the royal family.
The book wasn't really about the consequences of this - though the consequences were generally hinted to be positive - but about the adventure in which the protagonist earns the seventh vote.
I suppose it wouldn't have seemed so outlandish at that time, considering that in the UK an education to degree level did get you a second vote until 1950.
I didn't know that. Many thanks Chris.
Any day you learn something new is a good day.
Another fun fact is that from 1918, the university members were elected by Single Transferable Vote.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
Don't know, to be honest. Just popped up on facebook. I aadmire the instinct to check the source, but it feels reasonable for time and place (given the slope of the street!)
It doesn't actually look like anything in Halifax, which is pretty well all local sandstone. The street looks way too big, as well.
Spend a couple of minutes on google street view, and you'll get the idea.
No, I know Halifax a bit, and now you mention it you're right. It didn't feel like Halifax. I just put it down to being 60 years ago and assumed it was a bit of the town I didn't know. It was hilly and probably northern - that was enough for me! As the point wasn't that important or controversial, I didn't really exercise my sceptical eye!
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
Don't know, to be honest. Just popped up on facebook. I aadmire the instinct to check the source, but it feels reasonable for time and place (given the slope of the street!)
It doesn't actually look like anything in Halifax, which is pretty well all local sandstone. The street looks way too big, as well.
Spend a couple of minutes on google street view, and you'll get the idea.
The photographer is apparently John Bulmer and that photo unhelpfully comes under the North UK collection. He seems to have done a lot of work geographically from the Black Country upwards.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
That's halfway to being the Home Guard though and, again, I think we need to be careful about British exceptionalism. We would not all have never surrendered.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
There's good pastiche and bad pastiche imo, and good and bad renovations or updatings where the facade is kept.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Well I can't disagree with your middle paragraph.
But I don't see why we can't build in the style of 100 or 150 years ago. There's a couple of example near me: one a house which fell down after an incompetent builder was let loose on it, then rebuilt (by a different builder) in the same style but slightly larger: it's brilliant and makes me happy every time I pass it; not least because it looks like what it would have looked like when originally built, but with better quality windows; and another where a tired 1960s bungalow was knocked down and replaced by a large, handsome, double fronted 1920s style detached villa: again, it makes me happy every time I see it. Built to modern standards, but with the appealing aesthetic of the 1920s.
I don't see why this is wrong, or why trying to find some 'new' style would self-evidently be better. [This is exactly the mentality of clothing manufacturers, and another of my bugbears: all I want in a pair of trousers is exactly the same pair of trousers which have just worn out. I'm quite happy to dress in exactly the same style as I did when I reached adulthood. I'm sure most men are the same.]
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
That's halfway to being the Home Guard though and, again, I think we need to be careful about British exceptionalism. We would not all have never surrendered.
True - but the rapid and general surrenders were noted by various observers. There wasn't a lot of fight left in the French army after the initial reverses.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
There's good pastiche and bad pastiche imo, and good and bad renovations or updatings where the facade is kept.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Well I can't disagree with your middle paragraph.
But I don't see why we can't build in the style of 100 or 150 years ago. There's a couple of example near me: one a house which fell down after an incompetent builder was let loose on it, then rebuilt (by a different builder) in the same style but slightly larger: it's brilliant and makes me happy every time I pass it; not least because it looks like what it would have looked like when originally built, but with better quality windows; and another where a tired 1960s bungalow was knocked down and replaced by a large, handsome, double fronted 1920s style detached villa: again, it makes me happy every time I see it. Built to modern standards, but with the appealing aesthetic of the 1920s.
I don't see why this is wrong, or why trying to find some 'new' style would self-evidently be better. [This is exactly the mentality of clothing manufacturers, and another of my bugbears: all I want in a pair of trousers is exactly the same pair of trousers which have just worn out. I'm quite happy to dress in exactly the same style as I did when I reached adulthood. I'm sure most men are the same.]
To many in architecture, pastiche is the ultimate swear word.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Very true. Look at pictures of industrial revolution cities like Manchester or Leeds from the Edwardian era. A beautiful, fine, coherent streetscape. No plate glass windows at street level, no roll shutters, almost no graffiti or litter.
Mind you, some of the housing stock was hideous. We venerate Victorian terraces because it's the better ones which remain: many lived in truly awful conditions.
Even there, though, a mixed picture: this photo from Halifax in 1965 is currently doing the rounds. Yes, the women look prematurely old and haggard (this goes back to a conversation we had on here the other day). But marvel at how clean everything is.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
It was clean because people took pride in their (largely homogeneous) area. Cobbles are amazingly hard wearing but provide little grip if wet.
The women look like they are scrubbing the step - a routine job until the early 70's.
There was no litter as there was very little disposable plastic, products came in paper, cardboard, glass or tinned steel cans (Coca Cola only started using aluminium in the late 60's). Newspaper was used for toilet paper, other paper and card was burnt, glass and tin cans recycled. It was possible (in Liverpool) to exchange cleaned jars for cinema ticket. The houses were frequently terrible. Damp was endemic, toilets would be outside, the worst housing would be courts where 4 houses either side of a communal area of 40 foot wide. There would be a shared toilet between 8 families.
Lets not romantasize.
I remember going to visit my great grannie L in her tenement in Dundee where she had lived for over 60 years. it was basically 1 room with small nooks for a bed and a stove on which she brewed tea all day. The toilet was on the "plate" (pronounced platy) in the stair well and shared with the neighbouring flat. Let's just say you had to be pretty desperate.
It was damp, smoky and grim. I remember there being woollen covers everywhere to cover you when the coal ran out. Army quarters were pretty basic in those days with ice on the inside of the windows in the winter but it was still pretty shocking. I must have been about 6.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Very true. Look at pictures of industrial revolution cities like Manchester or Leeds from the Edwardian era. A beautiful, fine, coherent streetscape. No plate glass windows at street level, no roll shutters, almost no graffiti or litter.
Mind you, some of the housing stock was hideous. We venerate Victorian terraces because it's the better ones which remain: many lived in truly awful conditions.
Even there, though, a mixed picture: this photo from Halifax in 1965 is currently doing the rounds. Yes, the women look prematurely old and haggard (this goes back to a conversation we had on here the other day). But marvel at how clean everything is.
Whereabouts in Halifax is that ? I don't recognise it.
It was clean because people took pride in their (largely homogeneous) area. Cobbles are amazingly hard wearing but provide little grip if wet.
The women look like they are scrubbing the step - a routine job until the early 70's.
There was no litter as there was very little disposable plastic, products came in paper, cardboard, glass or tinned steel cans (Coca Cola only started using aluminium in the late 60's). Newspaper was used for toilet paper, other paper and card was burnt, glass and tin cans recycled. It was possible (in Liverpool) to exchange cleaned jars for cinema ticket. The houses were frequently terrible. Damp was endemic, toilets would be outside, the worst housing would be courts where 4 houses either side of a communal area of 40 foot wide. There would be a shared toilet between 8 families.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
The Democrats absolutely NEED Pennsylvania though. In effect if PA is lost then they'll need to take one of Georgia or North Carolina to prevent Trump hitting 270.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
I'd wonder about the completeness of her sample of British towns.
I think both Betjeman and Jenkins wrote of the attractiveness of "Northern Market Towns"; by and large I think they are right, and Jenkins is far better writing about things more than 50 years old, than harrumphing away like a Woosterite Great Uncle.
Yes, I believe you (@Leon) have plans to visit the North of England this Autumn? Maybe you could bring her with you. And show her, inter alia, Chester, Nantwich, Clitheroe, Lancaster, Lytham, Kendal, Port Sunlight, Knutsford, Buxton, Lymm, Kirkby Lonsdale, Sandbach, York, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Skipton, Pickering, Ripon, Bedale, Northallerton, Thirsk, Easingwold, Stokesley, Yarm, Richmond, Barnard Castle, Durham, Whitby, Beverley, Hexham and Alnwick. Plus also the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District, the North York Moors and Northumberland National Parks. Britain still has a lot going for it!
There are a lot of very nice English towns, but there's a lot of crappy ones too. Horrible 1960s brutalism really messed up the country. We should really learn from Poland's beautification of their Cold War architecture.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
The British and French high command expected Western Front mark II, but instead their static defences, with little in the way of mobile reserves, were blown off balance by the inferior German assault (the allies had more guns, more tanks etc). Once unhinged the defeatism spread at the highest level. No one was more surprised than the Germans, including the heads of the Wehrmacht, who had been against attacking.
Indeed. But the difference in response between the UK and France was marked.
During the Battle of France, the commander of a unit that was training up with Dewoitine D.520 refused to send his unit into battle, for example. Despite the pilot training having been done. All that was required was ammunition. He was waiting for orders....
After the fall of France, a military conference was held in Manchester, regarding the local situation in the event of an invasion. The commander of the heavy AA guns around Manchester announced that
1) The AA guns had been tested as anti-tank weapons. He'd managed to find by nefarious means some anti-armour rounds - could he please have more 2) He was testing the AA as impromptu field artillery. He'd found some men who'd served in the artillery and got them teaching the rest on techniques. He (the commander) had a list of small equipment (tables, sighting stuff) that would help - could he please get some.
Reading the minutes - it was an attitude of "how can I help the fight?" from all the participants.
I have read widely on both world wars and I am fascinated by both conflicts and how and why people did what they did. The national response to WW1 in the 20's and 30's is starkly different in the three nations (Germany, France and UK). For the Germans there was the widespread mythology about the stab in the back, and for ex landseer, forced to surrender while still on French soil, you can understand it, to some extent. Combined with the punitive nature of Versailles and war guilt etc, and you can see how Nazism was able to get where it did. I think a great many Germans cheered on restoration of the German nation to where it thought it should be. In France the great war was widely seen as a tragedy, and you can see why. For the most part it was French towns and villages that were laid waste (many totally obliterated) and the French lost 1.3 million men. The French army mutinied in 1917 and indeed came close to total collapse (something that should inform those who berate Haig, who acted to support his ally in a time of great crisis). There was no appetite for another war in France. In Britain there was a sense of a hard fought victory and a sense of resignation that more conflict was coming. Later historiography about the war has coloured many contemporary views of the war (great war poets were for the most part posh public school boys) and much of the denigration of WW1 generals was overblown and ignored the realities of command in an era with such poor communication between the front and the commanders.
I think this goes a long way to explain the initial outcomes. The Germans wanted it, the French didn't and the Brits were up for a fight, but didn't really want it.
My grandfather on the other side (Scottish, Gordon Highlanders in WWI) wrote in his diary about a kind of grim determination. Sort of "FFS, right, we need to put these Axis idiots on the ground, properly, this time."
Must have been disconcerting that two of the Axis idiots this time had been allies in the previous unpleasantness.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
They’re two good candidates, who appeal to a very different audience than Harris. I’d rather vote for an astronaut than another bloody lawyer.
I agree and it would stop the GOP from painting the ticket as two liberal elites . It might be that Harris picks someone we haven’t even seen mentioned .
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
There's good pastiche and bad pastiche imo, and good and bad renovations or updatings where the facade is kept.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Well I can't disagree with your middle paragraph.
But I don't see why we can't build in the style of 100 or 150 years ago. There's a couple of example near me: one a house which fell down after an incompetent builder was let loose on it, then rebuilt (by a different builder) in the same style but slightly larger: it's brilliant and makes me happy every time I pass it; not least because it looks like what it would have looked like when originally built, but with better quality windows; and another where a tired 1960s bungalow was knocked down and replaced by a large, handsome, double fronted 1920s style detached villa: again, it makes me happy every time I see it. Built to modern standards, but with the appealing aesthetic of the 1920s.
I don't see why this is wrong, or why trying to find some 'new' style would self-evidently be better. [This is exactly the mentality of clothing manufacturers, and another of my bugbears: all I want in a pair of trousers is exactly the same pair of trousers which have just worn out. I'm quite happy to dress in exactly the same style as I did when I reached adulthood. I'm sure most men are the same.]
I think the key driver at most times is likely to be because they will be more expensive, and perhaps time consuming, to build.
For some occasions we can do that - but it would not be the first priority for our own houses when it is "this recent-style one for 280k, or this same size one that is similar to live in and that will make your neighbours happy to look at, for 350k".
And a lot of the stuff - e g chimneys - are in general no longer needed so are just an ornament.
It's a complex topic - observing the approved ways to modify listed buildings over a number of decades is an interesting illustration of how their are fashion influences to everything.
The video of the drone chasing a soldier caught out in the open is horrible.
As we have discussed before the very nature of warfare is changing out of all recognition before our eyes.
A few years hence I think AI powered drones will start to come in...
More likely months at the rate of progress we are seeing in Ukraine at the moment. We urgently need to learn from the Ukrainian experience but equipping and training our forces to fight such a war is going to be a major and ongoing challenge. Really not sure that a new fighter jet is the priority.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
Did you explain the French surrender in 1940 and the Vichy regime to your daughter?
That's vile, actually, and anyone with such a misunderstanding of history should mark their own citizenship test a fail and voluntarily relocate to Rwanda. The surrender monkeys of 1940 were the Belgians (see a well known address to HoC by Churchill, W for details); the French hung in there while we did our run away monkey thing. And you think we wouldn't have had a Vichy? The English channel is a good thing but doesn't confer moral superiority.
There is a certain truth that there was less of a determination to fight.
My grandfather on my father's side was assigned (due to age) to the fortress troops. When the Germans approached, he was prepared to fight, as were some of the others. The majority of the unit literally held them up at gunpoint, while they sent out representatives with a white flag. This was fairly late in the Battle of France.
Essentially, after the initial German success, the mood became (for many) "Get the surrender done and the war over. We lost."
The British and French high command expected Western Front mark II, but instead their static defences, with little in the way of mobile reserves, were blown off balance by the inferior German assault (the allies had more guns, more tanks etc). Once unhinged the defeatism spread at the highest level. No one was more surprised than the Germans, including the heads of the Wehrmacht, who had been against attacking.
Indeed. But the difference in response between the UK and France was marked.
During the Battle of France, the commander of a unit that was training up with Dewoitine D.520 refused to send his unit into battle, for example. Despite the pilot training having been done. All that was required was ammunition. He was waiting for orders....
After the fall of France, a military conference was held in Manchester, regarding the local situation in the event of an invasion. The commander of the heavy AA guns around Manchester announced that
1) The AA guns had been tested as anti-tank weapons. He'd managed to find by nefarious means some anti-armour rounds - could he please have more 2) He was testing the AA as impromptu field artillery. He'd found some men who'd served in the artillery and got them teaching the rest on techniques. He (the commander) had a list of small equipment (tables, sighting stuff) that would help - could he please get some.
Reading the minutes - it was an attitude of "how can I help the fight?" from all the participants.
I have read widely on both world wars and I am fascinated by both conflicts and how and why people did what they did. The national response to WW1 in the 20's and 30's is starkly different in the three nations (Germany, France and UK). For the Germans there was the widespread mythology about the stab in the back, and for ex landseer, forced to surrender while still on French soil, you can understand it, to some extent. Combined with the punitive nature of Versailles and war guilt etc, and you can see how Nazism was able to get where it did. I think a great many Germans cheered on restoration of the German nation to where it thought it should be. In France the great war was widely seen as a tragedy, and you can see why. For the most part it was French towns and villages that were laid waste (many totally obliterated) and the French lost 1.3 million men. The French army mutinied in 1917 and indeed came close to total collapse (something that should inform those who berate Haig, who acted to support his ally in a time of great crisis). There was no appetite for another war in France. In Britain there was a sense of a hard fought victory and a sense of resignation that more conflict was coming. Later historiography about the war has coloured many contemporary views of the war (great war poets were for the most part posh public school boys) and much of the denigration of WW1 generals was overblown and ignored the realities of command in an era with such poor communication between the front and the commanders.
I think this goes a long way to explain the initial outcomes. The Germans wanted it, the French didn't and the Brits were up for a fight, but didn't really want it.
My grandfather on the other side (Scottish, Gordon Highlanders in WWI) wrote in his diary about a kind of grim determination. Sort of "FFS, right, we need to put these Axis idiots on the ground, properly, this time."
Must have been disconcerting that two of the Axis idiots this time had been allies in the previous unpleasantness.
Fake quote warning -
Von Ribbentrop: Churchill, if there is a war, we will have the Italians on our side this time. Churchill: My dear Ambassador, it's only fair. We had them last time.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
Pennysylvania has 19 EC votes, Arizona just 11 and on current polls Az is likely going for Trump regardless anyway
That tells us a whole heap more about Lammy than about Vance. Never mind Marie Antoinette's Nobel Prize, he also claimed that Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII. That way round. Because 7 definitely comes after 8. So I don't think he should be relied on for alternative perspectives on things.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 22m The Tory leadership contest this summer is going to be a delight. Just the dumbest most dreadful people saying the dumbest most dreadful things. But this time, none of it will matter. It'll be of no pertinence whatsoever. A shrivelled balloon, slowly deflating in an empty room.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
Pennysylvania has 19 EC votes, Arizona just 11 and on current polls Az is likely going for Trump regardless anyway
Pennsylvania is CRUCIAL for the Democrats, it's very important for the GOP but there are plausible routes without it for them. I think more than likely the winner of PA takes the presidency though.
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
Whenever I've heard this idea before it's been coming from the liberal/left.
I have certainly never seen a liberal push for extra rewards for those with big families
This is from 2003 but I've seen more recent examples as well. It often goes hand in hand with reducing the voting age to 16 which we all know tends to be a left-wing idea.
"Parents should be given extra votes to cast on behalf of their children in order to make politics more "family friendly". This is one of the reforms proposed in the report by left-of-centre think-tank Demos. It recommends that the voting age be lowered from 18 to 14.
It also suggests that the parents of children below the age of 14 given an extra vote they would cast after discussing it with their children."
Luke Tryl @LukeTryl · 2h No doubt failure to control immigration cost Tories votes, ditto losing their advantage on tax. But voters biggest frustration was that basic services - particularly NHS - felt broken. Real risk the leadership contest overlooks public services which voters most want answers on
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
The Democrats absolutely NEED Pennsylvania though. In effect if PA is lost then they'll need to take one of Georgia or North Carolina to prevent Trump hitting 270.
Josh Shapiro as the Presidential candidate polled 4 points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical match up in Pennsylvania.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
Pennysylvania has 19 EC votes, Arizona just 11 and on current polls Az is likely going for Trump regardless anyway
Pennsylvania is CRUCIAL for the Democrats, it's very important for the GOP but there are plausible routes without it for them. I think more than likely the winner of PA takes the presidency though.
I'm a big fan of Buttigieg, he is intelligent, witty and serious about improving US infrastructure, but I am also persuaded by those on here pointing out that Shapiro offers more to the ticket in the key state of the election.
"Allow kids to vote? Some adults in Germany think it would be the right thing to do.
A high-ranking official in the German government has called for letting kids vote. “We must give children a voice — in elections as well,” said Dirk Niebel, minister of economic cooperation and development.
Germany has about 13 million people younger than 18. Niebel says denying voting rights to children is as “absurd” as it would be to deny them to people older than 65 years old.
Of course, there's also the question of at what age kids should be allowed to vote. Niebel proposed that parents could supervise their children's voting and even vote for them."
"Allow kids to vote? Some adults in Germany think it would be the right thing to do.
A high-ranking official in the German government has called for letting kids vote. “We must give children a voice — in elections as well,” said Dirk Niebel, minister of economic cooperation and development.
Germany has about 13 million people younger than 18. Niebel says denying voting rights to children is as “absurd” as it would be to deny them to people older than 65 years old.
Of course, there's also the question of at what age kids should be allowed to vote. Niebel proposed that parents could supervise their children's voting and even vote for them."
I think the last statement goes too far, the act of marking the box ought to be done by the child, as a de facto competency test for voting if we're going down that route. I'd also exclude postal votes to those younger than 18 for the same reason.
I remember Peter Hitchens arguing that those who had done military service be allowed two votes too iirc.
"Votes for kids: why we should be giving children a say in elections
Many want the voting age to be lowered further, to 12 or even 6-year-olds. But any age higher than 0 leaves millions of child citizens without representation of their interests. That problem can be solved by giving children proxy votes from birth, to be cast by their primary carers. We can combine this with any voting age we deem right."
JD Vance says people with children should have more votes. The more children you have the more votes you should have.
Insane.
Whenever I've heard this idea before it's been coming from the liberal/left.
I have certainly never seen a liberal push for extra rewards for those with big families
This is from 2003 but I've seen more recent examples as well. It often goes hand in hand with reducing the voting age to 16 which we all know tends to be a left-wing idea.
"Parents should be given extra votes to cast on behalf of their children in order to make politics more "family friendly". This is one of the reforms proposed in the report by left-of-centre think-tank Demos. It recommends that the voting age be lowered from 18 to 14.
It also suggests that the parents of children below the age of 14 given an extra vote they would cast after discussing it with their children."
An example from the UK 21 years ago doesn't exactly prove your point. It has become much more of a right-wing talking point in the US recently. Here's Vance saying the same thing in 2021: https://theweek.com/republicans/1002998/jd-vances-parent-trap
There’s no reason Demeny voting when kids are small can’t coexist with giving teenagers the vote a little earlier, if that’s what’s required to make their parents’ empowerment during their minority more tolerable."
"Allow kids to vote? Some adults in Germany think it would be the right thing to do.
A high-ranking official in the German government has called for letting kids vote. “We must give children a voice — in elections as well,” said Dirk Niebel, minister of economic cooperation and development.
Germany has about 13 million people younger than 18. Niebel says denying voting rights to children is as “absurd” as it would be to deny them to people older than 65 years old.
Of course, there's also the question of at what age kids should be allowed to vote. Niebel proposed that parents could supervise their children's voting and even vote for them."
Dirk Niebel was a minister from the Free Democrats, probably the most liberal party in Germany.
There's certainly an argument for kids having parents/guardians vote on their behalf. They will be living in the environment shaped by their government so, on the face of it, it doesn't seem ridiculous that they should have someone to vote in their best interests. I'm open to persuasion on this.
"Allow kids to vote? Some adults in Germany think it would be the right thing to do.
A high-ranking official in the German government has called for letting kids vote. “We must give children a voice — in elections as well,” said Dirk Niebel, minister of economic cooperation and development.
Germany has about 13 million people younger than 18. Niebel says denying voting rights to children is as “absurd” as it would be to deny them to people older than 65 years old.
Of course, there's also the question of at what age kids should be allowed to vote. Niebel proposed that parents could supervise their children's voting and even vote for them."
"Votes for kids: why we should be giving children a say in elections
Many want the voting age to be lowered further, to 12 or even 6-year-olds. But any age higher than 0 leaves millions of child citizens without representation of their interests. That problem can be solved by giving children proxy votes from birth, to be cast by their primary carers. We can combine this with any voting age we deem right."
"The right to vote is an inherent right of all citizens, and the first and most important marker of the capacity to participate in the setting of social priorities.
Children should be given that right from birth. But until they reach the age of majority it should be exercised by proxy with the custodial parent or parents given an extra vote for every child under their guardianship."
"My name is Miles Corak. I am a professor with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, trained in labour economics, and working on child rights, poverty, immigration, social and economic mobility, unemployment, and social policy."
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
There's good pastiche and bad pastiche imo, and good and bad renovations or updatings where the facade is kept.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Well I can't disagree with your middle paragraph.
But I don't see why we can't build in the style of 100 or 150 years ago. There's a couple of example near me: one a house which fell down after an incompetent builder was let loose on it, then rebuilt (by a different builder) in the same style but slightly larger: it's brilliant and makes me happy every time I pass it; not least because it looks like what it would have looked like when originally built, but with better quality windows; and another where a tired 1960s bungalow was knocked down and replaced by a large, handsome, double fronted 1920s style detached villa: again, it makes me happy every time I see it. Built to modern standards, but with the appealing aesthetic of the 1920s.
I don't see why this is wrong, or why trying to find some 'new' style would self-evidently be better. [This is exactly the mentality of clothing manufacturers, and another of my bugbears: all I want in a pair of trousers is exactly the same pair of trousers which have just worn out. I'm quite happy to dress in exactly the same style as I did when I reached adulthood. I'm sure most men are the same.]
I think the key driver at most times is likely to be because they will be more expensive, and perhaps time consuming, to build.
For some occasions we can do that - but it would not be the first priority for our own houses when it is "this recent-style one for 280k, or this same size one that is similar to live in and that will make your neighbours happy to look at, for 350k".
And a lot of the stuff - e g chimneys - are in general no longer needed so are just an ornament.
It's a complex topic - observing the approved ways to modify listed buildings over a number of decades is an interesting illustration of how their are fashion influences to everything.
The first example I gave was paid for by insurance, so keeping costs down were less of a priority!
For the second example, I spoke to the owner (who also works in the buidling industry). While he was absolutely delighted with the end product, he said getting it right was a massive pain in the arse - just getting the bricks to look right cost him an extra £25k. He didn't begrudge this, as his thinking (almost certainly correct, IMV) is that the extra £25k he paid added £25k to the value of his house. But I'd agree that this circumstance isn't necessarily typical, especially in a world where we want houses to be affordable.
If the polls hold like this then it’s going to come down to GOTV operation and a very, very tiny margin of votes across the states determining the outcome.
If the polls stay like this, Harris is probably value as the election looks like anyone’s. But we really need to give it time for everything to settle and for the Dem convention to get out of the way.
I do think AZ is looking like a clear flip though.
If the polls hold like this then it’s going to come down to GOTV operation and a very, very tiny margin of votes across the states determining the outcome.
If the polls stay like this, Harris is probably value as the election looks like anyone’s. But we really need to give it time for everything to settle and for the Dem convention to get out of the way.
I do think AZ is looking like a clear flip though.
"The right to vote is an inherent right of all citizens, and the first and most important marker of the capacity to participate in the setting of social priorities.
Children should be given that right from birth. But until they reach the age of majority it should be exercised by proxy with the custodial parent or parents given an extra vote for every child under their guardianship."
"My name is Miles Corak. I am a professor with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, trained in labour economics, and working on child rights, poverty, immigration, social and economic mobility, unemployment, and social policy."
That is an interesting idea. I instinctively bridle against it but then realise I can't find any reasonable arguments against it. My main argument against reducing the voting age to 16 is lack of maturity and responsibility. But someone else exercising that vote on behalf of the minor removes those objections.
I would have to consider it more but I think my first instictive response was probably wrong.
DJT needs to win any four out of NV, AZ, WI, MI, PA and GA.
It's hard to see KH stopping that. On paper, she's got no fucking chance but she might able to save one of them with a shewd Veep pick.
Trump 47 will be a mega LOL, so at least we can enjoy that once the Centrist Dads get over being dickhurt.
Hence Harris should pick Shapiro the Pennsylvania governor and then Trump has to win Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and one of Michigan or Georgia if she holds Pennsylvania
I agree with you: I don't think Kelly would hold AZ for Harris, but I do think Shapiro wins Pennsylvania.
And Pennsylvania is a big state; it means that Trump has to nearly sweep the board of the other in play states.
Pennsylvania has basically taken over from Ohio and Florida as the swing state. It is very difficult to see a Harris win without it.
What issue will most vex a swing voter in Pennsylvania two months from now? Or rather, make them turn out rather than sit at home.
I don't know. It has done reasonably well, if not spectacularly, economically over the last few years. They currently have abortion to 24 weeks but do not allow state dollars to pay for it. Shapiro has been looking to change that by providing funding to the less well off. I suspect that will be a major dividing line, and not just in Penn.
I have only been there once and it was quite a long time ago. It seemed a very prosperous place to me then. Some excellent micro breweries as I recall.
I was there for a week last year. It’s a real mix. Some elegant small towns and beautiful countryside but then some true poverty and rustbelt blight
"Votes for kids: why we should be giving children a say in elections
Many want the voting age to be lowered further, to 12 or even 6-year-olds. But any age higher than 0 leaves millions of child citizens without representation of their interests. That problem can be solved by giving children proxy votes from birth, to be cast by their primary carers. We can combine this with any voting age we deem right."
I have no particular evidence for this, but instinctively it feels like there would be a slightly higher tendency of deciding your children's votes for them among left wing parents.
"The right to vote is an inherent right of all citizens, and the first and most important marker of the capacity to participate in the setting of social priorities.
Children should be given that right from birth. But until they reach the age of majority it should be exercised by proxy with the custodial parent or parents given an extra vote for every child under their guardianship."
"My name is Miles Corak. I am a professor with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, trained in labour economics, and working on child rights, poverty, immigration, social and economic mobility, unemployment, and social policy."
That is an interesting idea. I instinctively bridle against it but then realise I can't find any reasonable arguments against it. My main argument against reducing the voting age to 16 is lack of maturity and responsibility. But someone else exercising that vote on behalf of the minor removes those objections.
I would have to consider it more but I think my first instictive response was probably wrong.
If the polls hold like this then it’s going to come down to GOTV operation and a very, very tiny margin of votes across the states determining the outcome.
If the polls stay like this, Harris is probably value as the election looks like anyone’s. But we really need to give it time for everything to settle and for the Dem convention to get out of the way.
I do think AZ is looking like a clear flip though.
I think Arizona and Nevada both look like clear flips to me: they are border (or near border) States, and I think that is where Biden will be weakest. People in those states also tend to be more negatively affected by higher interest rates, and are more leveraged: that makes them more economically sensitive too.
The rust belt is a bit more nuanced: border chaos will have had very little impact on peoples' day-to-day lives (and I doubt immigration is a top five issue in any of those states). The question is whether people felt richer under Trump, and the answer is probably yes... but marginally. We didn't see the economic underperformance of those states improve in 2017-2020 (while the sunbelt grew strongly), and so Trump's economic message is a harder sell.
"The right to vote is an inherent right of all citizens, and the first and most important marker of the capacity to participate in the setting of social priorities.
Children should be given that right from birth. But until they reach the age of majority it should be exercised by proxy with the custodial parent or parents given an extra vote for every child under their guardianship."
"My name is Miles Corak. I am a professor with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, trained in labour economics, and working on child rights, poverty, immigration, social and economic mobility, unemployment, and social policy."
That is an interesting idea. I instinctively bridle against it but then realise I can't find any reasonable arguments against it. My main argument against reducing the voting age to 16 is lack of maturity and responsibility. But someone else exercising that vote on behalf of the minor removes those objections.
I would have to consider it more but I think my first instictive response was probably wrong.
So what are they saying? If a parent has five kids they get to have five votes?
"Votes for kids: why we should be giving children a say in elections
Many want the voting age to be lowered further, to 12 or even 6-year-olds. But any age higher than 0 leaves millions of child citizens without representation of their interests. That problem can be solved by giving children proxy votes from birth, to be cast by their primary carers. We can combine this with any voting age we deem right."
I have no particular evidence for this, but instinctively it feels like there would be a slightly higher tendency of deciding your children's votes for them among left wing parents.
What happens when parents have differing political views, who decides the child's vote then ? I mean of course it should be discussed between the parents (It would be in our case) but if parents are separated and have different views, does the child's vote simply become an extension of whichever parent is the primary carer at the time ?
"The right to vote is an inherent right of all citizens, and the first and most important marker of the capacity to participate in the setting of social priorities.
Children should be given that right from birth. But until they reach the age of majority it should be exercised by proxy with the custodial parent or parents given an extra vote for every child under their guardianship."
"My name is Miles Corak. I am a professor with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, trained in labour economics, and working on child rights, poverty, immigration, social and economic mobility, unemployment, and social policy."
That is an interesting idea. I instinctively bridle against it but then realise I can't find any reasonable arguments against it. My main argument against reducing the voting age to 16 is lack of maturity and responsibility. But someone else exercising that vote on behalf of the minor removes those objections.
I would have to consider it more but I think my first instictive response was probably wrong.
So what are they saying? If a parent has five kids they get to have five votes?
Mick Philpot and Boris Johnson could be the key voters at a future election.
If so the ramifications for the US election will be huge
Nasdaq 100 is down 1650 points from its peak of 20,690 on July 10th. And last night
"Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost more than 1,000 points at one stage as pessimism set in around the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap companies on Wall Street.
The world’s only $3 trillion companies all dragged down markets, with Nvidia dropping 6.8pc, Apple down 2.9pc and Microsoft down 3.6pc. Tesla fell 12pc."
[The cause was Tesla and Alphabet (google) profits matching reality not insanity]
We will have to see. The US bond markets made some interesting moves yesterday, there was a massive move in the yield curve. 2Y is now above 10Y. But we have been here before many times.
Lots of chatter now that the Fed will cut this month.
I cannot see how Trumps isolationism and plans to weaponise the dollar through devalution could do anything positive.
Also whoever wins need to do something about the debt instead of just adding to it.
The political and economic volatility elsewhere is starting to make Britain look like a bit of a safe haven for investment, now the moron premium has gone and the dullness dividend kicks in. So says the Telegraph:
Yes, this was happening prior to the election as people and markets were factoring in a change of government,
Let's hope that Rachel Reeves is smart enough not to scare the horses. I think she is.
We have been undervalued for a while and if we don't value our businesses others will. Hence the bids for some from overseas.
One way that Labour are lucky is that if you are part of a group being chased by a crocodile, you don't need to be faster than the crocodile, just faster than the slowest person in the group.
Compared with the likes of France, our problems are minor and politics stable.
Sitting in the blissful sunshine of peaceful, almost Edenic Aveyron, the UK looks like a basket case of bad weather and brutal knife crime
It’s an unfair POV but it is hard to avoid
My daughter’s only experience of France til this summer was a depressing school trip to wintry Paris. She thought all of France was like that
Yesterday, after ten days touring Provence and Occitanie she spontaneously said “why is Britain so hideous. All our towns are ugly”
England is around 130k square km; Metropolitan France around 550k. That's half of the answer, I think ?
Yes. Plus the Industrial Revolution. Plus the Luftwaffe
But we have done an awful lot of it to ourselves. Far too much immigration adding to the overcrowding. Hideous post war architecture now compounded by hideous new town red brick Barratt home horrors. An apparent inability to make town centres “nice”.
Also an absurd political aversion to rebuilding bombed towns because “that’s pastiche”. Yet the French did it in st Malo and the poles in Warsaw and now we marvel at how beautiful they are
Britain has been governed by cretins (of all stripes) since about 1910
It was the industrial revolution which created the wealth that led to Victorian town halls, market places, museums and banks being built.
All those greco-roman style civic buildings which still look impressive in town centres.
Yes, because the Victorians threw a heck of a lot of money thrown at the prestige projects like town halls and museums.
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
Interesting. I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
There's good pastiche and bad pastiche imo, and good and bad renovations or updatings where the facade is kept.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Well I can't disagree with your middle paragraph.
But I don't see why we can't build in the style of 100 or 150 years ago. There's a couple of example near me: one a house which fell down after an incompetent builder was let loose on it, then rebuilt (by a different builder) in the same style but slightly larger: it's brilliant and makes me happy every time I pass it; not least because it looks like what it would have looked like when originally built, but with better quality windows; and another where a tired 1960s bungalow was knocked down and replaced by a large, handsome, double fronted 1920s style detached villa: again, it makes me happy every time I see it. Built to modern standards, but with the appealing aesthetic of the 1920s.
I don't see why this is wrong, or why trying to find some 'new' style would self-evidently be better. [This is exactly the mentality of clothing manufacturers, and another of my bugbears: all I want in a pair of trousers is exactly the same pair of trousers which have just worn out. I'm quite happy to dress in exactly the same style as I did when I reached adulthood. I'm sure most men are the same.]
I think the key driver at most times is likely to be because they will be more expensive, and perhaps time consuming, to build.
For some occasions we can do that - but it would not be the first priority for our own houses when it is "this recent-style one for 280k, or this same size one that is similar to live in and that will make your neighbours happy to look at, for 350k".
And a lot of the stuff - e g chimneys - are in general no longer needed so are just an ornament.
It's a complex topic - observing the approved ways to modify listed buildings over a number of decades is an interesting illustration of how their are fashion influences to everything.
The first example I gave was paid for by insurance, so keeping costs down were less of a priority!
For the second example, I spoke to the owner (who also works in the buidling industry). While he was absolutely delighted with the end product, he said getting it right was a massive pain in the arse - just getting the bricks to look right cost him an extra £25k. He didn't begrudge this, as his thinking (almost certainly correct, IMV) is that the extra £25k he paid added £25k to the value of his house. But I'd agree that this circumstance isn't necessarily typical, especially in a world where we want houses to be affordable.
which is sort of what you get if you take Georgian terrace bones and don't bother with the ornamentation. Shame that they end up quite so samey, but we can (and do) do a lot worse. Hopefully they will age well.
Comments
I don't recognise it.
I aadmire the instinct to check the source, but it feels reasonable for time and place (given the slope of the street!)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd1j7kg2nk0o
The 'ordinary' buildings: less so, and what we see remaining (and like) of the ordinary is selected; i.e. survivor bias.
As for pastiche: I've said this before, but it's probably worth repeating. A friend of mine is married to a German architect, and I took them for a walk around out new-build town. My area of the town has many different building styles, with different rooflines and coloured bricks, and even black-timber clad buildings made to look like barn conversions.
My friend thought it wasn't very good, as it was pastiche. The architect liked the differing styles and looks of the buildings (which are, incidentally, weathering at different rates).
Personally, I really, really like it. Yes, it's fake, but it does feel as though it was not all built at the same time.
Sadly, this experiment does not appear to be being repeated in other new build towns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Wet#Multiple_vote
The book wasn't really about the consequences of this - though the consequences were generally hinted to be positive - but about the adventure in which the protagonist earns the seventh vote.
During the Battle of France, the commander of a unit that was training up with Dewoitine D.520 refused to send his unit into battle, for example. Despite the pilot training having been done. All that was required was ammunition. He was waiting for orders....
After the fall of France, a military conference was held in Manchester, regarding the local situation in the event of an invasion. The commander of the heavy AA guns around Manchester announced that
1) The AA guns had been tested as anti-tank weapons. He'd managed to find by nefarious means some anti-armour rounds - could he please have more
2) He was testing the AA as impromptu field artillery. He'd found some men who'd served in the artillery and got them teaching the rest on techniques. He (the commander) had a list of small equipment (tables, sighting stuff) that would help - could he please get some.
Reading the minutes - it was an attitude of "how can I help the fight?" from all the participants.
I think both Betjeman and Jenkins wrote of the attractiveness of "Northern Market Towns"; by and large I think they are right, and Jenkins is far better writing about things more than 50 years old, than harrumphing away like a Woosterite Great Uncle.
However as we know this type of polling isn’t that accurate and in terms of his broad appeal to not just Pennsylvania but other swing states I’m not sure he ticks enough boxes.
I’m still minded to think Mark Kelly ticks more boxes . His back story is much more interesting and more likely to have that broad appeal. The son of two police officers , a fighter pilot and then astronaut , devoted husband of Gabby Gifford’s , he’s pro second amendment rights but wants more controls . He can talk from experience given how close his wife came to being killed.
More seriously, Poundbury tries, or tried (I have not been recently), to get a mix of styles.
Eg here, if you pan round, Queen Anne brick, render over something (clunch chalk?) and (in the distance) something that could be oolite or very thick Lias from south Somerset (not sure which).
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7107456,-2.4603382,3a,75y,35.48h,74.9t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sFPOa95EsO0vvWUKWb1pykQ!2e0!6shttps://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?panoid=FPOa95EsO0vvWUKWb1pykQ&cb_client=maps_sv.share&w=900&h=600&yaw=35.47988348339726&pitch=15.099893292437969&thumbfov=90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu
I'd be quite interested to know where this town is?
As far as I understand it, 'pastiche' means 'looking like it was from another architectural era'. I've yet to understand why this is thought to be a bad thing - particularly if you are an architect from an era where the contemporary style is horseshit.
Any day you learn something new is a good day.
This map I think shows it best https://www.270towin.com/maps/GmvVd
In Britain there was a sense of a hard fought victory and a sense of resignation that more conflict was coming. Later historiography about the war has coloured many contemporary views of the war (great war poets were for the most part posh public school boys) and much of the denigration of WW1 generals was overblown and ignored the realities of command in an era with such poor communication between the front and the commanders.
I think this goes a long way to explain the initial outcomes. The Germans wanted it, the French didn't and the Brits were up for a fight, but didn't really want it.
It needs some form of robust integrity of its own. So if it is built in (say) Georgian style with Georgian performance and heating requirements, or on the back of a Georgian facade with the floor heights so different that the new floor structures cut straight through the windows - then no.
If a contemporary style is horseshit, then it needs to be improved into a better contemporary style.
Spend a couple of minutes on google street view, and you'll get the idea.
The video of the drone chasing a soldier caught out in the open is horrible.
As we have discussed before the very nature of warfare is changing out of all recognition before our eyes.
Something we should be looking at for the UK new twosn rather than just getting one of the Big 7 to build soulless estates of crap boxes.
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/dec/15/almere-dutch-city-alternative-housing-custom-build
Cobbles are amazingly hard wearing but provide little grip if wet.
The women look like they are scrubbing the step - a routine job until the early 70's.
There was no litter as there was very little disposable plastic, products came in paper, cardboard, glass or tinned steel cans (Coca Cola only started using aluminium in the late 60's).
Newspaper was used for toilet paper, other paper and card was burnt, glass and tin cans recycled. It was possible (in Liverpool) to exchange cleaned jars for cinema ticket.
The houses were frequently terrible.
Damp was endemic, toilets would be outside, the worst housing would be courts where 4 houses either side of a communal area of 40 foot wide. There would be a shared toilet between 8 families.
Lets not romantasize.
As the point wasn't that important or controversial, I didn't really exercise my sceptical eye!
But I don't see why we can't build in the style of 100 or 150 years ago. There's a couple of example near me: one a house which fell down after an incompetent builder was let loose on it, then rebuilt (by a different builder) in the same style but slightly larger: it's brilliant and makes me happy every time I pass it; not least because it looks like what it would have looked like when originally built, but with better quality windows; and another where a tired 1960s bungalow was knocked down and replaced by a large, handsome, double fronted 1920s style detached villa: again, it makes me happy every time I see it. Built to modern standards, but with the appealing aesthetic of the 1920s.
I don't see why this is wrong, or why trying to find some 'new' style would self-evidently be better. [This is exactly the mentality of clothing manufacturers, and another of my bugbears: all I want in a pair of trousers is exactly the same pair of trousers which have just worn out. I'm quite happy to dress in exactly the same style as I did when I reached adulthood. I'm sure most men are the same.]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51y99re358o
It was damp, smoky and grim. I remember there being woollen covers everywhere to cover you when the coal ran out. Army quarters were pretty basic in those days with ice on the inside of the windows in the winter but it was still pretty shocking. I must have been about 6.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/226292/us-fertility-rates-by-race-and-ethnicity/
https://politicalwire.com/2024/07/24/trump-unloads-on-kamala-harris/
https://www.tiktok.com/@distant.elephant/video/7364218398231940398
For some occasions we can do that - but it would not be the first priority for our own houses when it is "this recent-style one for 280k, or this same size one that is similar to live in and that will make your neighbours happy to look at, for 350k".
And a lot of the stuff - e g chimneys - are in general no longer needed so are just an ornament.
It's a complex topic - observing the approved ways to modify listed buildings over a number of decades is an interesting illustration of how their are fashion influences to everything.
Harris 43% Trump 44%
https://survey.mrxsurveys.com/orc/pollingresults/Big-Village-Political-Poll-07.24.24.pdf
Von Ribbentrop: Churchill, if there is a war, we will have the Italians on our side this time.
Churchill: My dear Ambassador, it's only fair. We had them last time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2732329.stm
"Parents should be given extra votes to cast on behalf of their children in order to make politics more "family friendly".
This is one of the reforms proposed in the report by left-of-centre think-tank Demos. It recommends that the voting age be lowered from 18 to 14.
It also suggests that the parents of children below the age of 14 given an extra vote they would cast after discussing it with their children."
@LukeTryl
·
2h
No doubt failure to control immigration cost Tories votes, ditto losing their advantage on tax. But voters biggest frustration was that basic services - particularly NHS - felt broken. Real risk the leadership contest overlooks public services which voters most want answers on
https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1816389509061149004
Harris v. Trump
Arizona: Trump 49%, Harris 44%
Georgia: Trump 48%, Harris 46%
Michigan: Trump 46%, Harris 45%
Pennsylvania: Trump 48%, Harris 46%
Wisconsin: Trump 47%, Harris 47%
https://x.com/EmersonPolling/status/1816414533520367753
A high-ranking official in the German government has called for letting kids vote. “We must give children a voice — in elections as well,” said Dirk Niebel, minister of economic cooperation and development.
Germany has about 13 million people younger than 18. Niebel says denying voting rights to children is as “absurd” as it would be to deny them to people older than 65 years old.
Of course, there's also the question of at what age kids should be allowed to vote. Niebel proposed that parents could supervise their children's voting and even vote for them."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/allow-kids-to-vote-some-adults-in-germany-think-it-would-be-the-right-thing-to-do/2013/01/10/58957fe6-56b7-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html
Dirk Niebel was a minister from the Free Democrats, probably the most liberal party in Germany.
I remember Peter Hitchens arguing that those who had done military service be allowed two votes too iirc.
"Votes for kids: why we should be giving children a say in elections
Many want the voting age to be lowered further, to 12 or even 6-year-olds. But any age higher than 0 leaves millions of child citizens without representation of their interests. That problem can be solved by giving children proxy votes from birth, to be cast by their primary carers. We can combine this with any voting age we deem right."
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/votes-for-kids-why-we-should-be-giving-children-a-say-in-elections/
They lack experience, judgement, and fully developed brains.
When Lycurgus mocked democracy by saying those who believed it should start with their own family he was taking the piss.
Here's Elon Musk last year saying you shouldn't get a vote if you don't have children: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-children-voting-rights-b2369096.html
Fidesz were pushing this in 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20120311112541/http://www.politics.hu/20110404/fidesz-official-urges-body-set-up-to-examine-giving-extra-vote-to-families/
"Parents vote for children? Why not
There’s no reason Demeny voting when kids are small can’t coexist with giving teenagers the vote a little earlier, if that’s what’s required to make their parents’ empowerment during their minority more tolerable."
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/parents-vote-for-children-why-not/
"The right to vote is an inherent right of all citizens, and the first and most important marker of the capacity to participate in the setting of social priorities.
Children should be given that right from birth. But until they reach the age of majority it should be exercised by proxy with the custodial parent or parents given an extra vote for every child under their guardianship."
https://milescorak.com/2012/04/20/how-to-give-children-the-vote/
Description of the author
"My name is Miles Corak. I am a professor with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, trained in labour economics, and working on child rights, poverty, immigration, social and economic mobility, unemployment, and social policy."
For the second example, I spoke to the owner (who also works in the buidling industry). While he was absolutely delighted with the end product, he said getting it right was a massive pain in the arse - just getting the bricks to look right cost him an extra £25k. He didn't begrudge this, as his thinking (almost certainly correct, IMV) is that the extra £25k he paid added £25k to the value of his house. But I'd agree that this circumstance isn't necessarily typical, especially in a world where we want houses to be affordable.
But pastiche (in its non-pejorative sense) can be done well and affordably. I often give the example of Timekeepers' Square in Salford: https://buttress.net/projects/timekeepers-square
If the polls stay like this, Harris is probably value as the election looks like anyone’s. But we really need to give it time for everything to settle and for the Dem convention to get out of the way.
I do think AZ is looking like a clear flip though.
That been said I think they should have gone for Gretchen. But they've decided to stick with the Veep.
I would have to consider it more but I think my first instictive response was probably wrong.
Pittsburgh looks kinda meh
The rust belt is a bit more nuanced: border chaos will have had very little impact on peoples' day-to-day lives (and I doubt immigration is a top five issue in any of those states). The question is whether people felt richer under Trump, and the answer is probably yes... but marginally. We didn't see the economic underperformance of those states improve in 2017-2020 (while the sunbelt grew strongly), and so Trump's economic message is a harder sell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_Vernacular
which is sort of what you get if you take Georgian terrace bones and don't bother with the ornamentation. Shame that they end up quite so samey, but we can (and do) do a lot worse. Hopefully they will age well.