Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
Stop patronising the poor and the old, who use cashless in their millions daily eg on the London bus network.
Do you ever get out of London and into the real world
I live in Newcastle and never use or carry cash
Yes and newcastle is as I remember a city....not a rural area where you sometimes have to walk around trying to get a signal
Llandudno Mostyn Street is shocking for that and is regularly discussed by the shops and on forums that there is simply no signal
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
I’m pretty sure my learning disabilities great-niece doesn’t have a card. I don’t think she could cope with it.
Interesting - genuinely. I suppose I find counting cash out quite challenging (certainly much more difficult than a contactless payment) , and have fallen for the trap of assuming everyone else does too.
The problem is that paying with contactless is *too* easy. Until it stops working because you have no money left.
a) Big Issue sellers (and as Divvie notes beggars in general) b) Wong Kei Restaurant for Char Siu Pork and Duck Rice c) Some barbers e) to not be tracked for every minute of your waking life f) er g) that's it.
Was in the US in February and asked hotel to arrange a cab and they laughed and said nobody uses cabs except to go to drug deals, otherwise it's Uber all the way. I 100% understand that, but I 0% understand the militancy about the issue. Politics is basically about the non privileged. The fact that someone can personally afford a cashless lifestyle is as relevant as that they can afford a Porsche.
I'm not sure that's right. I'm not militant about it but very few people of any socioeconomic group need cash these days.
I mostly don't use cash but sometimes I do because as I said no network connection....I am not anti using a card just too many times its a case of needing the back up cash because something went wrong. What am I meant to do when I get a taxi and they try the card machine and it doesn't work....tell them to drop me off a mile away where there is a signal?
A taxi with a card machine that doesn't work? Never!
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
This isnt just a Thames Water issue though. The regulator/government are demanding an increased level of investment which can only come from bill payers, but are blocking the increasing of bills to achieve it.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Why do water companies advertise? It’s not as if consumers have a choice. Probably doesn’t cost a lot in the great scheme of things, of course, but it always annoys me when I see carefully crafted TV adverts for Anglian Water.
a) Big Issue sellers (and as Divvie notes beggars in general) b) Wong Kei Restaurant for Char Siu Pork and Duck Rice c) Some barbers e) to not be tracked for every minute of your waking life f) er g) that's it.
Was in the US in February and asked hotel to arrange a cab and they laughed and said nobody uses cabs except to go to drug deals, otherwise it's Uber all the way. I 100% understand that, but I 0% understand the militancy about the issue. Politics is basically about the non privileged. The fact that someone can personally afford a cashless lifestyle is as relevant as that they can afford a Porsche.
I'm not sure that's right. I'm not militant about it but very few people of any socioeconomic group need cash these days.
I mostly don't use cash but sometimes I do because as I said no network connection....I am not anti using a card just too many times its a case of needing the back up cash because something went wrong. What am I meant to do when I get a taxi and they try the card machine and it doesn't work....tell them to drop me off a mile away where there is a signal?
A taxi with a card machine that doesn't work? Never!
If the machine gets no signal then yes it doesn't work
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
This isnt just a Thames Water issue though. The regulator/government are demanding an increased level of investment which can only come from bill payers, but are blocking the increasing of bills to achieve it.
If they hadn’t run up debt to give money to the shareholders, they would have lots of that profit thing to invest in their business.
This sounds like Boeing complaining they can’t compete with the loony from South Africa. Because said loony keeps on investing in his business, not loading up with debt to do buybacks.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
I’ve told you the story about EE moving the focus of the local antennas to the A1M instead of focusing on a local housing estate - resulting in their senior network engineering being in a house without a signal.
The 2 hour downtime did result in the issue being fixed rather rapidly 4 months after the issue was first reported
I don’t think the HR person woke up at 3am to get his home address was that impressed either although the security guard tasked with waking him up didn’t mind
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.
We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
I must say I’d prefer it if they did have a reader or similar.
It does feel safer than cash when visiting an otherwise unsupervised building.
The random damage vandals might do almost certainly massively outweighs the tiny amount of cash that might accumulate in the cash box over the course of a week for an average unsupervised church. For instance there's a little one near where I grew up that's in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It's got some nice wall paintings of saints that are mediaeval survivals -- but it also has a boarded up east window following some vandalism a while back, and last I heard the cost to fix that was in the five figures. https://www.visitchurches.org.uk/visit/church-listing/all-saints-little-wenham.html
(You can donate by text or online, if you want ;-))
Not a problem in our rural churches, on;y visitors outside of services we get are walkers and a few US tourists to see the one where Locke is buried. Plus had a homeless tramp who slept in the porch of another one a few years ago
Little Wenham is pretty rural -- it's not on a public road, and the usual way to get there is to walk. Rural areas have bored and stupid teenagers too... But yes, this kind of thing is comparatively pretty rare and most churches that are left unlocked are fine. (As an atheist I appreciate that they are accessible.)
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
I’ve told you the story about EE moving the focus of the local antennas to the A1M instead of focusing on a local housing estate - resulting in their senior network engineering being in a house without a signal.
The 2 hour downtime did result in the issue being fixed rather rapidly 4 months after the issue was first reported
In my area things were largely fine till a building was expanded upwards, I guess now we are in some sort of shadow
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
I can only get a signal in the bay window of my flat's front room. That's where my phone lives.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
The great John Rawls. The right way to organise society is from the perspective that it works properly and well from the point of view of someone who doesn't know what place he or she is going to have within it.
The old and poor are not paramount, but how we are organised must take account of the old, the poor, those born with heroin addiction and fetal alcohol syndrome because of their mothers etc. Keeping cash going isn't a high price for the rest to pay.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
I’ve told you the story about EE moving the focus of the local antennas to the A1M instead of focusing on a local housing estate - resulting in their senior network engineering being in a house without a signal.
The 2 hour downtime did result in the issue being fixed rather rapidly 4 months after the issue was first reported
In my area things were largely fine till a building was expanded upwards, I guess now we are in some sort of shadow
It doesn’t take much - John Lewis Oxford street is a faraday cage depending on the network you are on and the frequencies they own / use
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.
We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
How the hell do you think these machines offline...they need to contact your bank to make sure you have funds. Most of them work off mobile to connect....else shops wouldn't put up signs saying sorry cash only we don't have a connection. I didn't claim I couldn't make cash payments when it happens I was complaining about the idiots wanting to phase out cash as contactless works for them reliably....because they live in area's with always good connectivity
a) Big Issue sellers (and as Divvie notes beggars in general) b) Wong Kei Restaurant for Char Siu Pork and Duck Rice c) Some barbers e) to not be tracked for every minute of your waking life f) er g) that's it.
Was in the US in February and asked hotel to arrange a cab and they laughed and said nobody uses cabs except to go to drug deals, otherwise it's Uber all the way. I 100% understand that, but I 0% understand the militancy about the issue. Politics is basically about the non privileged. The fact that someone can personally afford a cashless lifestyle is as relevant as that they can afford a Porsche.
I'm not sure that's right. I'm not militant about it but very few people of any socioeconomic group need cash these days.
I mostly don't use cash but sometimes I do because as I said no network connection....I am not anti using a card just too many times its a case of needing the back up cash because something went wrong. What am I meant to do when I get a taxi and they try the card machine and it doesn't work....tell them to drop me off a mile away where there is a signal?
I always have some cash with me - basically at least enough to get home. It isn't exactly hard to get rid of it when you feel you have too much.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
It’s always been latest comments at the end as far as I’m concerned.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
I was worried it was just me
On the cash issue, I just don't understand the militancy. I have no need for a wheelchair. They cost me time by getting in my way and money because the government and businesses have to spend money on wheelchair accessibility. Neither point is a good argument against wheelchairs. Even if wheelchairs were exceptionally useful for drug dealers I would not think that a good reason to restrict their availability to the disabled. And I certainly would not go on about it.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
It’s always been latest comments at the end as far as I’m concerned.
That's on Vanilla PB; on proper PB.com it's latest comments at the top, just near the posting box.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
Which is what I suggested (if it’s any easy fix ) or at the very least reported to vanilla so they can fix whatever they have screwed up
Like it or not but the childless/parent divide is I fear going to become more and more of a political issue as the number of childless people grows. There is already a growing tension around 'child-friendly' policies and you now hear talk of 'who's going to look after them when they're old.' I suppose it is something I ought to think of myself but I don't. Who cares to think of themselves as old and incapable?
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
Cultural shifts happened a lot quicker. I did my A-Levels in 1992 and went off to do a gap yah in India teaching English for six months. When I left it was the tail end of Madchester (the music press was awaiting The Happy Mondays' "Yes Please" with increasingly hilarious reports from Barbados), shoegaze, and grunge.
When got back in early 93 Suede were just starting, heralding 3 and a half years of Britpop shite. Okay, it had its moments (I actually quite like Suede and Pulp were ace in that period) but a lot of it was twee bollocks. There was definitely a cultural shift of sorts while I was away. And I missed nearly the entire run of 'Eldorado', which I've always regretted.
Then Britpop definitively ended when the BBC played 'Walkaway' by Cast over the closing credits of England's Euro '96 semi-final loss. The following year everyone seemed to have a mobile phone. Except me.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
I was worried it was just me
On the cash issue, I just don't understand the militancy. I have no need for a wheelchair. They cost me time by getting in my way and money because the government and businesses have to spend money on wheelchair accessibility. Neither point is a good argument against wheelchairs. Even if wheelchairs were exceptionally useful for drug dealers I would not think that a good reason to restrict their availability to the disabled. And I certainly would not go on about it.
There are people who need cash
1)because It’s what they are used to 2) it’s how they were taught to budget 3) it’s how they can manage to work out what is left to spend that week / month
I cant remember if it’s Sweden or Norway but one of them has got to the point where so many businesses went cashless that they’ve discovered that cash is essential for some people so it’s now legally required that cash has to be accepted
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Vanilla will seduce you in in the end.
I've had to resort to Vanilla temporarily, PB.com is currently unusable.
But vanilla PB is inferior to a properly working PB.com imo.
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Technology isn't changing very much either, except in IT and some parts of medicine. Certainly little compared to the giant strides between 1750 and 1900 in transportation, sanitation, refrigeration, industrial processes, chemistry and chemical engineering, etc etc etc.
Still, I suppose at least we're not going backwards, though the Unabomber and some other Green nutters would like us to.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
Stop patronising the poor and the old, who use cashless in their millions daily eg on the London bus network.
Do you ever get out of London and into the real world
I live in Newcastle and never use or carry cash
I’ve never needed it for years, and I travel all over Europe. It’s pointless.
I'll be honest when pb initially reversed the comments from top to bottom all those years ago it did take some getting used to. Feels like a blast from the past.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.
We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
I do lots of hiking across very rural parts of England and Wales. Haven’t taken or needed cash ever.
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
@TSE@rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
I was worried it was just me
On the cash issue, I just don't understand the militancy. I have no need for a wheelchair. They cost me time by getting in my way and money because the government and businesses have to spend money on wheelchair accessibility. Neither point is a good argument against wheelchairs. Even if wheelchairs were exceptionally useful for drug dealers I would not think that a good reason to restrict their availability to the disabled. And I certainly would not go on about it.
There are people who need cash
1)because It’s what they are used to 2) it’s how they were taught to budget 3) it’s how they can manage to work out what is left to spend that week / month
I cant remember if it’s Sweden or Norway but one of them has got to the point where so many businesses went cashless that they’ve discovered that cash is essential for some people so it’s now legally required that cash has to be accepted
Really? Are online businesses forced to accept cash?
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Technology isn't changing very much either, except in IT and some parts of medicine. Certainly little compared to the giant strides between 1750 and 1900 in transportation, sanitation, refrigeration, industrial processes, chemistry and chemical engineering, etc etc etc.
Still, I suppose at least we're not going backwards, though the Unabomber and some other Green nutters would like us to.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.
We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
How the hell do you think these machines offline...they need to contact your bank to make sure you have funds. Most of them work off mobile to connect....else shops wouldn't put up signs saying sorry cash only we don't have a connection. I didn't claim I couldn't make cash payments when it happens I was complaining about the idiots wanting to phase out cash as contactless works for them reliably....because they live in area's with always good connectivity
The way the contactless payment went in and out of usability was quite an issue on the train from Wellington to Auckland earlier this year. I tended to use cash wherever possible because in NZ there is some confusion between credit cards and what we call debit cards. The problem with cash was that it was tendered so infrequently that very few were sure whether a particular note was genuine or not. It didn't help that every denomination had two different designs but on the same colour scheme and same general theme - very strange.
Have still bought some Euros to take to France next week.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
Turning this round - wouldn't it be better to have a modest quantity of regulations actually enforced, rather than millions of them ignored by everyone?
Did this sort of nonsense happen before ? These sorts of issues seem much more prevalent on new build estates compared to previous times.
Shoddy building work has been around since Ug moved out of his cave. Larger developers have also always tended to be the most shoddy - small time builders who trade on their reputations have much more incentive to get stuff right first time around.
The main issue is that the rapidly growing burden of regulation is imposing substantial costs on smaller builders, so squeezing them out in favour of the bigger (and generally worse) players.
Rewinding building regs to those in force in say 2000 would have much more effect on the cost of housing than Barty's preferred abolition of planning permission.
Though it is the requirement for planning permission that is giving permission to the big developers to build 100s of homes in estates, while preventing small developers from getting permission to build small quantities of homes.
If small developers didn't need permission to build, they'd be able to do so.
Did you actually read what I wrote?
I don't particularly disagree with you about a lot of the evils of the planning system, but simply abolishing planning won't reduce house prices much, not least because of massive compliance costs on smaller developers from building regs.
When building a nice 4 bed costs the thick end of 300k without considering land or planning costs, that sets a floor for the price even if there was no planning and land was free. The only route I can see to reduced build costs is a reduction in the scope of building regs.
A very very bad idea. We already have homes for poor people being built in ex commercial property that have no windows. And grenfell. We need constant iteration of improving standards. Quality matters.
If you want to know how to deal with housing I’ll tell you, and it’s supported by the Local Government Association.
Let councils charge council tax on the stalled homes sitting unstarted unbuilt in land banks and uncompleted developments.
There are 1.5million plots with planning permission. Stalled. Tax that and all of a sudden the chance of us getting some houses built is going to improve.
That would get the opposite of what you want - those 1.5 million houses would get built alright, but no one would put anything else into the planning system for after that point, as they would just be generating tax liabilities.
What you want is a few, but sane, building regs, actually efforced. What we have is the total opposite, insane numbers of regs, little meaningful result, lots of cost. The fix for this is not more regs - it's to abolish most of them, then actually enforce the ones that are worth having.
Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.
I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.
We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
How the hell do you think these machines offline...they need to contact your bank to make sure you have funds. Most of them work off mobile to connect....else shops wouldn't put up signs saying sorry cash only we don't have a connection. I didn't claim I couldn't make cash payments when it happens I was complaining about the idiots wanting to phase out cash as contactless works for them reliably....because they live in area's with always good connectivity
The way the contactless payment went in and out of usability was quite an issue on the train from Wellington to Auckland earlier this year. I tended to use cash wherever possible because in NZ there is some confusion between credit cards and what we call debit cards. The problem with cash was that it was tendered so infrequently that very few were sure whether a particular note was genuine or not. It didn't help that every denomination had two different designs but on the same colour scheme and same general theme - very strange.
Have still bought some Euros to take to France next week.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.
This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
Tele home page reporting BBC chief saying we've "all be let down by Jenas and Edwards"
Why are they conflating Jenas with Edwards? As far as I know Jenas has been "inappropriate" with someone who worked for the BBC while Edwards is a convicted criminal with a penchant for child porn?
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
I remember during the knockout stage of the Euros, someone likened Starmer's instruction that people support the England team to a headteacher scolding the pupils at an assembly. This is similar.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
a) Big Issue sellers (and as Divvie notes beggars in general) b) Wong Kei Restaurant for Char Siu Pork and Duck Rice c) Some barbers e) to not be tracked for every minute of your waking life f) er g) that's it.
Was in the US in February and asked hotel to arrange a cab and they laughed and said nobody uses cabs except to go to drug deals, otherwise it's Uber all the way. I 100% understand that, but I 0% understand the militancy about the issue. Politics is basically about the non privileged. The fact that someone can personally afford a cashless lifestyle is as relevant as that they can afford a Porsche.
I'm not sure that's right. I'm not militant about it but very few people of any socioeconomic group need cash these days.
Did a meet with a load of local orgs re the loss of the last bank in the town. As someone that gets cash out every couple of years, I was dubious.
I was wrong, arguments made by Citizens Advice, AgeUK, and quite a lot of other non profit kind of people were convincing. Some of the stories quite distressing.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
I remember during the knockout stage of the Euros, someone likened Starmer's instruction that people support the England team to a headteacher scolding the pupils at an assembly. This is similar.
Meanwhile cannabis smoke gets ever harder to avoid.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
I remember during the knockout stage of the Euros, someone likened Starmer's instruction that people support the England team to a headteacher scolding the pupils at an assembly. This is similar.
Meanwhile cannabis smoke gets ever harder to avoid.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
Good for them. But it is pointless.
Your certainty on this issue is...alarming.
My take is that if certain businesses want to stop taking cash, so be it. They can take the risk of the loss of business not being sufficient to close them down. But cash is vital to the way many budget. We should do all we can to preserve their right to cash.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
Good for them. But it is pointless.
To you it is - but not many others
It is so pointless, risky, wasteful and tedious a system of transaction that many businesses abandon it daily, with Tesco cafes being the latest high-profile case to do so. There will always be a handful of cash fetishists: many of them reside on PB. But it’s so inconvenient compared to contactless that most people will avoid it.
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
I remember during the knockout stage of the Euros, someone likened Starmer's instruction that people support the England team to a headteacher scolding the pupils at an assembly. This is similar.
Meanwhile cannabis smoke gets ever harder to avoid.
Have you considered not rolling joints?
Isn’t that poverty shaming? Shirley, anyone of means has a professional blunt roller on their entourage?
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
Disgraceful decision which will victimise the mostly pensioner customer base they have.
People have an odd view of what a pensioner is, I think normally based on what one was when the person doing the imagining was much younger.
Someone who is 80 now was born in 1944, was a youth in the swinging 60s, and retired well into this century when offices were packed with computers, mobile phone use was near universal etc.
This idea that there are many pensioners knocking about who are anachronistic figures from some long forgotten age, who can't get their head around chip'n'pin is fanciful.
I was born in 1944 and for me personally I have no issues with a cashless society or using banking apps for shopping
However, I also accept that there remains a good number of pensioners who still rely on cash and I just cannot understand the animosity towards their wish to continue using cash or indeed animosity to pensioners generally
I’m a bit older…..I was at school when Big G was born ….. and I’m normally quite happy with using a card, BUT I went this morning to a Men’s Coffee morning where I was asked to pay £2 towards coffee and a tin was passed round. I’m not yet sure how organizations like that can cope with cards without buying a card reader.
Card readers cost peanuts. And are very soon paid for by the increase they generate in extra donations (from people who don’t carry cash).
And sod the poor, old and stupid. Gotcha
I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.
But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.
Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
Lost causes are my idiom.
Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
Good for them. But it is pointless.
Your certainty on this issue is...alarming.
My take is that if certain businesses want to stop taking cash, so be it. They can take the risk of the loss of business not being sufficient to close them down. But cash is vital to the way many budget. We should do all we can to preserve their right to cash.
Such as? I wouldn’t force businesses to accept it. If they want to go cashless, up to them.
So...taking their own explanation at face value, they provide a poor service and infrastructure at the moment? Despite the defence for current bills being that it was for investment into service and infrastructure? And they chose to make poor business decisions and now need very high bills to correct for that? On Wednesday, the company announced it wanted to go further, hiking bills by as much as 59%. The proposed changes in bills do not take account of inflation.
Such a move would take the average annual water bill to £638 per customer by 2030. Average bills are currently around £443.
Chris Weston, chief executive of Thames Water, said the money from higher bills would be invested in new infrastructure and improving services.
"They [customers] are not being asked to pay twice, but to make up for years of focus on keeping bills low," he said in a response to the regulator. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2lgl9kypno
Wait, what?
Yorkshire Water charge me about £700, and that's with a discount for no rainwater discharge.
Cash has been the one defining requirement for sophisticated societies for the last three thousand years or so. I instinctively feel there is a need for it, but I can't back it up
Two NYT front pages for comparison. Anyone who claims the NYT favours the Democrats - as the now departed Leon claimed on a regular basis - is full of shit.
On left: Oct 29 2016. James Comey discovers some emails, revives inquiry into HRC email. (Later dismissed.)
A company as badly run as that with so many questions over where the money has gone should not be asking for hiked bills in a monopoly they have mismanaged to survive.
Not, at least, until they have explained how debts ballooned while they were paying dividends claiming large profits - and recovered that money....
Yep let the shareholders lose their arses. If they couldn’t afford to pay dividends, they shouldn’t have paid them.
There needs to be a huge public campaign for the Government to let the company go bust.
Isnt this about the government imposing greater regulatory burden on the water companies but not allowing them to raise the funds to do the work? This is a consequence of denouncing the company that is responsible for the cleanest river going through a capital city in the world as if they were dumping untreated sewage. It's hard to be sympathetic to Thames Water, but they are not at fault here.
Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
This isnt just a Thames Water issue though. The regulator/government are demanding an increased level of investment which can only come from bill payers, but are blocking the increasing of bills to achieve it.
The current owners were stupid enough to buy a regulated company with £15bn in debt and the banks/bond investors were stupid enough to lend a regulated company £15bn, both need to take big haircuts, as much as 80% for bondholders for the government to bail it out. The value of Thames Water is well below zero and the lenders won't want to take equity, I'm pretty sure they'd grab 20p in the pound if the government offered it.
Has PB discussed this excellent decision by Tesco? I may even do a thread on it.
Tesco ditches cash payments at 40 cafes
Retailer says the move has improved the cafe experience by cutting waiting times
Tesco has ditched cash at 40 of its cafes with customers forced to pay by card at self-service machines.
The supermarket giant says the overhaul has boosted the customer experience and the changes have been well-received, but critics said it was “bonkers” and risked alienating elderly customers.
Martin Quinn, of Campaign for Cash, branded the change a “mad decision”.
He said: “Many of the customers will be elderly or retirees who want to order in person, not press a computer screen. This is a mad decision.”
So far, 40 cafes have been redesigned and more are thought to be in the pipeline.
As ever, the move is more to the advantage of the retailer - who has to deal with all that cash - than the customer.
I wish, for once, retailers (and banks!) were honest about this, instead of the 'quicker' excuse.
It is quicker though.
And safer.
And less wasteful.
Cash is a pointless pain.
For you, maybe.
For others, not so much.
But as a selfish right-winger, you only ever think of yourself.
The only people who "need" cash are drug dealers.
Or me, when I want to use the lockers at the swimming pool...
Time for your pool to upgrade to the 21st century then.
Okay. Think for a minute how that works:
At the moment you put a pound coin in the locker and withdraw the key. When you come back, you unlock it with the key and get the pound coin out. It is not a financial transaction; but a little security to ensure some idiots do not lock all the lockers.
There are alternative systems, but from what I've read they all have various issues, not the least cost.
This is what you need.
They're okay, but they're another thing to keep on me in case I need it - and I can't keep it on my keyring without leaving my keys dangling from it. Unless I go to the faff of removing it. Whereas a good old pound coin is useful for so much more.
Such as?
Jesus
Buying stuff when you are not a well heeled middle class guy with a bunch of cards and apps. Which I am, and I still find cash useful because the local sub PO prefers it and because I use the odd carpark in signal free places. If I were poor I would not have three bank accounts and five cards, all duplicated on my phone, and cash would be essential. You are so deep into "let them eat cake" country it's embarrassing.
I when I get taxi's down in devon often find I am dropped off in places with little mobile coverage....oh cant use a card to pay
Contactless payment works without mobile coverage (including on your phone).
Are you talking about a shop that doesn't have a chip and pin machine? That's rather different, and a choice of that business to forgo lots of custom. Free country.
No my local shop has contactless and chip and pin....just sometimes it doesnt work because no network connection. You need a network connection to approve your purchase
This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).
Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
I was at a gig at Alexandra Palace and the streetfood place I got some chili from couldn't accept any payments because they couldn't get a proper signal.
Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).
The traditional media have not had a great election so far. Good article, I think.
How the media blew 2024′s election
https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/media-elections-dnc-kamala-harris-military-20240827.html .. I’ll start with the weekend’s lowlight: a news story that worked up the media food chain from the muck of smaller right-wing outlets, then got boosted on X/Twitter by Alex Thompson, a widely read national political correspondent for Axios, before the New York Post hyped it in your local Wawa and eventually the New York Times felt compelled to address it. You see, an idea that has animated the right for the last couple of weeks is the fantasy that Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz is a phony. Sunday’s purported news slammed Walz for a 2006 episode when his then-congressional campaign claimed he’d won a youth award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce when really it was — get this! — the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce!
Never mind that the 2006 Walz campaign had corrected this tiny mistake (picture Barack Obama doing the hand thing, but even smaller), probably the work of a junior staffer, the second they learned about it…
.. It would require another column — maybe a book — to explain why this is happening. I see it as less the public’s main complaint (corporate control of the media) and more about our profession’s weird value structure, where it’s more important to be savvy, cynical, and not be portrayed as naive shills for liberalism than to care about saving democracy from authoritarian rule, on top of maybe a new and not always healthy brand of careerism from younger journalists.
The Chicago-based media critic Mark Jacob, a retired veteran editor of that city’s Tribune and Sun Times, nailed it Monday with a piece headlined “Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance.” Jacob has harsh words for how reporters have covered the race, writing that “too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources — in service to the political industry, not the public.” But he also notes that traditional media can’t figure out how to compete for young eyeballs against sites like edgy and fast-paced TikTok. Jacob pointed out that public faith in mass media has plunged from 72% in 1976, after Watergate, to just 32% today.
You know who gets the new landscape better than anyone else? Kamala Harris…
Picked up one of those right wing radio stations while driving across Ohio earlier; relentless non-stop anti-Kamala bile being churned out, hour after hour. Hopefully they don’t have too many swing voters as listeners?
Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).
Yeah, Covid turned us into a nation of snitchers and curtain twitchers so there are no negatives for Puritanical Starmer in this policy but doesn't make it right.
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
Is this really necessary?
Children’s parks I get.
Pub gardens? Outside other buildings?
I hate smoking, but unless we actually ban it, what’s the idea here?
It's a thing that they can do, that doesn't cost any money. The vast majority of people don't smoke, and don't like it when other people smoke near them.
I can understand why they've done it, although I've already implicitly criticised it myself.
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
This is what they've been longing to get into power for 14 years to do? What an absolute shower.
This is in line with the general theme of 'continuity desperation'. Make up laws you think they will be popular but then just roll them out with no idea who will enforce them or any assessment of the impact. This one might actually not be a good idea, IE people will stop going to pubs, not sure if there will be an exemption for shisha tents. But even if it is a good idea, it can't be implemented/enforced without resources, of which there are none.
So...taking their own explanation at face value, they provide a poor service and infrastructure at the moment? Despite the defence for current bills being that it was for investment into service and infrastructure? And they chose to make poor business decisions and now need very high bills to correct for that? On Wednesday, the company announced it wanted to go further, hiking bills by as much as 59%. The proposed changes in bills do not take account of inflation.
Such a move would take the average annual water bill to £638 per customer by 2030. Average bills are currently around £443.
Chris Weston, chief executive of Thames Water, said the money from higher bills would be invested in new infrastructure and improving services.
"They [customers] are not being asked to pay twice, but to make up for years of focus on keeping bills low," he said in a response to the regulator. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2lgl9kypno
Wait, what?
Yorkshire Water charge me about £700, and that's with a discount for no rainwater discharge.
Perhaps they do have low bills....
[Edit: or perhaps I need a meter....]
No, I have a meter, and they’re still just thieves.
Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).
Yeah, Covid turned us into a nation of snitchers and curtain twitchers so there are no negatives for Puritanical Starmer in this policy but doesn't make it right.
We need an anti-authoritarian fightback in this country, but I can't think which party or politicians are going to lead it. Very depressing situation.
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
What a joke. I don't smoke but this is excessive. Kids parks I can just about understand but everything else is ridiculous. Banning smoking around hospitals is going to result in a reduction of operating hours because doctors (of which at least half smoke in my experience) will have to walk all over the place to have a fag and that will eat into patient hours. Pub gardens are completely idiotic to ban smoking in, it's outdoors in a generally over 18s location.
I think Labour are speed running unpopularity. I don't think they've thought this through at all. The Tories didn't recover when they became very unpopular and I don't think Labour realise there is a point at which there is no return, time won't solve it for them.
"Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
Talking of old films, I went to see Pulp Fiction at the cinema last night. At the risk of making many of you feel old it was the 30th anniversary of its release.
It stood up pretty well. The music was excellent and the conversational parts were still hilarious. Rather more casual racism than you would get these days. There was a bit where they were driving in a car and it was incredibly obvious that it was a movie out the back window and they were not actually driving but I suspect that was Tarentino's joke/homage to earlier films.
Well worth a watch if you can catch it.
Going to watch Pulp Fiction at the Phoenix in Oxford in Oct 94 and then going for Chinese food afterwards with a group of about 10 from college was my No.1 Gen X zeitgeist moment of the 90s.
Is the mid-1990s the last "previous era"?
DavidL's post got me thinking about how the passage of time is not linear. 1970s television series Happy Days looked back only 20 years but it was another world. 20 years before now, 2004, is merely a primitive version of now, with mobile but not quite smart phones, and the web just before Twitter and YouTube.
1994 had mobile phones but they were status items. Rich people with teenage children had home computers but they were by no means universal. PCs were, however, taking over offices. Britpop. Cool Britannia. Whatever happened to Oasis? Tbh in the course of writing this paragraph, I've changed my mind. 1994 was not qualitatively different from now.
I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
Culturally, I expect that the 20s will be noted for the total collapse of traditional broadcasters amongst the working age and youth.
Twitter is already better for live news, so it’s now just sports keeping people to linear programming.
Netflix have done a couple of very successful live broadcast comedy shows this year, but they’re inevitably picking a time slot for the larger US audience.
Yes, and streaming does a lousy job of streaming sports – it is often 120 seconds behind. The lag is prohibitive during major live events. If that can be fixed, reliably, it might eventually take over. But, for now, proper TV has an unbeatable edge on sports – and streaming a fatal flaw.
Amazon claiming their new CL coverage this season will be 10 seconds delay on any modern device including phone. They have one group match per week.
Live broadcasts have a delay. The delay in streaming is a mix of incompetent implementation and the originators selling the "more live" data as a side hustle.
IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
Comments
Probably doesn’t cost a lot in the great scheme of things, of course, but it always annoys me when I see carefully crafted TV adverts for Anglian Water.
This sounds like Boeing complaining they can’t compete with the loony from South Africa. Because said loony keeps on investing in his business, not loading up with debt to do buybacks.
The 2 hour downtime did result in the issue being fixed rather rapidly 4 months after the issue was first reported
I don’t think the HR person woke up at 3am to get his home address was that impressed either although the security guard tasked with waking him up didn’t mind
We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast
Genevieve Holl-Allen"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/28/pollsters-labours-support-general-election-vote-share/
That's where my phone lives.
The old and poor are not paramount, but how we are organised must take account of the old, the poor, those born with heroin addiction and fetal alcohol syndrome because of their mothers etc. Keeping cash going isn't a high price for the rest to pay.
For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
On the cash issue, I just don't understand the militancy. I have no need for a wheelchair. They cost me time by getting in my way and money because the government and businesses have to spend money on wheelchair accessibility. Neither point is a good argument against wheelchairs. Even if wheelchairs were exceptionally useful for drug dealers I would not think that a good reason to restrict their availability to the disabled. And I certainly would not go on about it.
What's going on?
Or at least it was until this evening.
1)because It’s what they are used to
2) it’s how they were taught to budget
3) it’s how they can manage to work out what is left to spend that week / month
I cant remember if it’s Sweden or Norway but one of them has got to the point where so many businesses went cashless that they’ve discovered that cash is essential for some people so it’s now legally required that cash has to be accepted
But vanilla PB is inferior to a properly working PB.com imo.
Still, I suppose at least we're not going backwards, though the Unabomber and some other Green nutters would like us to.
These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.
I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.
You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
Have still bought some Euros to take to France next week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpmgSNgZiK8
I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.
Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.
It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
Why are they conflating Jenas with Edwards? As far as I know Jenas has been "inappropriate" with someone who worked for the BBC while Edwards is a convicted criminal with a penchant for child porn?
Seems odd to conflate the two things?
Is the ordering of posts all reversed? So it's now newest last.
I might need to change that.
I was wrong, arguments made by Citizens Advice, AgeUK, and quite a lot of other non profit kind of people were convincing. Some of the stories quite distressing.
We need to keep cash.
My take is that if certain businesses want to stop taking cash, so be it. They can take the risk of the loss of business not being sufficient to close them down. But cash is vital to the way many budget. We should do all we can to preserve their right to cash.
This is what Engels was waiting for all this time. He can finally rest in peace.
Pub gardens? Outside other buildings?
I hate smoking, but unless we actually ban it, what’s the idea here?
Yorkshire Water charge me about £700, and that's with a discount for no rainwater discharge.
Perhaps they do have low bills....
[Edit: or perhaps I need a meter....]
Anyone who claims the NYT favours the Democrats - as the now departed Leon claimed on a regular basis - is full of shit.
On left: Oct 29 2016. James Comey discovers some emails, revives inquiry into HRC email. (Later dismissed.)
On right: Aug 28 2024. A new grand jury re-indicts Trump on criminal charges of plotting to overturn 2020 election.
https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1828798114704351348
I can understand why they've done it, although I've already implicitly criticised it myself.
I think Labour are speed running unpopularity. I don't think they've thought this through at all. The Tories didn't recover when they became very unpopular and I don't think Labour realise there is a point at which there is no return, time won't solve it for them.