On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The only way the housing problem gets fixed is by doing what was done after WWII, building *millions* of new dwellings as quickly as possible.
Treat it as the single biggest problem facing the country, and get all of the red tape that stops it happening out of the way. Yes that includes a fair bit of planning law, and all the new construction standards aimed at energy efficiency which add a lot of costs for marginal gains (FU, Ed Miliband!). Get factories set up to build prefab houses, and have them turn out thousands per week.
But I don’t see any of the lawyers and managerial types in government or the senior CS having any idea of just how far out of the box they need to think.
For decades our governments have been captured by the housebuilding industry. I agree that we need a revolution in thinking here more than virtually any other area of public policy. The trouble with the "get 'em built" philosophy is that we'd probably end up compromising on quality,
Quality at the moment isn't exactly great. Hard to see how it could be worse. I wouldn't touch a new build.
Also with new build apparently the council, in some cases, doesn't adopt all the land so people end up with ground rent for shared areas. My manager bought new build in Blyth about 6 years ago. He had to pay £140 a year now it is £180 a year for people to come and mow a shared grassy area once in a blue moon.
Crazy.
That's gone up exactly with inflation.
If the leasing setups had done that we would not have had anything like the current controversy.
It used to be typically "Ground Rent will double once every 25 years", which worked OK.
They may have set it up like that driven by the upfront Commuted Sum a Council would want from the developer to adopt things. They normally afaics want enough cash to fund everything for a generation.
The major shift since the general election though has been Labour down but Tories little changed. Which overall under FPTP means significant seat gains for the Tories
And under a 4/5 year parliamentary cycle means diddly squat.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
At least that’s what I told my wife.
I've had a projector for many years, so a) It sits on a shelf and doesn't dominate the room except when it is on b) You can throw stuff at the screen with impunity c) 100"? Meh
Downside is that it isn't very good during bright daylight, but who wants to be sat inside when it is sunny? I don't watch live TV anyway.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
At least that’s what I told my wife.
Plus the picture quality.
4K OLED HDR at 120 refresh rate.
It’s like the match is taking place in your living room.
Have you seen the company who is installing those stadia like experiences in bars in the US? I believe they have plans for one in the UK.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
Yes, the standard unit of measurement is Wales.
Ah yes, so your TV is about 1.1 Wales? But you might upgrade to a 1.3 Wales one?
(We are talking William-heights as the 'Wales' unit, right? The SI Wales unit is for area, afterall)
ETA: although area as a measure of TV screen size would also make sense. In the region of 89pWales if my maths is correct.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
At least that’s what I told my wife.
I've had a projector for many years, so a) It sits on a shelf and doesn't dominate the room except when it is on b) You can throw stuff at the screen with impunity c) 100"? Meh
Downside is that it isn't very good during bright daylight, but who wants to be sat inside when it is sunny? I don't watch live TV anyway.
That have got really good these days. The latest ones even automatically target / focus / level the picture etc, where as before that was the most annoying thing, if you moved it, you would have to calibrate it all over again.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
At least that’s what I told my wife.
Plus the picture quality.
4K OLED HDR at 120 refresh rate.
It’s like the match is taking place in your living room.
Have you seen the company who is installing those stadia like experiences in bars in the US? I believe they have plans for one in the UK.
That hurricane looks utterly horrific. About to wipe out a third of Florida.
How on earth do you insure your property if you live there?
The thing that is really confusing about this is that insurance as an industry and concept arose from insuring shipping, where there were also high loss rates due to severe weather (& pirates!) but modern-day insurance seems to baulk entirely at insuring anything with similarly high risks.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It is presumably in a home cinema/tv room. But even if not if you spend a lot of time watching tv and many do then why not.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The speed requirement determined the route (it had to be fairly straight), which definitely bumped the cost. Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
"Are you better off now than 4 years ago?" The answer will be "yes if I am in a gold plated job with a gold plated pension in the public sector". Less so if not. Productivity in the NHS in particular will almost certainly be down and the BMA will still be insisting that being paid 5 times what the average taxpayer earns and having a pension that gives retired doctors 3x what the average taxpayer earns is still not enough for these poor entitled folk.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
I have a huge living room, you could easily get 40 people in there.
Rachel Thieves will not approve. Those with the broadest living rooms should shoulder the burden. And tax tellies too, unless they were given by a Labour donor
That hurricane looks utterly horrific. About to wipe out a third of Florida.
How on earth do you insure your property if you live there?
The thing that is really confusing about this is that insurance as an industry and concept arose from insuring shipping, where there were also high loss rates due to severe weather (& pirates!) but modern-day insurance seems to baulk entirely at insuring anything with similarly high risks.
What's gone wrong there?
The insurers will also happily skip out on insuring rare events like "damage from bomb left over from WW2" which is exactly the kind of risk you'd expect to be able to spread across the population via insurance, so it seems to me like "for profit companies act increasingly in ways to maximise their profits over time"... Also if you're a ship owner you're presumably savvy enough to know what your insurance must cover, whereas the average homeowner is perhaps not such a sophisticated customer (I know I didn't cross check lots of policy documents to see what the exclusions were last time I renewed...) and is more price sensitive.
That hurricane looks utterly horrific. About to wipe out a third of Florida.
How on earth do you insure your property if you live there?
The thing that is really confusing about this is that insurance as an industry and concept arose from insuring shipping, where there were also high loss rates due to severe weather (& pirates!) but modern-day insurance seems to baulk entirely at insuring anything with similarly high risks.
What's gone wrong there?
Nobody wants to pay a realistic premium?
This 'cane seems to be very unusual in not weakening after the initial spin up. It is going to weaken before it hits Florida but not enough.
The East coast is very vulnerable due to geography and the (incorrect) thought that the worst hurricanes come from the West (eg Andrew).
The last aircraft sample still has an extraordinarily low pressure of 910mb. The longer it stays that low, the bigger the storm surge is going to be.
I think even the most insane storm chasers might be giving this one a miss, or at least, thinking twice about trying to get in the eye.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
There’s a guy on the ship who claims to have a 100” TV which he is in the process of having shipped US to UK as part of his house move
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The speed requirement determined the route (it had to be fairly straight), which definitely bumped the cost. Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
The jury is out on how much cost is saved by dropping speed, and I have seen different engineers conclude different things. DfT's view is that dropping to 125 doesn't save much and you need to go below 100, but I have seen reputable individuals in the industry make a compelling case that there is plenty of cost to be saved by dropping to 125, particularly in tunnels. This was the basis behind the BMEC report (i.e. cheaper high speed link between Bhm and Mcr). The big saving, I think, is by laying a track on ballast rather than slab, and this is perfectly possible at 125.
My view on this is that DfT are expressing an unnecessarily cautious view on the potential cost savings, for understandable reasons.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The speed requirement determined the route (it had to be fairly straight), which definitely bumped the cost. Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
The jury is out on how much cost is saved by dropping speed, and I have seen different engineers conclude different things. DfT's view is that dropping to 125 doesn't save much and you need to go below 100, but I have seen reputable individuals in the industry make a compelling case that there is plenty of cost to be saved by dropping to 125, particularly in tunnels. This was the basis behind the BMEC report (i.e. cheaper high speed link between Bhm and Mcr). The big saving, I think, is by laying a track on ballast rather than slab, and this is perfectly possible at 125.
My view on this is that DfT are expressing an unnecessarily cautious view on the potential cost savings, for understandable reasons.
Wasn’t one of the problems with HS2 that the government demanded a 40(?)-year warranty on the construction, so the whole thing has been way over-engineered to avoid future liabilities for the contractor?
The language here possibly a bit OTT for a politics prof, but he has a point, I reckon.
The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people. You can't see a doctor, find a dentist, take a train or even get on a bus. Until that changes, we will just see rotation after rotation in our politics as voters search for an answer.
It feels broken because a lot of it is broken, or at best extremely tatty. It's the logical endpoint of things we've voted for (with our wallets as well as our ballots) for decades, but we're not going to acknowledge that. But until we do, we will collectively keep looking for that One Weird Trick that They Don't Want Us To Know.
Whatever the answer is, it ain't going to be easy or quick.
It's nonsense though. Today I saw a doctor at the drop of a hat. Four weeks ago I needed emergency dental work which I was able to get, along with two follow up appointments. Oh, and I got the tram there without incident. My kids all go to totally acceptable state schools
The story we are told is that nothing works. And indeed I listen to the story, and sometimes believing the story, I don't even try (to, for example, see a doctor). But when I'm forced to use the system, mostly, it works. I accept there are many examples of people for whom it doesn't. But the norm is a working system.
Maybe the whingers should go and take a trip to eastern Ukraine or the middle east. They need to get a bit of perspective. "The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people." What a piece of hyperbolic bollox. It is clearly a hard life being a mollycoddled Professor.
Well quite. Try telling the recent arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong that the UK just doesn’t work, and they’ll tell you exactly what they think.
We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
Hong Kong really was the best fusion of cultures in the modern world.
... and Hong Kongers really are the best immigrants. Already exposed to English culture, definitely political refugees not economic migrants, well educated and enterprising. They are significantly more productive per head than we are. It is also a massive humiliation for Communist China as well as a boost for us. We really should encourage more of them to come.
I'd make it so any Hongkonger without a criminal record can come here on the strength of their ID card and get citizenship after a year and not five.
Paddy Ashdown suggested that years ago, and was shouted down.
Indeed it was Mrs Thatcher who denied the Hong Kongers the right to migrate here with her 1981 nationality act (Falkland Islanders too as I recall).
What was the history on why Britain didn’t extend the lease over Hong Kong in the mid-late 20th C when chinas economy was on its knees?
I think it was that the Chinese didn't recognise the Treaty for the lease as having any validity, so wouldn't have entertained any negotiation on extending it.
We agreed a 99-year lease with then then Chinese Empire and that lease went to term. The Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 was (apparently) an agreement whereby the Chinese agreed to maintain the basic institutions of Hong Kong for up to 50 years after the end of the lease (that's not what the Chinese think by the way).
The lease ran its course and we left as we were obliged to under international law. Many thought the Chinese wouldn't live up to what they had agreed to in the 1984 Declaration and so it has turned out.
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The only way the housing problem gets fixed is by doing what was done after WWII, building *millions* of new dwellings as quickly as possible.
Treat it as the single biggest problem facing the country, and get all of the red tape that stops it happening out of the way. Yes that includes a fair bit of planning law, and all the new construction standards aimed at energy efficiency which add a lot of costs for marginal gains (FU, Ed Miliband!). Get factories set up to build prefab houses, and have them turn out thousands per week.
But I don’t see any of the lawyers and managerial types in government or the senior CS having any idea of just how far out of the box they need to think.
For decades our governments have been captured by the housebuilding industry. I agree that we need a revolution in thinking here more than virtually any other area of public policy. The trouble with the "get 'em built" philosophy is that we'd probably end up compromising on quality, as indeed we did in the sixties and that gave us Ronan Point and the Trellick Tower that scar our cities.
My own solution would be designate hundreds of thousands of plots for self-build and sell them to individuals. 60% of new houses in France and Germany and 80% in Austria are self-built. People who have their own houses built have a strong incentive to build quality, decent looking homes that they want to live in, unlike speculative, oligopolistic builders whose incentive is to build whatever shoddy crap will sell quickly.
Decades ago I watched a TV programme about a council or government sponsored self-build scheme, where the self-builders earned sweat equity and in addition could learn trades to equipment them to gain jobs in the various trades. It was a tremendous commitment for them but it paid off tremendously for those who were able to stick with it.
Western support for Ukraine is so lacking that Ukraine is now considering allowing exports of its military drones to generate export earnings to pay for more domestic production.
All of Ukraine's domestic production should be focused on winning the war against Russia. It's nuts that a lack of support from other democracies would lead them to this sort of step.
The rather horrible analogy that sprung to mind is Ireland exporting grain during the famines. It's really not a good sign. ☹️
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
Just about sums up a lot of US voters frankly.
If the Muslim voters think Trump - he of moving US embassy to Jerusalem - is going to force a ceasefire they are deluded. And that's before he starts rounding up anyone who looks a bit darker than a Nordic ski instructor as they are obviously not a citizen.
And that's before we start on the voters who are voting Trump to sort out inflation or to keep their Obama Care.
I guess the technical term is 'low information' voters?
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The speed requirement determined the route (it had to be fairly straight), which definitely bumped the cost. Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
The jury is out on how much cost is saved by dropping speed, and I have seen different engineers conclude different things. DfT's view is that dropping to 125 doesn't save much and you need to go below 100, but I have seen reputable individuals in the industry make a compelling case that there is plenty of cost to be saved by dropping to 125, particularly in tunnels. This was the basis behind the BMEC report (i.e. cheaper high speed link between Bhm and Mcr). The big saving, I think, is by laying a track on ballast rather than slab, and this is perfectly possible at 125.
My view on this is that DfT are expressing an unnecessarily cautious view on the potential cost savings, for understandable reasons.
As far as the DfT's pronouncements on HS2 are concerned, Mandy Rice Davies definitely applies. Sir Humphrey is hardly going to 'fess up that actually he and his ilk wasted tens of billions of quid going for the gold plated option...
This is a story about the Renters Rights Bill, and the desire to limit upfront payments to 5 week's rent on tenancies. That will limit, for example, abilities for tenants to access tenancies which are to start later (lots of complicated issues around the interim and reasons). And will undermine the flexibility available to some prospective tenants.
As an LL I support most of the proposed measures as being rational moves that will further reduce unacceptable behaviour towards tenants, based on evidence.
The support by the Housing Minister for limiting up front payments for a tenancy to 5 weeks is concerning.
It reminds me of the pratfall in Parliament last time round when deposits were restricted to 5 weeks max, from 8 weeks. The former Shelter Senior staffer at Shelter who was Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones, argued both that "'this needs to be reduced because landlords will exploit the 8 weeks', and 'it can be reduced because landlords don't use it' - in the same debate.
What that actually did was make pet tenancies far more complex to manage because at least two of the traditional measures - a higher deposit to cover damage, or a term for T to do or pay for a professional clean at the end - became criminal offences. The only option left was a higher rent.
But organisations such as Shelter and Generation Rent are anti-landlord rather than pro-tenant, and it shows. It also shows in their focus on Private Sector vs the Social - on a number of metrics around eg satisfaction the PRS has been ahead for many years.
This measure will make selection of tenants even more small-c conservative and careful, since assurance measures applicable after the start have essentially all been banned.
It will blow back on local Councils, who routinely expect LLs to be a social policeman, whilst any effective measures to do such have been removed.
(I'll perhaps FPT this, later.)
I did some viewings yesterday on flats in London. 3 out of 4 were landlords selling up and tenants being evicted. 2 out of the 3 properties were perfect rental properties - IE low maintenance low rise purpose built blocks, being managed by an active freeholder. The last estate agent had been in the game 25 years and said that investors are rapidly exiting the market. If they stay in the market then they will need to be incentivised by rents going up - so the net effect of all this will probably be a reduction in quality rental properties and significant rent inflation. In the longer term it will mean a shift to professional landlords, build to rent, HMO's etc but it will take years for this sector to compensate for the reduction in private rented sector properties. Obviously there is another category of the private rented sector that will be unaffected by all this, the part that doesn't follow the regulations at all. Despite the lobbying there is a strange lack of action in this respect. The laws are difficult to enforce and the bodies that have to do it (ie Council's) are unable to direct resources in to this as the costs cannot be easily recovered.
It is quite surprising that Labour have jumped on to this policy as I think the beneficiaries of it are first time buyers (ie classic tory voters) and the losers will be renters.
It's not surprising at all. Badly-thought through social interventions that backfire and damage those they are designed to help while causing lots of unintended side effects aren't so much a failing of Starmer's (and Gove's) brand of interventionist, statist managerialism as its defining characteristic.
And our housing market is particularly littered with such.
The only way the housing problem gets fixed is by doing what was done after WWII, building *millions* of new dwellings as quickly as possible.
Treat it as the single biggest problem facing the country, and get all of the red tape that stops it happening out of the way. Yes that includes a fair bit of planning law, and all the new construction standards aimed at energy efficiency which add a lot of costs for marginal gains (FU, Ed Miliband!). Get factories set up to build prefab houses, and have them turn out thousands per week.
But I don’t see any of the lawyers and managerial types in government or the senior CS having any idea of just how far out of the box they need to think.
For decades our governments have been captured by the housebuilding industry. I agree that we need a revolution in thinking here more than virtually any other area of public policy. The trouble with the "get 'em built" philosophy is that we'd probably end up compromising on quality,
Quality at the moment isn't exactly great. Hard to see how it could be worse. I wouldn't touch a new build.
Also with new build apparently the council, in some cases, doesn't adopt all the land so people end up with ground rent for shared areas. My manager bought new build in Blyth about 6 years ago. He had to pay £140 a year now it is £180 a year for people to come and mow a shared grassy area once in a blue moon.
Crazy.
That's gone up exactly with inflation.
If the leasing setups had done that we would not have had anything like the current controversy.
It used to be typically "Ground Rent will double once every 25 years", which worked OK.
They may have set it up like that driven by the upfront Commuted Sum a Council would want from the developer to adopt things. They normally afaics want enough cash to fund everything for a generation.
Costs of Adoption (mainly something called "Section 38 Agreements" for new stuff, S278 for existing stuff, or similar) are an ENORMOUS issue.
For example, here is the practice in Nottinghamshire, where afaics for the Council to adopt a SUDS (Sustainable Drainage System) they will expect a commuted sum up front that will pay for ALL the replacement components, and ALL the maintenance, for a period of 60 years. 60 years is the assumed lifetime of a house. It follows standards.
Highways will be 120 years. Streetlights will be 40 years. The Council may want several thousand ££££ for every lamp post. Obvs this also drives towards minimum standards on new housing estates.
That means afaics that it will be added in to the sale cost of the new houses. No wonder so many developers shun adoption, and let the householders pay an annual fee.
Arguably most of it should be in the Council Tax to be paid by those houses.
That's another Knot of Gordion in local council finances. From the above:
New roads adopted under Section 38 8.3 Section 38 of the Act is a power allowing highway authorities to adopt newly constructed roads by agreement with landowners and developers. Section 38(6) states as follows:
“An agreement under this section may contain such provisions as to the dedication as a highway of any road or way to which the agreement relates, the bearing of the expenses of the construction, maintenance or improvement of any highway, road, bridge or viaduct to which the agreement relates and other relevant matters as the authority making the agreement think fit”.
8.4 The Court of Appeal has emphasised the wide and unqualified nature of the Section 38(6) powers. There are no limitations as to how the commuted sum should be calculated (Redrow Homes Ltd v Knowsley MBC [2015]) and this need not be limited to “extra over” costs.
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
IIUC Muslims were fairly conservative leaning for a long time, it's not just about Gaza. I can't find the skeet I saw about it right now but from memory they split pretty evenly before 9/11, then after that and the Iraq war they somewhat were less impressed with Republicans for a while, but that effect has been unwinding over time.
I note Musk has surrendered in the argument with Brazil, and accepted that he has to comply with their law.
I believe he hasn't commented on the surrender so I imagine he's quietly raging about having his alpha male status being cucked by 'Brazil’s Darth Vader'.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The speed requirement determined the route (it had to be fairly straight), which definitely bumped the cost. Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
The jury is out on how much cost is saved by dropping speed, and I have seen different engineers conclude different things. DfT's view is that dropping to 125 doesn't save much and you need to go below 100, but I have seen reputable individuals in the industry make a compelling case that there is plenty of cost to be saved by dropping to 125, particularly in tunnels. This was the basis behind the BMEC report (i.e. cheaper high speed link between Bhm and Mcr). The big saving, I think, is by laying a track on ballast rather than slab, and this is perfectly possible at 125.
My view on this is that DfT are expressing an unnecessarily cautious view on the potential cost savings, for understandable reasons.
Here's a little secret: the cost of digging an 8-metre diameter tunnel is not massively greater than digging a 7-metre tunnel, because many of the costs do not scale as you would expect - especially as many of the costs of a railway are extra to the tunnelling. Yes, more ground is required to be dug out and disposed of, and power usage is greater. But those are just part of the costs.
" laying a track on ballast rather than slab"
You can lay HSL an ballast; and AIUI the slab track decision for HS2 was only made a few years ago. Slab track dramatically reduces maintenance during the track's lifetime, but is much more expensive to install and makes renewals *much* more expensive and onerous.
Incidentally, I think the first slab concrete track done in the UK was at Duffield, to the north of Derby. A couple of decades ago you could still see the concrete (the line was taken out of use).
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The speed requirement determined the route (it had to be fairly straight), which definitely bumped the cost. Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
The jury is out on how much cost is saved by dropping speed, and I have seen different engineers conclude different things. DfT's view is that dropping to 125 doesn't save much and you need to go below 100, but I have seen reputable individuals in the industry make a compelling case that there is plenty of cost to be saved by dropping to 125, particularly in tunnels. This was the basis behind the BMEC report (i.e. cheaper high speed link between Bhm and Mcr). The big saving, I think, is by laying a track on ballast rather than slab, and this is perfectly possible at 125.
My view on this is that DfT are expressing an unnecessarily cautious view on the potential cost savings, for understandable reasons.
Wasn’t one of the problems with HS2 that the government demanded a 40(?)-year warranty on the construction, so the whole thing has been way over-engineered to avoid future liabilities for the contractor?
Yes, I believe that's part of it. Also, AIUI a significant issue has been the financial engineering of the project, especially with regards to risk allocation. The more risk you put on a contractor, the greater the price they'll charge to offset that risk.
Then again, the experience of the misguided bus here in Cambridge shows that it can be best to hold contractor's 'nads to the fire. Though in that case, the council shares much of the blame IMO.
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
Just about sums up a lot of US voters frankly.
If the Muslim voters think Trump - he of moving US embassy to Jerusalem - is going to force a ceasefire they are deluded. And that's before he starts rounding up anyone who looks a bit darker than a Nordic ski instructor as they are obviously not a citizen.
And that's before we start on the voters who are voting Trump to sort out inflation or to keep their Obama Care.
I guess the technical term is 'low information' voters?
Some of them will be low-information voters, but also, some people don't want illegal immigration because it brings wage competition and/or gives legal immigrants a bad name, some people they want low taxes, some people own crypto and they don't like the fact that Gary Gensler is trying to ban everything, some people don't want their taxes spent on Ukraine, it doesn't have to be about specifically Arab issues.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
If party A have taken actions which you, as a voter, deem intolerable, then it's not logical to vote for party A, as that would indicate toleration of those actions. And if you tolerate that then your children will be next.
You lose all leverage if you show that you will vote for the intolerable. So I can see the logic of Muslims voting against the Democrats, because as far as they're concerned this election is a write off - both options are beyond the pale - but at least if they punish the Democrats this time there is a chance they might have a more tolerable Democrat to vote for next time.
It's not a choice I would make, but I can see the case for it.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
"HS2 requires concrete slab track"
As my link above shows, it does not 'require' slab track. They decided to use it for HS2, and it seems it was a fairly close decision.
The thing is, many of your points are true for HSLs in other countries, and they apparently manage to build them much cheaper than we do - though direct comparisons are difficult.
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
Just about sums up a lot of US voters frankly.
If the Muslim voters think Trump - he of moving US embassy to Jerusalem - is going to force a ceasefire they are deluded. And that's before he starts rounding up anyone who looks a bit darker than a Nordic ski instructor as they are obviously not a citizen.
And that's before we start on the voters who are voting Trump to sort out inflation or to keep their Obama Care.
I guess the technical term is 'low information' voters?
Some of them will be low-information voters, but also, some people don't want illegal immigration because it brings wage competition and/or gives legal immigrants a bad name, some people they want low taxes, some people own crypto and they don't like the fact that Gary Gensler is trying to ban everything, some people don't want their taxes spent on Ukraine, it doesn't have to be about specifically Arab issues.
"Low information" being code I assume for "ignorant", "not very inquisitive" and - adjacently - "gullible" or "thick". That's being polite.
For those look at the mouth-breathing comments on the Black Belt Barrister's video on the Reform transparent PR-stunt on the Manchester Airport incident the other day. Just as happened when Farage was dishonestly yelping on about Manchester vs riots being "2 tier policing" when the 2nd lot were quick because they were all guilty pleas.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
"HS2 requires concrete slab track"
As my link above shows, it does not 'require' slab track. They decided to use it for HS2, and it seems it was a fairly close decision.
The thing is, many of your points are true for HSLs in other countries, and they apparently manage to build them much cheaper than we do - though direct comparisons are difficult.
A quick skim of that seems to suggest that in 2015 Atkins were told to go and do an analysis of a reduced running speed option, and came back £13bn cheaper than the projected £40bn, i.e. about a 30% saving, for adding 15-20 mins to London - Manchester journey times.
I think that makes my argument rather than detracts from it.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
Just about sums up a lot of US voters frankly.
If the Muslim voters think Trump - he of moving US embassy to Jerusalem - is going to force a ceasefire they are deluded. And that's before he starts rounding up anyone who looks a bit darker than a Nordic ski instructor as they are obviously not a citizen.
And that's before we start on the voters who are voting Trump to sort out inflation or to keep their Obama Care.
I guess the technical term is 'low information' voters?
Similar shit going with the Greens. Who are actively trying to stop Harris.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
What I have concluded is that the imperial system devised a new unit of measurement for every application. So we have the fother, which is the weight of lead that a single man can carry. If you know that your church roof requires 20 fothers of head for the roof, then you know you need to go up and down 20 times with a load of lead to roof it. Simple. This means that for most applications which existed long ago enough, there's a perfect imperial unit for working with. Ounces are perfect for baking, miles for walking, feet for room sizes, etc.
Unfortunately, at some point they stopped adding new units to the imperial system, and so there aren't handy imperial units for rocketry, or electric car batteries.
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
IIUC Muslims were fairly conservative leaning for a long time, it's not just about Gaza. I can't find the skeet I saw about it right now but from memory they split pretty evenly before 9/11, then after that and the Iraq war they somewhat were less impressed with Republicans for a while, but that effect has been unwinding over time.
I would be sceptical of this report, it is quite out of line with previous polling of US Muslims, such as:
"This report shows that 29.4% of American Muslims plan to vote for Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, 29.1% for Jill Stein of the Green Party, 11.2% for Donald Trump of the Republican Party, 4.2% for Cornel West of the People’s Party, and less than 1% for Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party, and 16.5% are undecided."
A family that cannot afford its bills lives in poverty. Build them a home that costs almost nothing to heat and that same family will prioritise things that matter to us all.
(When mum doesn’t have second and third jobs to cover costs, one of the first things that gets help using the extra available time is children doing their homework.)
It is shocking that this has to be said in 2024 but poor quality housing blights lives.
EPC A and B are standards that must be met in new housing and older homes being brought into the local authority fold.
It’s one of those US polling findings where you think WTF !
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
IIUC Muslims were fairly conservative leaning for a long time, it's not just about Gaza. I can't find the skeet I saw about it right now but from memory they split pretty evenly before 9/11, then after that and the Iraq war they somewhat were less impressed with Republicans for a while, but that effect has been unwinding over time.
Muslim voters tend to be more socially conservative, less pro trans and same sex marriage for example although economically centrist and pro Palestine.
A late August poll of Muslim voters showed them going for Green candidate Stein not Trump, 29.4% of US Muslims backed Harris, 29.1% Stein and only 11% Trump.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Why not? I'm not suggesting we readopt it but I don't see why it's "insane".
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
"HS2 requires concrete slab track"
As my link above shows, it does not 'require' slab track. They decided to use it for HS2, and it seems it was a fairly close decision.
The thing is, many of your points are true for HSLs in other countries, and they apparently manage to build them much cheaper than we do - though direct comparisons are difficult.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
With some made up guff. 31F (I.e. just below freezing) isn’t “chilly” and 41F isn’t “temperate” - temperate having presumably been inserted into the list after running out of words?
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
"HS2 requires concrete slab track"
As my link above shows, it does not 'require' slab track. They decided to use it for HS2, and it seems it was a fairly close decision.
The thing is, many of your points are true for HSLs in other countries, and they apparently manage to build them much cheaper than we do - though direct comparisons are difficult.
A quick skim of that seems to suggest that in 2015 Atkins were told to go and do an analysis of a reduced running speed option, and came back £13bn cheaper than the projected £40bn, i.e. about a 30% saving, for adding 15-20 mins to London - Manchester journey times.
I think that makes my argument rather than detracts from it.
CBS apparently caught re-editing the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, after a preview of the show contained a different answer to the same question, when compared to what finally aired.
The Youtube video of the interview has also apparently been edited.
Trump campaign has obviously called for the full interview to be released unedited. He doesn’t like the show, after they allegedly stitched him up in 2020, and has declined to be interviewed this cycle.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
With some made up guff. 31F (I.e. just below freezing) isn’t “chilly” and 41F isn’t “temperate” - temperate having presumably been inserted into the list after running out of words?
Well yes, there was a bit of artistic licence admittedly but you get the point. For all its purported faults, it's a neat human scale, which is why its use persisted for so long (and remains in the US).
(Fixed as below...)
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 icy 31-40 cold 41-50 chilly 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Fahrenheit is an interesting one, because if you convert it to units of 5F (e.g. low-50s, or high-70s) as seems to be the case in US weather forecasts, then it converts quite closely to degrees Newton (1 degree N ~ 3.03 degree C ~ 5.5 degree F) where Newton calibrated one degree to be a temperature change he could discern.
So 5N feels noticeably different to 6N, in a way that isn't true with 5F and 6F, or even 5C and 6C. So I think that degrees Newton are the more useful way to talk about temperatures, but 5F increments come second ahead of Celsius.
Interesting figures there. So Starmer is tracking Thatcher. Both of them lost around 3 pts of support in their first three months in office. He'll be happy enough with that, I'd imagine.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
In general, TVs are insanely cheap these days in which the cheap brands like TCL are perfectly acceptable. Its only if you go large screens, 60"+, care about smart apps, HDR, super inky blacks, etc that you start to see real differences.
Interesting figures there. So Starmer is tracking Thatcher. Both of them lost around 3 pts of support in their first three months in office. He'll be happy enough with that, I'd imagine.
I suspect he's set up this Chagos row in a cunning attempt to encourage someone to attack our territory so he can get his Falklands moment.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
"HS2 requires concrete slab track"
As my link above shows, it does not 'require' slab track. They decided to use it for HS2, and it seems it was a fairly close decision.
The thing is, many of your points are true for HSLs in other countries, and they apparently manage to build them much cheaper than we do - though direct comparisons are difficult.
A quick skim of that seems to suggest that in 2015 Atkins were told to go and do an analysis of a reduced running speed option, and came back £13bn cheaper than the projected £40bn, i.e. about a 30% saving, for adding 15-20 mins to London - Manchester journey times.
I think that makes my argument rather than detracts from it.
Offset by massively reduced benefits iirc
Not really. It might have been completed far sooner. There's no benefit in cancelling it, as happened, obviously.
The whole thing has been a shitshow from start to (not)finish.
This gives a flavour. (And incidentally confirms my often repeated assertion that Brexit was a needless distraction.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98486dzxnzo ...Andrew Bruce joined the company in 2015. His job was to buy all the land and property for phase one of the project. He says that in his first week he was given two sets of figures. According to Mr Bruce, one set was to be used to show the government in presentations. He says these showed HS2 was on track to purchase the land on time and on budget. He says he was also given a second set of figures which showed there was no way HS2 could buy all the land and properties needed while keeping to that budget. And he says his own work subsequently found even higher estimates for land and property costs. He says that HS2 Ltd was not being honest about the likely costs even though HS2 Ltd was being paid for by the taxpayer and spending public money. HS2 disputes this. It says these allegations have been put under intense scrutiny by the National Audit Office which found nothing untoward. Andrew Bruce doesn’t accept the conclusions that HS2 draws from the NAO findings. He believes there should be further investigation..
...You might have thought a megaproject costing billions would be a political priority. However, in 2017, Brexit was dominating the agenda and if an outsider had the impression that MPs were distracted when they voted through the country’s biggest infrastructure project, they’d be right. Philip Hammond told me: “I'm sorry to disappoint you, but HS2 was not the main issue of the moment. The government was teetering on the brink, trying to deal with the daily hourly pressures of the Brexit negotiation. Long-term projects were perhaps not seen as quite as immediately urgent.”..
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
I think in F for warm days but C for cold ones. Thus if it's nice I'll muse to myself "mmm, sunny 70", and if I'm shivering, "brrr feels below zero".
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
In general, TVs are insanely cheap these days in which the cheap brands like TCL are perfectly acceptable. Its only if you go large screens, 60"+, care about smart apps, HDR, super inky blacks, etc that you start to see real differences.
Pro Tip of the Day.
Even if you end up with a “Smart” TV, don’t ever plug it in to a network, the whole lot of them are a privacy and security nightmare, even if losing the set-top box is astethically pleasing. They’re all full of trackers and spyware, especially the cheaper ones that subsidise the cost by selling vast amounts of data, much of it through China.
Get an AppleTV and plug that into the TV, use the screen as just that, a screen.
Interesting figures there. So Starmer is tracking Thatcher. Both of them lost around 3 pts of support in their first three months in office. He'll be happy enough with that, I'd imagine.
I suspect he's set up this Chagos row in a cunning attempt to encourage someone to attack our territory so he can get his Falklands moment.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
Americans weigh themselves in pounds rather than stones and pounds, and according to decades of cop shows, can estimate weight reliably and accurately.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
I now suspect the cash hatred is due to residual anger over decimalisation
The language here possibly a bit OTT for a politics prof, but he has a point, I reckon.
The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people. You can't see a doctor, find a dentist, take a train or even get on a bus. Until that changes, we will just see rotation after rotation in our politics as voters search for an answer.
It feels broken because a lot of it is broken, or at best extremely tatty. It's the logical endpoint of things we've voted for (with our wallets as well as our ballots) for decades, but we're not going to acknowledge that. But until we do, we will collectively keep looking for that One Weird Trick that They Don't Want Us To Know.
Whatever the answer is, it ain't going to be easy or quick.
It's nonsense though. Today I saw a doctor at the drop of a hat. Four weeks ago I needed emergency dental work which I was able to get, along with two follow up appointments. Oh, and I got the tram there without incident. My kids all go to totally acceptable state schools
The story we are told is that nothing works. And indeed I listen to the story, and sometimes believing the story, I don't even try (to, for example, see a doctor). But when I'm forced to use the system, mostly, it works. I accept there are many examples of people for whom it doesn't. But the norm is a working system.
Maybe the whingers should go and take a trip to eastern Ukraine or the middle east. They need to get a bit of perspective. "The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people." What a piece of hyperbolic bollox. It is clearly a hard life being a mollycoddled Professor.
Well quite. Try telling the recent arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong that the UK just doesn’t work, and they’ll tell you exactly what they think.
We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
Hong Kong really was the best fusion of cultures in the modern world.
... and Hong Kongers really are the best immigrants. Already exposed to English culture, definitely political refugees not economic migrants, well educated and enterprising. They are significantly more productive per head than we are. It is also a massive humiliation for Communist China as well as a boost for us. We really should encourage more of them to come.
I'd make it so any Hongkonger without a criminal record can come here on the strength of their ID card and get citizenship after a year and not five.
Paddy Ashdown suggested that years ago, and was shouted down.
Indeed it was Mrs Thatcher who denied the Hong Kongers the right to migrate here with her 1981 nationality act (Falkland Islanders too as I recall).
She and Geoffrey Howe also denied them the right after Tiananmen. It was one of her few mistakes, alongside banning Sinn Fein from giving interviews, signing the Single European Act, joining the ERM and letting Jacques Delors be appointed.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
What I have concluded is that the imperial system devised a new unit of measurement for every application. So we have the fother, which is the weight of lead that a single man can carry. If you know that your church roof requires 20 fothers of head for the roof, then you know you need to go up and down 20 times with a load of lead to roof it. Simple. This means that for most applications which existed long ago enough, there's a perfect imperial unit for working with. Ounces are perfect for baking, miles for walking, feet for room sizes, etc.
Unfortunately, at some point they stopped adding new units to the imperial system, and so there aren't handy imperial units for rocketry, or electric car batteries.
You Good morning Copilot. I remember a saying about the clothes you should wear at 10degrees, 20degrees and 30degrees, but I cannot remember it. Can you find a similar saying?
Copilot Good morning! I found a saying that might be similar to what you’re thinking of:
At 10°C: Wear a jacket or coat, a sweater, and layers to stay warm.
At 20°C: A light jacket or long-sleeve shirt should be enough.
At 30°C: Keep it cool with shorts and a t-shirt.
Does this sound like the saying you remember? If not, I can keep looking!
The language here possibly a bit OTT for a politics prof, but he has a point, I reckon.
The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people. You can't see a doctor, find a dentist, take a train or even get on a bus. Until that changes, we will just see rotation after rotation in our politics as voters search for an answer.
It feels broken because a lot of it is broken, or at best extremely tatty. It's the logical endpoint of things we've voted for (with our wallets as well as our ballots) for decades, but we're not going to acknowledge that. But until we do, we will collectively keep looking for that One Weird Trick that They Don't Want Us To Know.
Whatever the answer is, it ain't going to be easy or quick.
It's nonsense though. Today I saw a doctor at the drop of a hat. Four weeks ago I needed emergency dental work which I was able to get, along with two follow up appointments. Oh, and I got the tram there without incident. My kids all go to totally acceptable state schools
The story we are told is that nothing works. And indeed I listen to the story, and sometimes believing the story, I don't even try (to, for example, see a doctor). But when I'm forced to use the system, mostly, it works. I accept there are many examples of people for whom it doesn't. But the norm is a working system.
Maybe the whingers should go and take a trip to eastern Ukraine or the middle east. They need to get a bit of perspective. "The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people." What a piece of hyperbolic bollox. It is clearly a hard life being a mollycoddled Professor.
Well quite. Try telling the recent arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong that the UK just doesn’t work, and they’ll tell you exactly what they think.
We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
Hong Kong really was the best fusion of cultures in the modern world.
... and Hong Kongers really are the best immigrants. Already exposed to English culture, definitely political refugees not economic migrants, well educated and enterprising. They are significantly more productive per head than we are. It is also a massive humiliation for Communist China as well as a boost for us. We really should encourage more of them to come.
I'd make it so any Hongkonger without a criminal record can come here on the strength of their ID card and get citizenship after a year and not five.
Paddy Ashdown suggested that years ago, and was shouted down.
Indeed it was Mrs Thatcher who denied the Hong Kongers the right to migrate here with her 1981 nationality act (Falkland Islanders too as I recall).
She and Geoffrey Howe also denied them the right after Tiananmen. It was one of her few mistakes, alongside banning Sinn Fein from giving interviews, signing the Single European Act, joining the ERM and letting Jacques Delors be appointed.
And selling off public housing stock without reinvestment.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Each to their own, but I personally don't see the attraction of such large tvs. They just completely dominate the room, even a large one.
It pays for itself in not going to the pub to watch the football, the cricket, the rugby, the F1, the Olympics…
In general, TVs are insanely cheap these days in which the cheap brands like TCL are perfectly acceptable. Its only if you go large screens, 60"+, care about smart apps, HDR, super inky blacks, etc that you start to see real differences.
Pro Tip of the Day.
Even if you end up with a “Smart” TV, don’t ever plug it in to a network, the whole lot of them are a privacy and security nightmare, even if losing the set-top box is astethically pleasing. They’re all full of trackers and spyware, especially the cheaper ones that subsidise the cost by selling vast amounts of data, much of it through China.
Get an AppleTV and plug that into the TV, use the screen as just that, a screen.
I endorse this post (and also note that there are boxes other than an Apple TV you can plug in). You're also not at the mercy of the TV manufacturer continuing to provide updates for any plugins, such as Netflix etc (our current TV is a hand-me-down from the rich Aunt and Uncle - when they updated to a 90 pWales screen - Panasonic and a decent bit of kit, but even there the built in smart apps are no longer operational)
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
What I have concluded is that the imperial system devised a new unit of measurement for every application. So we have the fother, which is the weight of lead that a single man can carry. If you know that your church roof requires 20 fothers of head for the roof, then you know you need to go up and down 20 times with a load of lead to roof it. Simple. This means that for most applications which existed long ago enough, there's a perfect imperial unit for working with. Ounces are perfect for baking, miles for walking, feet for room sizes, etc.
Unfortunately, at some point they stopped adding new units to the imperial system, and so there aren't handy imperial units for rocketry, or electric car batteries.
An editorial quirk I find particularly irritating is the tendency of the BBC to refer to victims buried under tonnes of rubble (or whatever). I've no objection to metric tons for scientific measurement but they've made an unwelcome intrusion into English hyperbole.
On topic, I don't think polling at 100 days post this GE can be directly compared with previous elections, not least because some of the comparisons are with incumbents.
Having a July election followed by a long summer break then a month off for conferences means that little has really happened apart from a few photo-opportunities with foreign leaders. It's only now we are really starting to see what a Starmer government will be like.
Starmer's plan for GE 2029 looks to be on delivery, very much the "are you better off now than 4 years ago?" approach. It might work, if Labour does deliver on waiting lists, housing, immigration control, criminal justice etc.
To look at the counterfactual: if Sunak had held out for an October election rather than gone in July, would we now be looking at a very different election result? I think not. The drop in the popularity of Labour is down to being in government but not yet doing anything positive.
Talking of which, another bit of "can't confirm until the Spending Review, but here's a bit of ankle" story...
An “HS2-light” railway line between Birmingham and Manchester would be built under plans being considered by ministers.
In a rethink of Rishi Sunak’s decision to entirely scrap the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, senior government figures are looking at a proposal which they believe can be delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme.
Better politics than leaving a blank space for opponents to fill, and another bit of accepting reality.
I think one of the problems with HS2 is it being over engineered, so unessecarily expensive. A slightly less high speed brings the costs down, and also makes intermediate stations possible that could be new towns with excellent communication links.
"A slightly less high speed brings the costs down"
Not by much AIUI - unless you go sub 100MPH.
Dropping to 125mph saves a lot. For a country of our size, that's more than fast enough.
AIUI it does not. And have you any idea how stupid it would be to build a HSL with a 125MPH max speed? The original plans for the WCML upgrade 25 years ago was a 140MPH max speed.
The stupid idea was building a capacity upgrade as a high speed line.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
But "Extra Capacity 2" doesn't sound as sexy as "High Speed 2".
The language here possibly a bit OTT for a politics prof, but he has a point, I reckon.
The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people. You can't see a doctor, find a dentist, take a train or even get on a bus. Until that changes, we will just see rotation after rotation in our politics as voters search for an answer.
It feels broken because a lot of it is broken, or at best extremely tatty. It's the logical endpoint of things we've voted for (with our wallets as well as our ballots) for decades, but we're not going to acknowledge that. But until we do, we will collectively keep looking for that One Weird Trick that They Don't Want Us To Know.
Whatever the answer is, it ain't going to be easy or quick.
It's nonsense though. Today I saw a doctor at the drop of a hat. Four weeks ago I needed emergency dental work which I was able to get, along with two follow up appointments. Oh, and I got the tram there without incident. My kids all go to totally acceptable state schools
The story we are told is that nothing works. And indeed I listen to the story, and sometimes believing the story, I don't even try (to, for example, see a doctor). But when I'm forced to use the system, mostly, it works. I accept there are many examples of people for whom it doesn't. But the norm is a working system.
Maybe the whingers should go and take a trip to eastern Ukraine or the middle east. They need to get a bit of perspective. "The truth is that everyday day life in Britain is utterly horrible for most people." What a piece of hyperbolic bollox. It is clearly a hard life being a mollycoddled Professor.
Well quite. Try telling the recent arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong that the UK just doesn’t work, and they’ll tell you exactly what they think.
We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots.
A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration.
*) One is not sending their kid to the local secondary school, as the HK contingent of kids are getting a little cliquey, and he wants his kids to integrate more.
*) Some are apparently mad-keen on gardening, even in the tiny gardens the new builds get. Because a) it is seen as something we Brits do; and b) because they did not really have access to gardens in HK.
Hong Kong really was the best fusion of cultures in the modern world.
... and Hong Kongers really are the best immigrants. Already exposed to English culture, definitely political refugees not economic migrants, well educated and enterprising. They are significantly more productive per head than we are. It is also a massive humiliation for Communist China as well as a boost for us. We really should encourage more of them to come.
I'd make it so any Hongkonger without a criminal record can come here on the strength of their ID card and get citizenship after a year and not five.
Paddy Ashdown suggested that years ago, and was shouted down.
Indeed it was Mrs Thatcher who denied the Hong Kongers the right to migrate here with her 1981 nationality act (Falkland Islanders too as I recall).
She and Geoffrey Howe also denied them the right after Tiananmen. It was one of her few mistakes, alongside banning Sinn Fein from giving interviews, signing the Single European Act, joining the ERM and letting Jacques Delors be appointed.
And selling off public housing stock without reinvestment.
CBS apparently caught re-editing the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, after a preview of the show contained a different answer to the same question, when compared to what finally aired.
The Youtube video of the interview has also apparently been edited.
Trump campaign has obviously called for the full interview to be released unedited. He doesn’t like the show, after they allegedly stitched him up in 2020, and has declined to be interviewed this cycle.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
Americans weigh themselves in pounds rather than stones and pounds, and according to decades of cop shows, can estimate weight reliably and accurately.
That may be so, but, as my weight has changed, I've found that 1 stone, ~6-7 kg, roughly equates to a change in clothing size, making it a practical and useful unit for measuring a person's weight (for an average height man it's also close to 2 points of BMI, which is as much precision as you need for that scale too).
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Why not? I'm not suggesting we readopt it but I don't see why it's "insane".
Here's a similar scale for Celsius:
0, icy 100, dead
And for Kelvin:
0, dead 100, dead
Why not indeed? It’s just a little out of character – you are normally the neophile’s neophile. I expected you to have the same attitude to rationality over human whimsicality in scales of measurement that you do for sub-national geographical units and (whispers) format of monetary exchange.
Personally, I don’t find Fahrenheit at all intuitive but that is only because I am not, and never have been tuned into it – while I still think of distance in imperial units I’ve never really thought of anything in terms of Fahrenheit. I know what 0 C feels like and I know what 20 c feels like, but I’d only know what 32 F feels like by translating it first into what I instinctively understand i.e. centigrade/Celsius (never really known the difference).
But there is certainly no reason why one is better than the other. My inner pedant bridles when I hear people talk about centigrade as a metric unit, because of course its as arbitrarily designated as Fahrenheit. But this – and the concept of Kelvin – is difficult to make people understand (though surely they have done this at school? Evidently they have forgotten).
It’s fun when someone conforms to the stereotype you have of them, and even more so when they fail to do so. This falls into the latter category!
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Why not? I'm not suggesting we readopt it but I don't see why it's "insane".
Here's a similar scale for Celsius:
0, icy 100, dead
And for Kelvin:
0, dead 100, dead
FWIW, the insanity I was referring to was the basis for creating the scale, i.e. fixing 0 and 100 (there are different stories about how that was done). The end result is ok as a weather scale, although no better than C.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Has he finally had enough, shilling for the cashless society?
If Labour makes progress on planning, building homes or immigration, they will be re-elected.
I think the odds the Tories are back in within five years is vanishingly small.
We have an electorate that veers massively. Very little residual party loyalty. It's who has the zeitgeist - impossible to know how the fickle bastards will go in four years and seven months time.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Why not? I'm not suggesting we readopt it but I don't see why it's "insane".
Here's a similar scale for Celsius:
0, icy 100, dead
And for Kelvin:
0, dead 100, dead
One of your more stupid posts. Everyone knows zero is freezing and 100 water boiling at standard atmospheric pressure.
A "similar scale" would just be in 5 degree increments. And more rationally grouped around the freezing point of water.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
I now suspect the cash hatred is due to residual anger over decimalisation
Not at all. Cash is utterly pointless. As the extremely weak arguments proposed on here for it prove.
It is a monumental waste of time and resources. If people want to persist with it, up to them, I wouldn't ban it.
But it is a bizarrely anachronistic, wasteful and time-consuming way of transacting money (and has to be converted back into proper digital money in any case).
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
What I have concluded is that the imperial system devised a new unit of measurement for every application. So we have the fother, which is the weight of lead that a single man can carry. If you know that your church roof requires 20 fothers of head for the roof, then you know you need to go up and down 20 times with a load of lead to roof it. Simple. This means that for most applications which existed long ago enough, there's a perfect imperial unit for working with. Ounces are perfect for baking, miles for walking, feet for room sizes, etc.
Unfortunately, at some point they stopped adding new units to the imperial system, and so there aren't handy imperial units for rocketry, or electric car batteries.
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
We're in a weird mix, aren't we?
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
Insane in what way?
Under 0, don’t go outside. Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw 11-20 bitter 21-30 cold 31-40 chilly 41-50 temperate 51-60 mild 61-70 pleasant 71-80 warm 81-90 hot 91-100 oppressive
Anabobazina defending the Fahrenheit system. Post of the day - never thought I'd see the like!
Why not? I'm not suggesting we readopt it but I don't see why it's "insane".
Here's a similar scale for Celsius:
0, icy 100, dead
And for Kelvin:
0, dead 100, dead
Why not indeed? It’s just a little out of character – you are normally the neophile’s neophile. I expected you to have the same attitude to rationality over human whimsicality in scales of measurement that you do for sub-national geographical units and (whispers) format of monetary exchange.
Personally, I don’t find Fahrenheit at all intuitive but that is only because I am not, and never have been tuned into it – while I still think of distance in imperial units I’ve never really thought of anything in terms of Fahrenheit. I know what 0 C feels like and I know what 20 c feels like, but I’d only know what 32 F feels like by translating it first into what I instinctively understand i.e. centigrade/Celsius (never really known the difference).
But there is certainly no reason why one is better than the other. My inner pedant bridles when I hear people talk about centigrade as a metric unit, because of course its as arbitrarily designated as Fahrenheit. But this – and the concept of Kelvin – is difficult to make people understand (though surely they have done this at school? Evidently they have forgotten).
It’s fun when someone conforms to the stereotype you have of them, and even more so when they fail to do so. This falls into the latter category!
Apparently 0 Fahrenheit was the coldest temperature possible with salt and ice, and 100 was meant to be human body temperature (it is actually 98.4).
Mr. Eagles, perhaps Klopp will interview Verstappen when he wins the title?
Last month I bought a brand new TV (83 inches, not overcompensating), I will cry and hurl bricks at the TV if Klopp says nice things about the Dutch shunt.
Only 83", didn't fancy one of those 100" jobbies.....
I’ll get the 100 inch one when 8K becomes standard.
Why do we still do TVs in inches?* I had to do the conversion: 2.1-2.5m
Fine for films and sport, but what happens when you watch the news? I don't think I could have dealt with Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at that size in my living room
*Or at least, let's move to feet and inches. I know I'm 184cm tall which is just over 6ft, but for inches I'd have to do the maths - no one when asked how tall they are says 72 inches!
The ONLY thing I use feet for is height of humans.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans. Ditto stone and weight of humans.
What I have concluded is that the imperial system devised a new unit of measurement for every application. So we have the fother, which is the weight of lead that a single man can carry. If you know that your church roof requires 20 fothers of head for the roof, then you know you need to go up and down 20 times with a load of lead to roof it. Simple. This means that for most applications which existed long ago enough, there's a perfect imperial unit for working with. Ounces are perfect for baking, miles for walking, feet for room sizes, etc.
Unfortunately, at some point they stopped adding new units to the imperial system, and so there aren't handy imperial units for rocketry, or electric car batteries.
Comments
If the leasing setups had done that we would not have had anything like the current controversy.
It used to be typically "Ground Rent will double once every 25 years", which worked OK.
They may have set it up like that driven by the upfront Commuted Sum a Council would want from the developer to adopt things. They normally afaics want enough cash to fund everything for a generation.
a) It sits on a shelf and doesn't dominate the room except when it is on
b) You can throw stuff at the screen with impunity
c) 100"? Meh
Downside is that it isn't very good during bright daylight, but who wants to be sat inside when it is sunny? I don't watch live TV anyway.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/what-went-wrong-for-robert-jenrick/ar-AA1rUA3m?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=2d4a4c443f224ed38bd53eecc38bf89c&ei=24
(We are talking William-heights as the 'Wales' unit, right? The SI Wales unit is for area, afterall)
ETA: although area as a measure of TV screen size would also make sense. In the region of 89pWales if my maths is correct.
https://www.circalasvegas.com/stadium-swim/
What's gone wrong there?
Tunnel requirements for high speed are more costly - and the route required (for political reasons) more tunnelling
It might be true to say that lowering the speed now won't save a huge percentage - but it would almost certainly have been a lot cheaper, and likely have been less controversial, and completed sooner, without the unnecessary 'high speed' tag.
“The Chagos agreement, a precedents for the Malvinas”—Argentinian press.
https://x.com/yuanyi_z/status/1843617915276538051?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Who could have seen this coming? What if the argentines win some kind of ICJ judgement? What can Starmer do then?
Their craven cowardice endangers us all
This 'cane seems to be very unusual in not weakening after the initial spin up. It is going to weaken before it hits Florida but not enough.
The East coast is very vulnerable due to geography and the (incorrect) thought that the worst hurricanes come from the West (eg Andrew).
The last aircraft sample still has an extraordinarily low pressure of 910mb. The longer it stays that low, the bigger the storm surge is going to be.
I think even the most insane storm chasers might be giving this one a miss, or at least, thinking twice about trying to get in the eye.
There's a very strong law of diminishing returns as you increase speed. Allowing for plausible acceleration curves, 125mph still gets you London-Manchester in about 1 3/4 hrs, 150mph only saves you about 15 minutes, 200mph only saves you about 30mins.
The costs as you go faster are significant - e.g. HS2 requires concrete slab track rather than conventional sleepers. Tunnel bores have to be *much* larger to deal with the turbulence from two trains passing at higher speeds. And to cap it all off, because you have to maintain clear stopping distances between trains, capacity in terms of trains per hour if anything probably drops.
Apparently Trump has an edge over Harris with Arab American and Muslim voters .
The same Trump who put in a Muslim travel ban in his time in office . Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris and told the community to think logically .
I can understand they’re angry with Biden and Harris. Then voting for an even worse option seems insane .
The big saving, I think, is by laying a track on ballast rather than slab, and this is perfectly possible at 125.
My view on this is that DfT are expressing an unnecessarily cautious view on the potential cost savings, for understandable reasons.
The lease ran its course and we left as we were obliged to under international law. Many thought the Chinese wouldn't live up to what they had agreed to in the 1984 Declaration and so it has turned out.
Good morning, everyone.
If the Muslim voters think Trump - he of moving US embassy to Jerusalem - is going to force a ceasefire they are deluded. And that's before he starts rounding up anyone who looks a bit darker than a Nordic ski instructor as they are obviously not a citizen.
And that's before we start on the voters who are voting Trump to sort out inflation or to keep their Obama Care.
I guess the technical term is 'low information' voters?
For example, here is the practice in Nottinghamshire, where afaics for the Council to adopt a SUDS (Sustainable Drainage System) they will expect a commuted sum up front that will pay for ALL the replacement components, and ALL the maintenance, for a period of 60 years. 60 years is the assumed lifetime of a house. It follows standards.
Highways will be 120 years. Streetlights will be 40 years. The Council may want several thousand ££££ for every lamp post. Obvs this also drives towards minimum standards on new housing estates.
https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/media/2902384/80-commuted-sums.pdf
That means afaics that it will be added in to the sale cost of the new houses. No wonder so many developers shun adoption, and let the householders pay an annual fee.
Arguably most of it should be in the Council Tax to be paid by those houses.
That's another Knot of Gordion in local council finances. From the above:
New roads adopted under Section 38
8.3 Section 38 of the Act is a power allowing highway authorities to adopt newly constructed roads by agreement with landowners and developers. Section 38(6) states as follows:
“An agreement under this section may contain such provisions as to the dedication as a highway of any road or way to which the agreement relates, the bearing of the expenses of the construction, maintenance or improvement of any highway, road, bridge or viaduct to which the agreement relates and other relevant matters as the authority making the agreement think fit”.
8.4 The Court of Appeal has emphasised the wide and unqualified nature of the Section 38(6) powers. There are no limitations as to how the commuted sum should be calculated (Redrow Homes Ltd v Knowsley MBC [2015]) and this need not be limited to “extra over” costs.
" laying a track on ballast rather than slab"
You can lay HSL an ballast; and AIUI the slab track decision for HS2 was only made a few years ago. Slab track dramatically reduces maintenance during the track's lifetime, but is much more expensive to install and makes renewals *much* more expensive and onerous.
https://www.railengineer.co.uk/slab-track-for-hs2/
Incidentally, I think the first slab concrete track done in the UK was at Duffield, to the north of Derby. A couple of decades ago you could still see the concrete (the line was taken out of use).
https://her.derbyshire.gov.uk/Monument/MDR14215
Then again, the experience of the misguided bus here in Cambridge shows that it can be best to hold contractor's 'nads to the fire. Though in that case, the council shares much of the blame IMO.
Many will be unsurprised that I am no enthusiast for the newfangled, and still measure large distances in yards or miles and small distances in inches. (I was born post-imperial and was taught in metric, but imperial measurements are just so much more satisfying to say.) But I have little use for the curiously superfluous measure of feet, aside from height of humans.
Ditto stone and weight of humans.
More power to her elbow.
JFDI.
You lose all leverage if you show that you will vote for the intolerable. So I can see the logic of Muslims voting against the Democrats, because as far as they're concerned this election is a write off - both options are beyond the pale - but at least if they punish the Democrats this time there is a chance they might have a more tolerable Democrat to vote for next time.
It's not a choice I would make, but I can see the case for it.
As my link above shows, it does not 'require' slab track. They decided to use it for HS2, and it seems it was a fairly close decision.
The thing is, many of your points are true for HSLs in other countries, and they apparently manage to build them much cheaper than we do - though direct comparisons are difficult.
This is pertinent - from the reduced speed (who oddly enough are often anti-HS2) folks:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeconaf/359/35908.htm
For those look at the mouth-breathing comments on the Black Belt Barrister's video on the Reform transparent PR-stunt on the Manchester Airport incident the other day. Just as happened when Farage was dishonestly yelping on about Manchester vs riots being "2 tier policing" when the 2nd lot were quick because they were all guilty pleas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywh6P06GFUY
Lee Anderson's Facebook feeds are full of the same.
I know my height in feet and m. Only know my mass in kg. Only know my waist in inches. I run in km, but I cycle and drive in miles. I cook in g and ml, but drink in pints.
The one imperial measure I really can't be dealing with is Fahrenheit, the scale for which is just insane
🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐
I think that makes my argument rather than detracts from it.
Under 0, don’t go outside.
Over 100, don’t go outside.
0-10 raw
11-20 bitter
21-30 cold
31-40 chilly
41-50 temperate
51-60 mild
61-70 pleasant
71-80 warm
81-90 hot
91-100 oppressive
Who are actively trying to stop Harris.
Unfortunately, at some point they stopped adding new units to the imperial system, and so there aren't handy imperial units for rocketry, or electric car batteries.
"This report shows that 29.4% of American Muslims plan to vote for Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, 29.1% for Jill Stein of the Green Party, 11.2% for Donald Trump of the Republican Party, 4.2% for Cornel West of the People’s Party, and less than 1% for Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party, and 16.5% are undecided."
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-2024-election-survey-of-american-muslims-shows-jill-stein-kamala-harris-tied-at-29-gaza-genocide-a-top-concern/
This looks plausible to me, indeed quite close to what happened in the UK in July.
A family that cannot afford its bills lives in poverty. Build them a home that costs almost nothing to heat and that same family will prioritise things that matter to us all.
(When mum doesn’t have second and third jobs to cover costs, one of the first things that gets help using the extra available time is children doing their homework.)
It is shocking that this has to be said in 2024 but poor quality housing blights lives.
EPC A and B are standards that must be met in new housing and older homes being brought into the local authority fold.
A late August poll of Muslim voters showed them going for Green candidate Stein not Trump, 29.4% of US Muslims backed Harris, 29.1% Stein and only 11% Trump.
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-swing-state-data-shows-muslim-voters-hold-diverse-preferences-still-up-for-grabs-in-2024/
Delivered free by Prime tomorrow.
Chump change for a lawyer.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-inch-tv/s?k=100+inch+tv
Here's a similar scale for Celsius:
0, icy
100, dead
And for Kelvin:
0, dead
100, dead
So 'other countries' doesn't really apply.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/cbs-60-minutes-airs-two-different-answers-from-vp-harris-same-question
The Youtube video of the interview has also apparently been edited.
Trump campaign has obviously called for the full interview to be released unedited. He doesn’t like the show, after they allegedly stitched him up in 2020, and has declined to be interviewed this cycle.
(Fixed as below...)
0-10 raw
11-20 bitter
21-30 icy
31-40 cold
41-50 chilly
51-60 mild
61-70 pleasant
71-80 warm
81-90 hot
91-100 oppressive
So 5N feels noticeably different to 6N, in a way that isn't true with 5F and 6F, or even 5C and 6C. So I think that degrees Newton are the more useful way to talk about temperatures, but 5F increments come second ahead of Celsius.
It might have been completed far sooner. There's no benefit in cancelling it, as happened, obviously.
The whole thing has been a shitshow from start to (not)finish.
This gives a flavour.
(And incidentally confirms my often repeated assertion that Brexit was a needless distraction.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98486dzxnzo
...Andrew Bruce joined the company in 2015. His job was to buy all the land and property for phase one of the project.
He says that in his first week he was given two sets of figures.
According to Mr Bruce, one set was to be used to show the government in presentations. He says these showed HS2 was on track to purchase the land on time and on budget.
He says he was also given a second set of figures which showed there was no way HS2 could buy all the land and properties needed while keeping to that budget. And he says his own work subsequently found even higher estimates for land and property costs.
He says that HS2 Ltd was not being honest about the likely costs even though HS2 Ltd was being paid for by the taxpayer and spending public money.
HS2 disputes this. It says these allegations have been put under intense scrutiny by the National Audit Office which found nothing untoward. Andrew Bruce doesn’t accept the conclusions that HS2 draws from the NAO findings. He believes there should be further investigation..
...You might have thought a megaproject costing billions would be a political priority. However, in 2017, Brexit was dominating the agenda and if an outsider had the impression that MPs were distracted when they voted through the country’s biggest infrastructure project, they’d be right.
Philip Hammond told me: “I'm sorry to disappoint you, but HS2 was not the main issue of the moment. The government was teetering on the brink, trying to deal with the daily hourly pressures of the Brexit negotiation. Long-term projects were perhaps not seen as quite as immediately urgent.”..
And people think I'm a logic machine.
Even if you end up with a “Smart” TV, don’t ever plug it in to a network, the whole lot of them are a privacy and security nightmare, even if losing the set-top box is astethically pleasing. They’re all full of trackers and spyware, especially the cheaper ones that subsidise the cost by selling vast amounts of data, much of it through China.
Get an AppleTV and plug that into the TV, use the screen as just that, a screen.
What do you want?
https://x.com/RayDarnott/status/1843512261945774352
Good morning Copilot. I remember a saying about the clothes you should wear at 10degrees, 20degrees and 30degrees, but I cannot remember it. Can you find a similar saying?
Copilot
Good morning! I found a saying that might be similar to what you’re thinking of:
- At 10°C: Wear a jacket or coat, a sweater, and layers to stay warm.
- At 20°C: A light jacket or long-sleeve shirt should be enough.
- At 30°C: Keep it cool with shorts and a t-shirt.
Does this sound like the saying you remember? If not, I can keep looking!- https://www.panaprium.com/blogs/i/10-degree-weather-outfits
- https://thetravelinsider.co/th/en/travel-inspirations/travel-hacks/what-to-pack-and-wear-for-different-winter-climates-10-c-0-c-0-c
- https://www.whowhatwear.com/what-to-wear-in-10-degree-weather
YouNo thank you Copilot. You have been a good AI.
Personally, I don’t find Fahrenheit at all intuitive but that is only because I am not, and never have been tuned into it – while I still think of distance in imperial units I’ve never really thought of anything in terms of Fahrenheit. I know what 0 C feels like and I know what 20 c feels like, but I’d only know what 32 F feels like by translating it first into what I instinctively understand i.e. centigrade/Celsius (never really known the difference).
But there is certainly no reason why one is better than the other. My inner pedant bridles when I hear people talk about centigrade as a metric unit, because of course its as arbitrarily designated as Fahrenheit. But this – and the concept of Kelvin – is difficult to make people understand (though surely they have done this at school? Evidently they have forgotten).
It’s fun when someone conforms to the stereotype you have of them, and even more so when they fail to do so. This falls into the latter category!
If Labour makes progress on planning, building homes or immigration, they will be re-elected.
I think the odds the Tories are back in within five years is vanishingly small.
Good cappuccino, pleasant pear tart thing, nice ham roll. £17. Not great but not entirely budget busting?
I have £73 left
Jeez it really is gonna be kebabs
Everyone knows zero is freezing and 100 water boiling at standard atmospheric pressure.
A "similar scale" would just be in 5 degree increments.
And more rationally grouped around the freezing point of water.
It is a monumental waste of time and resources. If people want to persist with it, up to them, I wouldn't ban it.
But it is a bizarrely anachronistic, wasteful and time-consuming way of transacting money (and has to be converted back into proper digital money in any case).
@KateEMcCann
Iain Duncan Smith backs Kemi Badenoch for leader, citing the need to go back to first principles and not look for easy answers...
The All England Club will replace about 300 officials with an electronic line calling system on all 18 match courts at next year’s tournament
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/tennis/article/wimbledon-ditches-line-judges-after-147-years-cn87skddm
This is sad news, one of my highlights of Wimbledon was seeing a line judge and ball boys/girls get clobbered by a fast serve.