My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
My Dad stopped after seeing news reports of a pensioner being involved in a fatal accident
My dad was incredibly stubborn. I was only when he had a minor accident that he finally agreed to hand over his keys to me and I sold the car. he was an accident waiting to happen and it was fortunate that it was a minor one. After a few days he convinced himself it wasn't his fault. It was.
I had a Beck's Blue on Friday for the first time. It was reasonably refreshing but it doesn't particularly taste like beer
I’ve tried a few different n/a beers as, when I go out with my friends we all drink quite a bit, usually a good ten plus pints and I’ve attempted sometimes to have the discipline to occasionally slip in a n/a beer in a couple of the rounds as a brake.
Corona zero, San Miguel Zero and Guinness zero definitely taste like their alcoholic brethren but a lot of bars and pubs don’t really stock a lot of choice so it’s a bit hit and miss. Becks blue and Heineken are vile.
I’m also not a fan of places where they charge the same for the non-alcohol version as for the alcohol as they should be pricing it without the booze duty.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
I think this must be a spoof?
Note the careful ambiguity of "holidays" to tirgger the [edfit] target audience.
Note also the recent reports in the Eye about the DT's reverse ferrets about supposed case study/ies of people badly affected by VAT on private schools which, erm, are alleged to be quite imaginative really.
"The article has been widely discussed on social media and many have stated that it was generated by AI.This was also asserted by presenter Richard Osman on the latest Rest Is Entertainment podcast.
The article was, in fact, written by a real journalist, based on a real telephone interview with a man who appears to have deceived the reporter and given them a fake name."
Surely a real journalist would have checked their source? This is a writer from the Kuensberg school of repeating BS spoonfed to them.
Time to dig out an old favourite of mine:
You cannot hop to bribe or twist Thank God! the British journalist. But seeing what the man will do Unbribed, there's no occasion to.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
A bit of a cheap shot in all honesty but it's revealing.
We are encouraged to believe our lives can only be improved if our lifestyle improves so it's the most expensive gadgets, the best houses, what are often described as "the finer things of life" including holidays.
So we consume and the economy grows from our expenditure and consumption and we are encouraged to keep spending, run up large levels of debt but keep comsuming and all matter of jobs benefit from this from the call centre operator in the tourist company to the horse riding instructor and the installer and manufacturer of garden hot tubs etc. etc.
This is all fine as long as we keep getting enough to keep consuming (whether from wages, pensions, inheritance, the State, loan sharks, doesn't matter) but as soon as we stop consuming and either start saving or do neither the problems start.
If our income can't keep pace with our expenditure, we either borrow and get into debt or we stop spending - that applies whether you're an individual, a town, a city or the British Government.
My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
My Dad stopped after seeing news reports of a pensioner being involved in a fatal accident
My dad was incredibly stubborn. I was only when he had a minor accident that he finally agreed to hand over his keys to me and I sold the car. he was an accident waiting to happen and it was fortunate that it was a minor one. After a few days he convinced himself it wasn't his fault. It was.
Too many people don't think about this. Yes the retirement home in the country is very nice, but at a certain age surely it is better to move to a small easily-maintained property in a reasonable size town with good public transport and easy access to shops and services
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
I very often go for a pint at around 5 pm. I wouldn't be able to do that. The idea that there is someone to give you a lift or a taxi will drive you 1 mile is for the birds. I could of course walk as I occasionally do, but that is more of a commitment in time. However if it is the right thing to do then so be it.
However like @Pulpstar and @DavidL I would like to know the accident stats between the new suggested lower limit and the existing limit. Is it a problem. If so bring in the new limit. If it isn't why bother.
I do agree with the eyesight test. Self diagnosis is daft. But it should go further. An observation/reaction test should be introduced, like you get on the driver awareness course. My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
70 sounds a bit low to me to start the tests. 75 seems more appropriate. I am thinking here of cost for little return as most 70 year old I know are very sharp. However I may not know a representative sample.
Stuff needs to be done at the lower end, particularly for new male drivers under 21. Maybe P plates for a year or no young passengers unless accompanied by an older person for 1 year (that latter one could be a bit restrictive).
I see a moral panic being whipped up here.
Yes accident rates do go up with age per mile travelled, but older drivers do far lower mileage, so these figures can be misleading. We do need to bear in mind that there are more older drivers than decades ago too.
The government figures do show that these accidents are disproportionately in daylight and in rural areas, but that may well simply be down to older drivers not driving at night and also from necessity.
Stopping older drivers from driving without providing alternatives like decent bus services in rural areas is just consignment people to be housebound. Those who need walking aids particularly so.
My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
My Dad stopped after seeing news reports of a pensioner being involved in a fatal accident
My dad was incredibly stubborn. I was only when he had a minor accident that he finally agreed to hand over his keys to me and I sold the car. he was an accident waiting to happen and it was fortunate that it was a minor one. After a few days he convinced himself it wasn't his fault. It was.
Too many people don't think about this. Yes the retirement home in the country is very nice, but at a certain age surely it is better to move to a small easily-maintained property in a reasonable size town with good public transport and easy access to shops and services
And also easy access to a major hospital for all those out-patient appointments.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
That really does taste like Guinness ... I'm told.
I had a couple of cans of Guinness Zero on Saturday - first tie I've had it. I preferred the taste to regular Guinness, which I find has too much of a burnt flavour about it.
I did some research in Belfast - Murphys, Beamish, Guinness. That was my order of preference.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
The low alcohol bottle beer is now very good now. However bottled beer is nowhere near as good as Cask beer (in my opinion). I would like to see the cask beer drop in strength. I remember (a long time ago) when London Pride was considered a strong beer at 4.2%. By today's standards that is no longer strong. A summer bitter at 3.0 - 3.5% seems ideal, but rare. Why? Beers with a lot more flavour always seem a lot stronger. Is that necessary? I don't know. I am a fan of Adnams Broadside, particularly in the winter. While in Southwold we always walk so it isn't a problem regarding driving, as long as I can find my way home.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Low/no alcohol gin and tonics make sense to me as the (hopefully decent) tonic water does the heavy lifting in that taste combo. Some no alcohol gins seem to work and others don't. I haven't really researched this but I think just removing the alcohol isn't enough; you need to adjust the other ingredients too.
I had a Beck's Blue on Friday for the first time. It was reasonably refreshing but it doesn't particularly taste like beer
I think this is the biggest issue. I've tried many low or zero alcohol beers and ciders over the years but while some are drinkable, non have ever really tasted just like beer/cider but without the alcohol. Too many of the beers just taste of malt.
Perhaps the answer is not trying to be like beer/cider at all?
Now that Nicola Sturgeon has said she should have paused the GRR, I wonder if all her fervent supporters, ministers included, feel they were taken for a ride by her when they came out saying Alister Jack was attacking devolution when he actually did pause it!
I am being utterly sincere when I say that from the moment I heard that Nicola Sturgeon had the brass neck to call her memoirs 'Frankly' I called it when I said she was literally doing what she has done for years and that was trolling us in plain sight. This is the politician who in the last few years when ever put in front of an inquiry under oath developed amnesia and simple ignored any invites to appear in front of the Scotland committee at Westminster while Pete Wishart totally ignored her arrogant dismal of the committee and didn't criticise her absence.
About fifteen years ago she and her then husband set out to create the carefully PR created persona that was to be the presidential like figure that was to became bigger than the SNP as a party and the ill informed UK media lapped it up without question and even the most basic journalistic investigation went out the window while only Andrew Neil and less than a handful of other inquiring journalists were prepared to robustly question her about her record and the various SNP Government scandals happening domestically in Scotland under her stewardship.
This memoir is yet another clearly cynical attempt by Nicola Sturgeon to rehabilitate her post scandal laden political image and attempts to set out a more softer post frontline narrative that she doesn't deserve and simple doesn't exist. But everyone woman who stood up and stuck their head above the parapet to fight her GRR bill will find this news cold comfort. I have been a SCon voter for nearly 40 years, I fought passionately for No in the Indy Ref in 2014, I fought as passionately to Remain in the EU Ref. Both campaigns fought across political party lines where I made so many friends across the politcal divide.
But a few years ago in Scotland I finally found the political hill I was absolutely finally prepared to die on, and I have met an amazing group of cross party women who felt like I did and it has always been about the hard fought for rights for women and protecting those womens rights to have safe spaces. Nicola Sturgeon told us that our concerns were not valid when it suited her and hounded out other females like Joanna Cherrie, Joan McAlpine and Ash Regan from her own party. She is not and never has been the feminist she has tried to portray herself as when it suits.
Absolutely this! Post of the month! I still hope to see Sturgeon in jail, and I say this as an SNP member for over 50 years. The Scottish media are very critical of the SNP, but Sturgeon and her acolytes always seem to get a free pass.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
I very often go for a pint at around 5 pm. I wouldn't be able to do that. The idea that there is someone to give you a lift or a taxi will drive you 1 mile is for the birds. I could of course walk as I occasionally do, but that is more of a commitment in time. However if it is the right thing to do then so be it.
However like @Pulpstar and @DavidL I would like to know the accident stats between the new suggested lower limit and the existing limit. Is it a problem. If so bring in the new limit. If it isn't why bother.
I do agree with the eyesight test. Self diagnosis is daft. But it should go further. An observation/reaction test should be introduced, like you get on the driver awareness course. My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
70 sounds a bit low to me to start the tests. 75 seems more appropriate. I am thinking here of cost for little return as most 70 year old I know are very sharp. However I may not know a representative sample.
Stuff needs to be done at the lower end, particularly for new male drivers under 21. Maybe P plates for a year or no young passengers unless accompanied by an older person for 1 year (that latter one could be a bit restrictive).
There is a further interaction between alcohol and age.
Alcohol use is increasing among adults 65 and older and the size of this population is expanding rapidly. Aging is associated with systemic inflammation, sleep disturbances, cancers, cognitive decline, and increased risk of injury and death from falls and other accidents. Alcohol misuse exacerbates and accelerates these age-related changes. Older drinkers are more sensitive to acute alcohol-induced impairments in memory, coordination, reaction time, and driving performance. Oxidative stress and DNA damage resulting from chronic heavy alcohol consumption contribute to an increased risk of cancer, liver disease, and cardiovascular disease. Medication use increases with age and many medications prescribed to older adults can interact negatively with alcohol. The rapid expansion of the population aged 65 and older, combined with higher levels of alcohol use and AUD in the Baby Boomer cohort than the preceding generation, could significantly increase the burden of alcohol on the healthcare system resulting from AUD and alcohol-related injuries and diseases. Screening and brief intervention for hazardous alcohol use among older patients along with education regarding potential interactions between alcohol and medications could substantially reduce the risk of harms from alcohol but currently is underutilized.
If all those things are going to happen to you when you are over 65, you need a drink to cope with them! Just don’t drive afterwards.
Now that Nicola Sturgeon has said she should have paused the GRR, I wonder if all her fervent supporters, ministers included, feel they were taken for a ride by her when they came out saying Alister Jack was attacking devolution when he actually did pause it!
I am being utterly sincere when I say that from the moment I heard that Nicola Sturgeon had the brass neck to call her memoirs 'Frankly' I called it when I said she was literally doing what she has done for years and that was trolling us in plain sight. This is the politician who in the last few years when ever put in front of an inquiry under oath developed amnesia and simple ignored any invites to appear in front of the Scotland committee at Westminster while Pete Wishart totally ignored her arrogant dismal of the committee and didn't criticise her absence.
About fifteen years ago she and her then husband set out to create the carefully PR created persona that was to be the presidential like figure that was to became bigger than the SNP as a party and the ill informed UK media lapped it up without question and even the most basic journalistic investigation went out the window while only Andrew Neil and less than a handful of other inquiring journalists were prepared to robustly question her about her record and the various SNP Government scandals happening domestically in Scotland under her stewardship.
This memoir is yet another clearly cynical attempt by Nicola Sturgeon to rehabilitate her post scandal laden political image and attempts to set out a more softer post frontline narrative that she doesn't deserve and simple doesn't exist. But everyone woman who stood up and stuck their head above the parapet to fight her GRR bill will find this news cold comfort. I have been a SCon voter for nearly 40 years, I fought passionately for No in the Indy Ref in 2014, I fought as passionately to Remain in the EU Ref. Both campaigns fought across political party lines where I made so many friends across the politcal divide.
But a few years ago in Scotland I finally found the political hill I was absolutely finally prepared to die on, and I have met an amazing group of cross party women who felt like I did and it has always been about the hard fought for rights for women and protecting those womens rights to have safe spaces. Nicola Sturgeon told us that our concerns were not valid when it suited her and hounded out other females like Joanna Cherrie, Joan McAlpine and Ash Regan from her own party. She is not and never has been the feminist she has tried to portray herself as when it suits.
Absolutely this! Post of the month! I still hope to see Sturgeon in jail, and I say this as an SNP member for over 50 years. The Scottish media are very critical of the SNP, but Sturgeon and her acolytes always seem to get a free pass.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
A bit of a cheap shot in all honesty but it's revealing.
We are encouraged to believe our lives can only be improved if our lifestyle improves so it's the most expensive gadgets, the best houses, what are often described as "the finer things of life" including holidays.
So we consume and the economy grows from our expenditure and consumption and we are encouraged to keep spending, run up large levels of debt but keep comsuming and all matter of jobs benefit from this from the call centre operator in the tourist company to the horse riding instructor and the installer and manufacturer of garden hot tubs etc. etc.
This is all fine as long as we keep getting enough to keep consuming (whether from wages, pensions, inheritance, the State, loan sharks, doesn't matter) but as soon as we stop consuming and either start saving or do neither the problems start.
If our income can't keep pace with our expenditure, we either borrow and get into debt or we stop spending - that applies whether you're an individual, a town, a city or the British Government.
If those of us who have stop spending, it does mess up things for people whose income depends on other people spending.
(Some half-formed thoughts on the furniture conversation yesterday. Collectively, as a nation, we broadly have enough of a lot of categories of Stuff- the kind of things that used to be on Wedding Lists, say. Most of it is now built to a quality that it will outlast its owners, too. There are many ways that that is a good thing, not just our collective footprint on the Earth. But the fact that I have a perfectly nice Ercol suite that was given to my parents as a wedding gift means that someone else doesn't have a job making another one for me. Maybe the future is that we all just become decadent fops.)
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Low/no alcohol gin and tonics make sense to me as the (hopefully decent) tonic water does the heavy lifting in that taste combo. Some no alcohol gins seem to work and others don't. I haven't really researched this but I think just removing the alcohol isn't enough; you need to adjust the other ingredients too.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
As I am usually driving, I probably drink more Guinness Zero than anything else in the pub. As I am not a lager drinker, I don’t like alcohol free lagers, and even Adnams Ghost Ship Zero is awful as soon as it warms up.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
Mrs Ydoethur?
I demand you withdraw the libellous suggestion that I am an estate agent!
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
I very often go for a pint at around 5 pm. I wouldn't be able to do that. The idea that there is someone to give you a lift or a taxi will drive you 1 mile is for the birds. I could of course walk as I occasionally do, but that is more of a commitment in time. However if it is the right thing to do then so be it.
However like @Pulpstar and @DavidL I would like to know the accident stats between the new suggested lower limit and the existing limit. Is it a problem. If so bring in the new limit. If it isn't why bother.
I do agree with the eyesight test. Self diagnosis is daft. But it should go further. An observation/reaction test should be introduced, like you get on the driver awareness course. My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
70 sounds a bit low to me to start the tests. 75 seems more appropriate. I am thinking here of cost for little return as most 70 year old I know are very sharp. However I may not know a representative sample.
Stuff needs to be done at the lower end, particularly for new male drivers under 21. Maybe P plates for a year or no young passengers unless accompanied by an older person for 1 year (that latter one could be a bit restrictive).
I see a moral panic being whipped up here.
Yes accident rates do go up with age per mile travelled, but older drivers do far lower mileage, so these figures can be misleading. We do need to bear in mind that there are more older drivers than decades ago too.
The government figures do show that these accidents are disproportionately in daylight and in rural areas, but that may well simply be down to older drivers not driving at night and also from necessity.
Stopping older drivers from driving without providing alternatives like decent bus services in rural areas is just consignment people to be housebound. Those who need walking aids particularly so.
Yes, for some older people (eg my dad 92) it provides independence and a sense of still being in control of their life. You have to balance that against the risk of accident. My dad probably should stop but I don't feel right pushing that beyond gentle suggestion. He's careful and sticks to short local drives in daylight where he knows the route.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
Insisting on the use of railway station is like a Reform policy. Its redolent of a forgotten era - Miss Marple perhaps, gently upbraiding Inspector Slack "No, Inspector, the Railway Station".
We don't have a different name for the Bus Station.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
The package is quite comprehensive overall, because there have been a lot of bits and bobs slowly emerging. An example is the things about younger drivers from last year. And there has been a published paper about elderly eye tests from the previous Govt in iirc 2023 which supported the cost-benefit case. The Telegraph have a decent piece, which I can't post, but they are framing it as an attack on pensioners.
There are also drug tests proposed using cheek swabs, which is a step forward, and things like more secure number plates. I'm not sure about laughing gas, which is a very difficult one.
Skimming some media coverage there is strong support from eg the RAC and the AA and experts, so it could be a bit difficult positioning-wise for Cons and RefUK.
Watch what people like Susan Hall do, who embraced the Anti-ULEZ types, and perhaps Lord Mark Harper who went full culture-war before the Election.
I'll confidently say that the Govt won't be trying default 20 limits nationwide; they don't feel they have the political capital for that .
Good post, Matt. I shall be following developments and your comments on this with great interest.
Fwiw, I consider it absurd that I am able to continue driving based on a short test I passed in 1965. My 81 year old recently gave up his licence voluntarily a few weeks ago. It is a miracle he didn't kill someone his driving had become so bad.
The whole business needs a drastic overhaul.
It took a lot of persuasion to stop my late father, when he was in his early 90s and blind in one eye, to stop driving. Everyone refused to get in the car with him. I don’t know why his GP didn’t report him to DVLA. However, if people are going to be forced not to drive, we need to provide better public transport, subsidised if necessary.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Actually a very effective arrangement with a derogatory/self-effacing name. For the price of a coffee, unemployed people can get out of the house, maintain a working routine, develop skills and relationships and apply for jobs.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Low/no alcohol gin and tonics make sense to me as the (hopefully decent) tonic water does the heavy lifting in that taste combo. Some no alcohol gins seem to work and others don't. I haven't really researched this but I think just removing the alcohol isn't enough; you need to adjust the other ingredients too.
Why not just drink the tonic?
A couple of drops of Angostura gives tonic a bit of a kick. Plus ice & slice makes quite a grown up drink.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
I’d forgotten how nice actual shandy can be. Was at the zoo in France, and driving later, and decided to have a bottle of panaché. Cheap mass produced stuff, but much nicer than a cola.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
As I am usually driving, I probably drink more Guinness Zero than anything else in the pub. As I am not a lager drinker, I don’t like alcohol free lagers, and even Adnams Ghost Ship Zero is awful as soon as it warms up.
Guinness Zero is rather good. It was one of those that made me try zero alcohol beer again, as my previous attempts years ago were just of an awful experience. I'm not a Guinness drinker which may explain why I like it though.
In my late 20s I got hepatitis, so I couldn't drink. This was the 80s. It was a nightmare. I didn't miss the alcohol, but everything else was so sweet. I also couldn't drink tea or coffee as I took it with milk which was also a no no. No fat whatsoever. I lost so much weight. Sadly it all went back on.
Now that Nicola Sturgeon has said she should have paused the GRR, I wonder if all her fervent supporters, ministers included, feel they were taken for a ride by her when they came out saying Alister Jack was attacking devolution when he actually did pause it!
I am being utterly sincere when I say that from the moment I heard that Nicola Sturgeon had the brass neck to call her memoirs 'Frankly' I called it when I said she was literally doing what she has done for years and that was trolling us in plain sight. This is the politician who in the last few years when ever put in front of an inquiry under oath developed amnesia and simple ignored any invites to appear in front of the Scotland committee at Westminster while Pete Wishart totally ignored her arrogant dismal of the committee and didn't criticise her absence.
About fifteen years ago she and her then husband set out to create the carefully PR created persona that was to be the presidential like figure that was to became bigger than the SNP as a party and the ill informed UK media lapped it up without question and even the most basic journalistic investigation went out the window while only Andrew Neil and less than a handful of other inquiring journalists were prepared to robustly question her about her record and the various SNP Government scandals happening domestically in Scotland under her stewardship.
This memoir is yet another clearly cynical attempt by Nicola Sturgeon to rehabilitate her post scandal laden political image and attempts to set out a more softer post frontline narrative that she doesn't deserve and simple doesn't exist. But everyone woman who stood up and stuck their head above the parapet to fight her GRR bill will find this news cold comfort. I have been a SCon voter for nearly 40 years, I fought passionately for No in the Indy Ref in 2014, I fought as passionately to Remain in the EU Ref. Both campaigns fought across political party lines where I made so many friends across the politcal divide.
But a few years ago in Scotland I finally found the political hill I was absolutely finally prepared to die on, and I have met an amazing group of cross party women who felt like I did and it has always been about the hard fought for rights for women and protecting those womens rights to have safe spaces. Nicola Sturgeon told us that our concerns were not valid when it suited her and hounded out other females like Joanna Cherrie, Joan McAlpine and Ash Regan from her own party. She is not and never has been the feminist she has tried to portray herself as when it suits.
Absolutely this! Post of the month! I still hope to see Sturgeon in jail, and I say this as an SNP member for over 50 years. The Scottish media are very critical of the SNP, but Sturgeon and her acolytes always seem to get a free pass.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Low/no alcohol gin and tonics make sense to me as the (hopefully decent) tonic water does the heavy lifting in that taste combo. Some no alcohol gins seem to work and others don't. I haven't really researched this but I think just removing the alcohol isn't enough; you need to adjust the other ingredients too.
Why not just drink the tonic?
Because you want it to taste somewhat like gin and tonic without using full strength gin. I suppose the same as low alcohol beers.
I simply cannot believe the small print of that Chagos deal.
Checking the sums.
To pay out 99 index linked payments you'll need 99* the amount of cash. I can't see how the gov'ts NPV on this is anything other than *checks* £11.88 Bn. Because the gov't does not purchase equities or gilts. It distributes gilts into the market, and long run its money supply is - well its money supply. The assumption has to be that interest rates vs inflation long term must surely be zero. And this is the gov't and this is long term.
Think about it - the gov't is not taking your or my tax money and investing it in the FTSE or whatever to try and create a return. It's paying down a debt - by force it is an ultra-low risk, low return entity. And 99 years is a very long time. Now 99* might be too low if we have negative real interest rates (As we did during the 10s) but that too isn't sustainable long term, so lets give them credit for that. I suppose the gov't could take £3.34 Bn or whatever and buy a risk adjusted pool to pay the ongoing payments which would cut the cost down to the previous NPV calcs. Except it can't, the gov't has to currently borrow at the gilt yields. And if it borrowed to invest in stocks yielding say an uncertain 5%, ceteris paribus the yields on the rest of the debt would rise to absorb that.
The cash cost, assuming 3.5% indexing/inflation is ~£100 Bn for £120M over 99 years. I can't see how it is anything other than £11.88 Bn in real terms, or err £120M/yr
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
Pointless if trains only stop there once every second Thursday.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Low/no alcohol gin and tonics make sense to me as the (hopefully decent) tonic water does the heavy lifting in that taste combo. Some no alcohol gins seem to work and others don't. I haven't really researched this but I think just removing the alcohol isn't enough; you need to adjust the other ingredients too.
Why not just drink the tonic?
A couple of drops of Angostura gives tonic a bit of a kick. Plus ice & slice makes quite a grown up drink.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Beer/lager is the only drink I have found where 0% can in any sense replicate the taste. I like the stuff like Gordons 0% as well, but gin it isn't. 0% wines - avoid.
Presumably the elderly, blind and drunk drivers who fail these new laws will still be able to use heavy high-speed mobility scooters on pavements and in crowded shopping centres.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
Pointless if trains only stop there once every second Thursday.
Do you know of any stations where trains only stop every second Thursday? Asking for a friend named Sunil.
This is why people think crime is out of control...
More than eight out of ten crimes went unsolved last year, a Daily Mail investigation suggests.
No crime was solved in almost 900 of approximately 34,000 LSOAs in England and Wales in the year ending May 2025, according to our analysis of Police UK figures. Chalk Farm and Primrose Hill, a suburb of Camden, north London, topped the league table, with all 150 reported crimes going unsolved.
The Met this week announced it would be axing nearly half of its front desk services across the capital to try and balance its £260million budget shortfall.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Low/no alcohol gin and tonics make sense to me as the (hopefully decent) tonic water does the heavy lifting in that taste combo. Some no alcohol gins seem to work and others don't. I haven't really researched this but I think just removing the alcohol isn't enough; you need to adjust the other ingredients too.
Why not just drink the tonic?
I absolutely love a good refreshing tonic water with lemon and ice and no gin on a hot day, not saying that I don't love gin because I do and have done since my late teens when no one else my age was drinking it.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
A bit of a cheap shot in all honesty but it's revealing.
We are encouraged to believe our lives can only be improved if our lifestyle improves so it's the most expensive gadgets, the best houses, what are often described as "the finer things of life" including holidays.
So we consume and the economy grows from our expenditure and consumption and we are encouraged to keep spending, run up large levels of debt but keep comsuming and all matter of jobs benefit from this from the call centre operator in the tourist company to the horse riding instructor and the installer and manufacturer of garden hot tubs etc. etc.
This is all fine as long as we keep getting enough to keep consuming (whether from wages, pensions, inheritance, the State, loan sharks, doesn't matter) but as soon as we stop consuming and either start saving or do neither the problems start.
If our income can't keep pace with our expenditure, we either borrow and get into debt or we stop spending - that applies whether you're an individual, a town, a city or the British Government.
Now that Nicola Sturgeon has said she should have paused the GRR, I wonder if all her fervent supporters, ministers included, feel they were taken for a ride by her when they came out saying Alister Jack was attacking devolution when he actually did pause it!
I am being utterly sincere when I say that from the moment I heard that Nicola Sturgeon had the brass neck to call her memoirs 'Frankly' I called it when I said she was literally doing what she has done for years and that was trolling us in plain sight. This is the politician who in the last few years when ever put in front of an inquiry under oath developed amnesia and simple ignored any invites to appear in front of the Scotland committee at Westminster while Pete Wishart totally ignored her arrogant dismal of the committee and didn't criticise her absence.
About fifteen years ago she and her then husband set out to create the carefully PR created persona that was to be the presidential like figure that was to became bigger than the SNP as a party and the ill informed UK media lapped it up without question and even the most basic journalistic investigation went out the window while only Andrew Neil and less than a handful of other inquiring journalists were prepared to robustly question her about her record and the various SNP Government scandals happening domestically in Scotland under her stewardship.
This memoir is yet another clearly cynical attempt by Nicola Sturgeon to rehabilitate her post scandal laden political image and attempts to set out a more softer post frontline narrative that she doesn't deserve and simple doesn't exist. But everyone woman who stood up and stuck their head above the parapet to fight her GRR bill will find this news cold comfort. I have been a SCon voter for nearly 40 years, I fought passionately for No in the Indy Ref in 2014, I fought as passionately to Remain in the EU Ref. Both campaigns fought across political party lines where I made so many friends across the politcal divide.
But a few years ago in Scotland I finally found the political hill I was absolutely finally prepared to die on, and I have met an amazing group of cross party women who felt like I did and it has always been about the hard fought for rights for women and protecting those womens rights to have safe spaces. Nicola Sturgeon told us that our concerns were not valid when it suited her and hounded out other females like Joanna Cherrie, Joan McAlpine and Ash Regan from her own party. She is not and never has been the feminist she has tried to portray herself as when it suits.
Absolutely this! Post of the month! I still hope to see Sturgeon in jail, and I say this as an SNP member for over 50 years. The Scottish media are very critical of the SNP, but Sturgeon and her acolytes always seem to get a free pass.
The deeper question must be what good has the Scottish Parliament done ? If it merely provides an opening for a small group of wannabe Feudal Lords to oppress the masses would Scotland not be better off with either no devolved government or else an effective County/Country Council ?
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Beer/lager is the only drink I have found where 0% can in any sense replicate the taste. I like the stuff like Gordons 0% as well, but gin it isn't. 0% wines - avoid.
There must be a market opportunity for anyone that can produce a palatable alcohol free wine.
Presumably the elderly, blind and drunk drivers who fail these new laws will still be able to use heavy high-speed mobility scooters on pavements and in crowded shopping centres.
A teacher is featured - £80k household income, big house, three cars (including at least one BMW), horse riding lessons, lots of holidays - complaining she cannot use the garden hot tub because of electricity prices.
Most people don't even have a garden hot tub
There is a static caravan site (what Americans would call a trailer park) not too far from me. They have garden hot tubs
What is it with hot tubs? Our neighbours have just had one installed in their garden, but I honestly can't see the attraction. I have sat in one while on holiday, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and I can't say I found it particularly pleasant to be basically sharing a bath with a bunch of people. At least there was a decent view though and it was provided ready for use. But having one at home? With all the maintenance and running costs involved? And a view of the garden fence? No thank you. It'll be interesting to see how much use our neighbours make of it.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
I very often go for a pint at around 5 pm. I wouldn't be able to do that. The idea that there is someone to give you a lift or a taxi will drive you 1 mile is for the birds. I could of course walk as I occasionally do, but that is more of a commitment in time. However if it is the right thing to do then so be it.
However like @Pulpstar and @DavidL I would like to know the accident stats between the new suggested lower limit and the existing limit. Is it a problem. If so bring in the new limit. If it isn't why bother.
I do agree with the eyesight test. Self diagnosis is daft. But it should go further. An observation/reaction test should be introduced, like you get on the driver awareness course. My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
70 sounds a bit low to me to start the tests. 75 seems more appropriate. I am thinking here of cost for little return as most 70 year old I know are very sharp. However I may not know a representative sample.
Stuff needs to be done at the lower end, particularly for new male drivers under 21. Maybe P plates for a year or no young passengers unless accompanied by an older person for 1 year (that latter one could be a bit restrictive).
There is a further interaction between alcohol and age.
Alcohol use is increasing among adults 65 and older and the size of this population is expanding rapidly. Aging is associated with systemic inflammation, sleep disturbances, cancers, cognitive decline, and increased risk of injury and death from falls and other accidents. Alcohol misuse exacerbates and accelerates these age-related changes. Older drinkers are more sensitive to acute alcohol-induced impairments in memory, coordination, reaction time, and driving performance. Oxidative stress and DNA damage resulting from chronic heavy alcohol consumption contribute to an increased risk of cancer, liver disease, and cardiovascular disease. Medication use increases with age and many medications prescribed to older adults can interact negatively with alcohol. The rapid expansion of the population aged 65 and older, combined with higher levels of alcohol use and AUD in the Baby Boomer cohort than the preceding generation, could significantly increase the burden of alcohol on the healthcare system resulting from AUD and alcohol-related injuries and diseases. Screening and brief intervention for hazardous alcohol use among older patients along with education regarding potential interactions between alcohol and medications could substantially reduce the risk of harms from alcohol but currently is underutilized.
Actually a very effective arrangement with a derogatory/self-effacing name. For the price of a coffee, unemployed people can get out of the house, maintain a working routine, develop skills and relationships and apply for jobs.
I don't disagree.
When I was looking for work (which went terribly) one thing I did was establish some not-quite-work stuff to maintain a routine, including doing stuff I'd rather skip.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
Pointless if trains only stop there once every second Thursday.
Do you know of any stations where trains only stop every second Thursday? Asking for a friend named Sunil.
I mean obviously I was exaggerating for comic effect but the point is that unless it is a regular service it isn’t very helpful, which it means it’s more complex and requires more planning than “just build a station”.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Beer/lager is the only drink I have found where 0% can in any sense replicate the taste. I like the stuff like Gordons 0% as well, but gin it isn't. 0% wines - avoid.
There must be a market opportunity for anyone that can produce a palatable alcohol free wine.
"I've spoken to judges about how and why IPP sentences were so widely used for petty crimes, like stealing a bike or phone, and I have been told that it's because it was easier for a judge to use it than it was for them to explain why they weren't going to.
In 2012 the law was abolished. By that time more than 8,000 people had been given an IPP sentence.
Campaigners say there are still almost 2,500 stuck behind bars. The former Supreme Court Judge Justice Lord Brown called it "the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system"."
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Generally beers sold today have a higher alcohol content than in the past.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Generally beers sold today have a higher alcohol content than in the past.
Actually a very effective arrangement with a derogatory/self-effacing name. For the price of a coffee, unemployed people can get out of the house, maintain a working routine, develop skills and relationships and apply for jobs.
I don't disagree.
When I was looking for work (which went terribly) one thing I did was establish some not-quite-work stuff to maintain a routine, including doing stuff I'd rather skip.
It sounds like there are far worse places to be, if unemployed. And more useless.
Many people have observed that a serious problem with employing the longer term unemployed is simple stuff like turning up reliably, keeping sensible hours etc.
Just make your own with fruit juice, sugar and yeast and pretend you're on the wagon enjoying an OJ. Or get a grip and drink refreshing cordials etc without them needing to be moderately adjacent to alcohol if you squint and hold your nose. Morning all
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
Pointless if trains only stop there once every second Thursday.
Do you know of any stations where trains only stop every second Thursday? Asking for a friend named Sunil.
I mean obviously I was exaggerating for comic effect but the point is that unless it is a regular service it isn’t very helpful, which it means it’s more complex and requires more planning than “just build a station”.
One thing that I haven’t seen, is the idea of trying, deliberately, to grow a transport service from scratch.
Start with an on-call taxi - press a button and a taxi arrives within x minutes to take you to the various stops. When this gets busy enough, a minibus.., and so on, until road crowding makes light rail a sensible thing to explore.
Something that self driving cars might be interesting for?
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
I simply cannot believe the small print of that Chagos deal.
Checking the sums.
To pay out 99 index linked payments you'll need 99* the amount of cash. I can't see how the gov'ts NPV on this is anything other than *checks* £11.88 Bn. Because the gov't does not purchase equities or gilts. It distributes gilts into the market, and long run its money supply is - well its money supply. The assumption has to be that interest rates vs inflation long term must surely be zero. And this is the gov't and this is long term.
Think about it - the gov't is not taking your or my tax money and investing it in the FTSE or whatever to try and create a return. It's paying down a debt - by force it is an ultra-low risk, low return entity. And 99 years is a very long time. Now 99* might be too low if we have negative real interest rates (As we did during the 10s) but that too isn't sustainable long term, so lets give them credit for that. I suppose the gov't could take £3.34 Bn or whatever and buy a risk adjusted pool to pay the ongoing payments which would cut the cost down to the previous NPV calcs. Except it can't, the gov't has to currently borrow at the gilt yields. And if it borrowed to invest in stocks yielding say an uncertain 5%, ceteris paribus the yields on the rest of the debt would rise to absorb that.
The cash cost, assuming 3.5% indexing/inflation is ~£100 Bn for £120M over 99 years. I can't see how it is anything other than £11.88 Bn in real terms, or err £120M/yr
£120m a year inflation adjusted is the easiest number to understand and the least reported. It is £2 per person per year against which we apparently get some kind of discount on trident. Sure its an annoyance to some but can we stop pretending it makes much difference to our finances or that scrapping it affords us extra spending elsewhere?
Now on to the state pension. Is that still 12k per year or are we describing it as £3.5m now to be consistent with Telegraph reporting standards?
On lower alcohol wines I recommend German semi sweet Rieslings at around 8%. At £20 or the high end bottles are not cheap obvs, but are actually one of the bargains of the wine trade. No other wine is more elegant and exquisite. Riesling is a grape with lots of acid and needs sugar to balance it
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
Snakebite and black with a top of blackcurrant cordial, snakebite and death with a shot in the top or a chaser Diamond white and special brew was the snakebite of choice for hard-core alcys
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
I very often go for a pint at around 5 pm. I wouldn't be able to do that. The idea that there is someone to give you a lift or a taxi will drive you 1 mile is for the birds. I could of course walk as I occasionally do, but that is more of a commitment in time. However if it is the right thing to do then so be it.
However like @Pulpstar and @DavidL I would like to know the accident stats between the new suggested lower limit and the existing limit. Is it a problem. If so bring in the new limit. If it isn't why bother.
I do agree with the eyesight test. Self diagnosis is daft. But it should go further. An observation/reaction test should be introduced, like you get on the driver awareness course. My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
70 sounds a bit low to me to start the tests. 75 seems more appropriate. I am thinking here of cost for little return as most 70 year old I know are very sharp. However I may not know a representative sample.
Stuff needs to be done at the lower end, particularly for new male drivers under 21. Maybe P plates for a year or no young passengers unless accompanied by an older person for 1 year (that latter one could be a bit restrictive).
I see a moral panic being whipped up here.
Yes accident rates do go up with age per mile travelled, but older drivers do far lower mileage, so these figures can be misleading. We do need to bear in mind that there are more older drivers than decades ago too.
The government figures do show that these accidents are disproportionately in daylight and in rural areas, but that may well simply be down to older drivers not driving at night and also from necessity.
Stopping older drivers from driving without providing alternatives like decent bus services in rural areas is just consignment people to be housebound. Those who need walking aids particularly so.
I don't think that's misleading at all. We rightly focus on the highest risk drivers when it comes to other things like drink, drugs and speeding, even though they tend to be a small minority. Why not on those who are much likelier to develop medical conditions that cause similar risks?
I strongly agree with your point about other transport provision, particularly buses which have been halved since 2010. That alternative has to be there, but as others have pointed out our built environment is increasingly based on car access, so the issue will continue. I note that the Dutch continue cycling into their 80s...
There is a large element of personal responsibility and "main character syndrome" too. The gentleman with glaucoma who is complaining about it on the BBC article is an irredeemably selfish ****, in the same way the woman who killed a toddler in Edinburgh was too (though possibly impaired by dementia).
My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
My Dad stopped after seeing news reports of a pensioner being involved in a fatal accident
My dad was incredibly stubborn. I was only when he had a minor accident that he finally agreed to hand over his keys to me and I sold the car. he was an accident waiting to happen and it was fortunate that it was a minor one. After a few days he convinced himself it wasn't his fault. It was.
Both my parents kept driving later than they should have. It seems a common experience, suggesting these new rules are sensible.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Yes - an argument for a public education campaign.
I hope this Govt are better at those than the last one.
(I'm finally seeing most people driving vehicles getting to grips with "pedestrians proceed and you wait at side roads and roundabouts.)
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
Pointless if trains only stop there once every second Thursday.
Do you know of any stations where trains only stop every second Thursday? Asking for a friend named Sunil.
I mean obviously I was exaggerating for comic effect but the point is that unless it is a regular service it isn’t very helpful, which it means it’s more complex and requires more planning than “just build a station”.
One thing that I haven’t seen, is the idea of trying, deliberately, to grow a transport service from scratch.
Start with an on-call taxi - press a button and a taxi arrives within x minutes to take you to the various stops. When this gets busy enough, a minibus.., and so on, until road crowding makes light rail a sensible thing to explore.
Something that self driving cars might be interesting for?
One would hope that it's the sort of thing that the coming generation of Raynertowns is going to get right- better provision of services (including transport) from Day One, and thought-out passive provision to expand facilities as the town expands. A lot of the 1980s expansion of South Hampshire was terrible from that point of view- starting car-dependent and staying that way as it grew.
Alarmingly, Welborne (between Portsmouth and Southampton) is having an early stumble there. There is a (fairly infrequent) villagey bus that runs past the site. But that's being withdrawn (Hants CC has zero spare money), just as the first houses are being built. It's a shame, because the developers seem to be trying to do the right thing in the right way.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
Railway station.
Pedantry gone mad. What is wrong with train station? It is not as if trains don't stop there so it seems like a perfectly adequate unambiguous description to me. National Rail and Trainline use it and Google tells me it is ok and it is apparently a more common term with the younger elements of society so @HYUFD is down with the youff as well.
Insisting on the use of railway station is like a Reform policy. Its redolent of a forgotten era - Miss Marple perhaps, gently upbraiding Inspector Slack "No, Inspector, the Railway Station".
We don't have a different name for the Bus Station.
I've a considerable interest in two of today's topics since both Mrs C and I are regular, if low-level, drinkers and concerned about our driving. I quite like some..... eg Ghost Ship Zero but generally find it easier to just not drink as much. I really, really don't want to fall over and damage my spine any more than it's damaged already. Fortunately the local pub has reasonably frequent changes of guest beers, so I'm able to experiment.
On driving. earlier this year I had a long drawn out discussion with the DVLA which resulted in me surrendering my licence, due to inability to react quickly enough (see above for spinal damage). During the process I had a couple of charged for assessments at a Centre associated with, but not part of, the DVLA. I 'passed' the first, but not the second.
Mrs C still has a licence and drives about the locality but was concerned about her sight. However the opticians have assured that it';s fine. However she fell foul of a speed camera earlier this year and as a result when on a Driving Awareness course, and while there was told about an organisation which will assess older drivers, m at no charge, and comment on their driving. She's now waiting for them to come back to her.
On the electric mobility scooter point, I've now got one and while I can manage many places locally well enough, including the supermarket and my favourite pub, I can't use the Post Office because the aisles are too narrow and I knock things off the shelves!
The last grandkid finally figured out how to cancel granddad's decades old subscription ?
JRM joins the conversation, demanding that he still requires the internet my Morse Code - having removed the semaphore installation last month.
TBF he didn't insist on keeping the shutter telegraph going. I can confirm this, as I went to Lambert's Castle in Dorset last autumn to inspect the station* and the thing had been dismantled.
*NB importance of always saying 'railway'. Could be a message train or a supply train. You never know.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
No. Very popular at Cardiff U ca. 1980 from what I understand from colleagues.
Now that Nicola Sturgeon has said she should have paused the GRR, I wonder if all her fervent supporters, ministers included, feel they were taken for a ride by her when they came out saying Alister Jack was attacking devolution when he actually did pause it!
I am being utterly sincere when I say that from the moment I heard that Nicola Sturgeon had the brass neck to call her memoirs 'Frankly' I called it when I said she was literally doing what she has done for years and that was trolling us in plain sight. This is the politician who in the last few years when ever put in front of an inquiry under oath developed amnesia and simple ignored any invites to appear in front of the Scotland committee at Westminster while Pete Wishart totally ignored her arrogant dismal of the committee and didn't criticise her absence.
About fifteen years ago she and her then husband set out to create the carefully PR created persona that was to be the presidential like figure that was to became bigger than the SNP as a party and the ill informed UK media lapped it up without question and even the most basic journalistic investigation went out the window while only Andrew Neil and less than a handful of other inquiring journalists were prepared to robustly question her about her record and the various SNP Government scandals happening domestically in Scotland under her stewardship.
This memoir is yet another clearly cynical attempt by Nicola Sturgeon to rehabilitate her post scandal laden political image and attempts to set out a more softer post frontline narrative that she doesn't deserve and simple doesn't exist. But everyone woman who stood up and stuck their head above the parapet to fight her GRR bill will find this news cold comfort. I have been a SCon voter for nearly 40 years, I fought passionately for No in the Indy Ref in 2014, I fought as passionately to Remain in the EU Ref. Both campaigns fought across political party lines where I made so many friends across the politcal divide.
But a few years ago in Scotland I finally found the political hill I was absolutely finally prepared to die on, and I have met an amazing group of cross party women who felt like I did and it has always been about the hard fought for rights for women and protecting those womens rights to have safe spaces. Nicola Sturgeon told us that our concerns were not valid when it suited her and hounded out other females like Joanna Cherrie, Joan McAlpine and Ash Regan from her own party. She is not and never has been the feminist she has tried to portray herself as when it suits.
Absolutely this! Post of the month! I still hope to see Sturgeon in jail, and I say this as an SNP member for over 50 years. The Scottish media are very critical of the SNP, but Sturgeon and her acolytes always seem to get a free pass.
Jailed for what, exactly?
Perjury.
Does saying "I don't recall" one hundred times reach that threshold?
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
No. Very popular at Cardiff U ca. 1980 from what I understand from colleagues.
Popular with pissed students and alcoholics everywhere since at least the 70s
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Beer/lager is the only drink I have found where 0% can in any sense replicate the taste. I like the stuff like Gordons 0% as well, but gin it isn't. 0% wines - avoid.
Why do 0% lagers work and 0% wine doesn't? What's going on with the chemistry here?
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
It was around at my university, though I thought it was cider and lager *. And I'd never drink anything (even then) with Gas-o-Lager in it.
I've a considerable interest in two of today's topics since both Mrs C and I are regular, if low-level, drinkers and concerned about our driving. I quite like some..... eg Ghost Ship Zero but generally find it easier to just not drink as much. I really, really don't want to fall over and damage my spine any more than it's damaged already. Fortunately the local pub has reasonably frequent changes of guest beers, so I'm able to experiment.
On driving. earlier this year I had a long drawn out discussion with the DVLA which resulted in me surrendering my licence, due to inability to react quickly enough (see above for spinal damage). During the process I had a couple of charged for assessments at a Centre associated with, but not part of, the DVLA. I 'passed' the first, but not the second.
Mrs C still has a licence and drives about the locality but was concerned about her sight. However the opticians have assured that it';s fine. However she fell foul of a speed camera earlier this year and as a result when on a Driving Awareness course, and while there was told about an organisation which will assess older drivers, m at no charge, and comment on their driving. She's now waiting for them to come back to her.
On the electric mobility scooter point, I've now got one and while I can manage many places locally well enough, including the supermarket and my favourite pub, I can't use the Post Office because the aisles are too narrow and I knock things off the shelves!
Keep knocking stuff off until they make it accessible. I used to measure the aisles as part of my old retail job.
I think those assessments you and wife have done should be free.
The new drink driving limit: Sponsored by Guinness Zero.
By all accounts, alcohol-free booze has come on leaps and bounds so the designated driver no longer has to sip too-sweet soft drinks.
Low alcohol and alcohol free beer is now my drink of choice at pubs and even in the evening: I can recommend Brewdog's "Hazy AF" and the rest of their AF range.
I haven't given up drinking, and haven't yet found a good low alcohol wine (and the concept of low alcohol spirits strikes me as bizarre), but for beer they taste good enough for me, and I can drink them and drive.
Beer/lager is the only drink I have found where 0% can in any sense replicate the taste. I like the stuff like Gordons 0% as well, but gin it isn't. 0% wines - avoid.
Why do 0% lagers work and 0% wine doesn't? What's going on with the chemistry here?
Dunno, but just think of it as the small beer which they used to use routinely for drinks everyday rather than water (bug-laden) and tea/coffee (too expensive, also adulterated in hindsight).
My father's sight was fine and he didn't have dementia, but he was plain dangerous behind a wheel and it took us years before we could get his keys off of him (aged 92).
My Dad stopped after seeing news reports of a pensioner being involved in a fatal accident
My dad was incredibly stubborn. I was only when he had a minor accident that he finally agreed to hand over his keys to me and I sold the car. he was an accident waiting to happen and it was fortunate that it was a minor one. After a few days he convinced himself it wasn't his fault. It was.
Both my parents kept driving later than they should have. It seems a common experience, suggesting these new rules are sensible.
My stepdad sold my Moms car to stop her driving, as she was a menace.
My sister did the same with my Dads car when he was alive after a very hairy journey with him.
In both cases drastic action but the right course of action.
@TSE I'm just putting together a header on the changes to motoring law that I will submit a bit later - aiming for 9,30am so perhaps one for this afternoon.
I'm writing it then popping out for my walk before coming back for a final check.
@MattW one thing that occurs to me is that the new drink drive limit will likely catch out a lot of drivers in the morning. Anecdotally, that's what happened in Scotland with people driving to work on a Saturday morning only 7 hours after their last pint.
A bit after the horse has bolted though. Drug driving is now a bigger issue I think. On older people, politically fraught but there is very clear evidence driving standards fall dramatically after 70. This wasn't such a big issue when we had decent bus provision - now taking a licence away can be devastating for people.
Also the spread of housing estates far beyond sensible, in terms of public transport. I see estates being built in farmland in places which are sometimes a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop. Anyone living there is going to have problems when they get too old to tool around in their cars.
Although community is quite strong in rural areas in terms of lifts and there are taxis of course too
'New housing estates' are not the same as 'rural communities.' They would be more like plantations with lots of new people moving in.
In towns with lots of farmland nearby taxis can be at rather a premium too. They hang out in major conurbations.
Depends if said town has a train station or not
New developments, if not in towns, should either be near a railway station or near a railway line with a condition of development being a railway station being funded and opened.
Pointless if trains only stop there once every second Thursday.
That sounds like quite a full on service. How many platforms are needed if they stop every second on Thursdays?
Under my system, Deliveroo would be fined £100,000
The migrant in question, if he reported them, would get £50,000 and indefinite leave to remain.
The likes of Deliveroo are turning a blind eye. It is fairly easy to implement checks to ensure the person out delivering is the person on file e.g. they must take a live call from an operator or produce a video within a short period of time including certain things.
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
It was around at my university, though I thought it was cider and lager *. And I'd never drink anything (even then) with Gas-o-Lager in it.
(* "beer" is not lager)
I have just remembered, it was cider with either beer or lager but we girls used to ask for it with a dash of blackcurrent juice as well!
I've a considerable interest in two of today's topics since both Mrs C and I are regular, if low-level, drinkers and concerned about our driving. I quite like some..... eg Ghost Ship Zero but generally find it easier to just not drink as much. I really, really don't want to fall over and damage my spine any more than it's damaged already. Fortunately the local pub has reasonably frequent changes of guest beers, so I'm able to experiment.
On driving. earlier this year I had a long drawn out discussion with the DVLA which resulted in me surrendering my licence, due to inability to react quickly enough (see above for spinal damage). During the process I had a couple of charged for assessments at a Centre associated with, but not part of, the DVLA. I 'passed' the first, but not the second.
Mrs C still has a licence and drives about the locality but was concerned about her sight. However the opticians have assured that it';s fine. However she fell foul of a speed camera earlier this year and as a result when on a Driving Awareness course, and while there was told about an organisation which will assess older drivers, m at no charge, and comment on their driving. She's now waiting for them to come back to her.
On the electric mobility scooter point, I've now got one and while I can manage many places locally well enough, including the supermarket and my favourite pub, I can't use the Post Office because the aisles are too narrow and I knock things off the shelves!
Keep knocking stuff off until they make it accessible. I used to measure the aisles as part of my old retail job.
I think those assessments you and wife have done should be free.
My 94 year old aunt takes a voluntary driving test every year. As she says she takes old people in her car and wants to be sure she is safe!
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
OMG, that is a real blast from the past for me as I used to drink a snakebite or two at the start of a night out as a student and I was not or have ever been a cider or a beer drinker but it was an absolute tradition and a very potent start to a good night out drinking. Was this a purely Scottish thing?
It was around at my university, though I thought it was cider and lager *. And I'd never drink anything (even then) with Gas-o-Lager in it.
(* "beer" is not lager)
I have just remembered, it was cider with either beer or lager but we girls used to ask for it with a dash of blackcurrent juice as well!
On the subject of low alcohol beers etc. can I mention my "life hack" that has me ridiculed and mocked, but it's nevertheless a good idea: use the zero alcohol beer as a substitute for lemondade in a shandy. Half a glass of proper beer, topped up with the zero alcohol stuff. The end product still tastes like beer, but with a lower alcohol content, and not sickly sweet either. However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
Mixing bottled and draught beer used to be a thing, partly because cask beer was often poor quality but bottled beer expensive. So mixing the two gave you a reasonable cost/quality ratio.
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
My grandfather enjoyed a pint of twos - half a mild with half a bitter
As a student I used to drink snakebite which was a combination of cider and beer. It was weirdly potent.
I recall some pubs in Edinburgh refusing to sell it in pints due to the potency. You could of course buy as many half pints as you could carry...
Comments
Corona zero, San Miguel Zero and Guinness zero definitely taste like their alcoholic brethren but a lot of bars and pubs don’t really stock a lot of choice so it’s a bit hit and miss. Becks blue and Heineken are vile.
I’m also not a fan of places where they charge the same for the non-alcohol version as for the alcohol as they should be pricing it without the booze duty.
You cannot hop to bribe or twist
Thank God! the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to.
We are encouraged to believe our lives can only be improved if our lifestyle improves so it's the most expensive gadgets, the best houses, what are often described as "the finer things of life" including holidays.
So we consume and the economy grows from our expenditure and consumption and we are encouraged to keep spending, run up large levels of debt but keep comsuming and all matter of jobs benefit from this from the call centre operator in the tourist company to the horse riding instructor and the installer and manufacturer of garden hot tubs etc. etc.
This is all fine as long as we keep getting enough to keep consuming (whether from wages, pensions, inheritance, the State, loan sharks, doesn't matter) but as soon as we stop consuming and either start saving or do neither the problems start.
If our income can't keep pace with our expenditure, we either borrow and get into debt or we stop spending - that applies whether you're an individual, a town, a city or the British Government.
Yes accident rates do go up with age per mile travelled, but older drivers do far lower mileage, so these figures can be misleading. We do need to bear in mind that there are more older drivers than decades ago too.
The government figures do show that these accidents are disproportionately in daylight and in rural areas, but that may well simply be down to older drivers not driving at night and also from necessity.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2023/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-older-driver-factsheet-2023
Stopping older drivers from driving without providing alternatives like decent bus services in rural areas is just consignment people to be housebound. Those who need walking aids particularly so.
I did some research in Belfast - Murphys, Beamish, Guinness. That was my order of preference.
Perhaps the answer is not trying to be like beer/cider at all?
(Some half-formed thoughts on the furniture conversation yesterday. Collectively, as a nation, we broadly have enough of a lot of categories of Stuff- the kind of things that used to be on Wedding Lists, say. Most of it is now built to a quality that it will outlast its owners, too. There are many ways that that is a good thing, not just our collective footprint on the Earth. But the fact that I have a perfectly nice Ercol suite that was given to my parents as a wedding gift means that someone else doesn't have a job making another one for me. Maybe the future is that we all just become decadent fops.)
We don't have a different name for the Bus Station.
However, the beer purists will denounce you, youngsters will talk mockingly of "grand-dad's special cocktail" and your spouse will still think that you are drinking too much. I assure you, it's worth trying.
In my late 20s I got hepatitis, so I couldn't drink. This was the 80s. It was a nightmare. I didn't miss the alcohol, but everything else was so sweet. I also couldn't drink tea or coffee as I took it with milk which was also a no no. No fat whatsoever. I lost so much weight. Sadly it all went back on.
To pay out 99 index linked payments you'll need 99* the amount of cash. I can't see how the gov'ts NPV on this is anything other than *checks* £11.88 Bn. Because the gov't does not purchase equities or gilts. It distributes gilts into the market, and long run its money supply is - well its money supply. The assumption has to be that interest rates vs inflation long term must surely be zero. And this is the gov't and this is long term.
Think about it - the gov't is not taking your or my tax money and investing it in the FTSE or whatever to try and create a return. It's paying down a debt - by force it is an ultra-low risk, low return entity. And 99 years is a very long time.
Now 99* might be too low if we have negative real interest rates (As we did during the 10s) but that too isn't sustainable long term, so lets give them credit for that.
I suppose the gov't could take £3.34 Bn or whatever and buy a risk adjusted pool to pay the ongoing payments which would cut the cost down to the previous NPV calcs. Except it can't, the gov't has to currently borrow at the gilt yields. And if it borrowed to invest in stocks yielding say an uncertain 5%, ceteris paribus the yields on the rest of the debt would rise to absorb that.
The cash cost, assuming 3.5% indexing/inflation is ~£100 Bn for £120M over 99 years. I can't see how it is anything other than £11.88 Bn in real terms, or err £120M/yr
More than eight out of ten crimes went unsolved last year, a Daily Mail investigation suggests.
No crime was solved in almost 900 of approximately 34,000 LSOAs in England and Wales in the year ending May 2025, according to our analysis of Police UK figures. Chalk Farm and Primrose Hill, a suburb of Camden, north London, topped the league table, with all 150 reported crimes going unsolved.
The Met this week announced it would be axing nearly half of its front desk services across the capital to try and balance its £260million budget shortfall.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14969517/crimes-unsolved-police-Starmer-data-investigation.html
Comments come after police officers told shopkeeper to take down sign calling shoplifters ‘scumbags’"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/11/labour-admits-shoplifting-has-got-out-of-hand
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ebSw61PBQIA
When I was looking for work (which went terribly) one thing I did was establish some not-quite-work stuff to maintain a routine, including doing stuff I'd rather skip.
In 2012 the law was abolished. By that time more than 8,000 people had been given an IPP sentence.
Campaigners say there are still almost 2,500 stuck behind bars. The former Supreme Court Judge Justice Lord Brown called it "the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system"."
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-08-07/crushed-by-a-flawed-system-more-than-2000-still-held-under-defunct-uk-law
When I moved to London 30 years ago, some of the old soaks in Youngs pubs would still drink Ram Spesh, which was half a pint of Special in a pint glass, topped up with a bottle of Ram Rod.
Many people have observed that a serious problem with employing the longer term unemployed is simple stuff like turning up reliably, keeping sensible hours etc.
Or get a grip and drink refreshing cordials etc without them needing to be moderately adjacent to alcohol if you squint and hold your nose.
Morning all
Start with an on-call taxi - press a button and a taxi arrives within x minutes to take you to the various stops. When this gets busy enough, a minibus.., and so on, until road crowding makes light rail a sensible thing to explore.
Something that self driving cars might be interesting for?
Now on to the state pension. Is that still 12k per year or are we describing it as £3.5m now to be consistent with Telegraph reporting standards?
Diamond white and special brew was the snakebite of choice for hard-core alcys
THE first migrant to be convicted of illegally working for Deliveroo since The Sun’s probe has been fined just £26 after claiming to be in debt.
JPs gave him a conditional discharge, after hearing Merez was in debt and a first-time offender. He must pay the victim surcharge at the minimum £26.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36232632/first-migrant-convicted-deliveroo-fined/
May this sound echo in eternity:
https://x.com/MorningBrew/status/1954248434841432153
The last grandkid finally figured out how to cancel granddad's decades old subscription ?
I strongly agree with your point about other transport provision, particularly buses which have been halved since 2010. That alternative has to be there, but as others have pointed out our built environment is increasingly based on car access, so the issue will continue. I note that the Dutch continue cycling into their 80s...
There is a large element of personal responsibility and "main character syndrome" too. The gentleman with glaucoma who is complaining about it on the BBC article is an irredeemably selfish ****, in the same way the woman who killed a toddler in Edinburgh was too (though possibly impaired by dementia).
Does it need to go anywhere else?
I hope this Govt are better at those than the last one.
(I'm finally seeing most people driving vehicles getting to grips with "pedestrians proceed and you wait at side roads and roundabouts.)
Alarmingly, Welborne (between Portsmouth and Southampton) is having an early stumble there. There is a (fairly infrequent) villagey bus that runs past the site. But that's being withdrawn (Hants CC has zero spare money), just as the first houses are being built. It's a shame, because the developers seem to be trying to do the right thing in the right way.
Or fire stations?
I quite like some..... eg Ghost Ship Zero but generally find it easier to just not drink as much. I really, really don't want to fall over and damage my spine any more than it's damaged already. Fortunately the local pub has reasonably frequent changes of guest beers, so I'm able to experiment.
On driving. earlier this year I had a long drawn out discussion with the DVLA which resulted in me surrendering my licence, due to inability to react quickly enough (see above for spinal damage). During the process I had a couple of charged for assessments at a Centre associated with, but not part of, the DVLA. I 'passed' the first, but not the second.
Mrs C still has a licence and drives about the locality but was concerned about her sight. However the opticians have assured that it';s fine.
However she fell foul of a speed camera earlier this year and as a result when on a Driving Awareness course, and while there was told about an organisation which will assess older drivers, m at no charge, and comment on their driving. She's now waiting for them to come back to her.
On the electric mobility scooter point, I've now got one and while I can manage many places locally well enough, including the supermarket and my favourite pub, I can't use the Post Office because the aisles are too narrow and I knock things off the shelves!
*NB importance of always saying 'railway'. Could be a message train or a supply train. You never know.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgvvnx8y19o
Trump using the old shake down tactics, you kick me back some money, I let you do business....
(* "beer" is not lager)
I think those assessments you and wife have done should be free.
Trump today: I am deploying the National Guard in DC.
MAGA: Take that, libs! Only Trump can deploy the National Guard in DC!!!
https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1954749141000798341
My sister did the same with my Dads car when he was alive after a very hairy journey with him.
In both cases drastic action but the right course of action.
The migrant in question, if he reported them, would get £50,000 and indefinite leave to remain.
Fingers crossed