I didn’t think you could BECOME a Yorkshireman! I thought you had to be born there, and preferably have both parents born there, too!
Otherwise, surely, one can only be someone who now lives in Yorkshire!
We're very tolerant in Yorkshire, it's not about ethnicity or bloodlines, it's about a state of mind.
Hmmm. A Yorkshire state of mind and tolerant in the same post. Having lived in Lancashire .......
I've lived (and currently work) in Lancashire and in the past London, Yorkshire is the best.
I used to do a lot of business in Wakefield, which was a fun place especially in the evenings, and more recently in Leeds, which I rather like, but if you are going to claim Yorkshire as the best then you have to explain Sheffield. What a dump.
Sheffield is the birthplace of me.
We are also the venue for Labour's defeat in 1992.
More seriously, if English were to become the Single European Language then it would do a lot to reduce immigration to Britain, as Europeans and others with English-language skills would be able to use them in all the countries of the EU and not just the UK.
It could also form the basis of a grand bargain that would see us accept the German Deutschmark as our currency [this is called the Euro to mollify the French].
De-facto, both these things are likely to eventually happen, regardless of what the politicians do.
What a lot of twaddle. The chances of the UK ever joining the euro are as close to zero as you can get in Futurology.
By the time the British might be willing to vote Yes to sharing a currency with the Greeks and the Germans - i.e. in about 200-250 years - the very idea of notes and coins issued by banks will be laughably historic, as we trade pan-galactic cybergroats via the Neuronet.
Your other point is merely a truism. Of course the English language will become the de facto language of the EU. It's halfway there already - e.g. kids from Nordic countries will often talk to each other, or tweet each other, in English, rather than their own language.
I didn't say the UK would join the euro (although I think the chances are higher than you say), I said people will use it de-facto. I run a pan-galactic neuro-net cyber-groat-related service, but I reckon the traditional currencies will end up getting used on the pan-galactic neuro-net.
I didn’t think you could BECOME a Yorkshireman! I thought you had to be born there, and preferably have both parents born there, too!
Otherwise, surely, one can only be someone who now lives in Yorkshire!
We're very tolerant in Yorkshire, it's not about ethnicity or bloodlines, it's about a state of mind.
Hmmm. A Yorkshire state of mind and tolerant in the same post. Having lived in Lancashire .......
I've lived (and currently work) in Lancashire and in the past London, Yorkshire is the best.
I used to do a lot of business in Wakefield, which was a fun place especially in the evenings, and more recently in Leeds, which I rather like, but if you are going to claim Yorkshire as the best then you have to explain Sheffield. What a dump.
To be fair, some of the former industrial cities on both sides of the Pennines are "not the best". Rochdale vs Sheffield?
But the scenery in N Yorkshire is magnificent; better perhaps even than the Trough of Bowland.
Just an update on that refinery in Iraq, reportedly fairly firmly in Sunni insurgent hands. No idea what its functionality is though, Maliki's guys have shelled it.
Smithson’s Merveilleux Election Resultes Systeme des Heuristics (SMERSH)
which also has the benefit of being pre compliant with the new EU President's requirement to adopt French as the official language of the UK.
I could live with that, despite my annoyance at the French, I do like the French Language, particularly swearing in French, it is like wiping your arse with silk.
No no: I think we should agree to join the euro on condition that there is also a Single European Language which will, of course, be English.
(And BTW I am not Taffys - whoever he / she is... the very idea!)
I've been re-reading and re-watching the original House of Cards trilogy, and Francis Urquhart's plan was to have a common language (English) for the EU instead of the single currency.
How does it compare to the American one?
The original series is by far the best.
As much as I like Kevin Spacey, he's no Ian Richardson.
The American series is great if you've never seen the original.
Edit: And I think Kevin Spacey's performances as Verbal Kint, John Doe and Lester Burnham are awesome.
Richardson was better as a stage actor - but I think the US HoC is a far tighter and pacier show than the UK version - equally it may be that TV production values have progressed massively in 25 years (bloody hell!!) since the UK version was made.
The problem with the US version - as with all recent US political dramas - is that the big story arc of the second season is drawn from real life and so you know the way they have to take it from the beginning. But, of course, it is entirely fanciful.
Would Sean T or anyone give me an idea on the odds on the whole or any part of the UK adopting the Euro in say the next seven [y]ears?
This isn't an offer, but probability of UK/rUK adoption in seven years is close to zero, so the main thing is: Scottish Independence (25%) * Crazy-fast Euro adoption (6%): 1.5%
Double or triple that time-frame and we start getting into plausible (but not probable) UK adoption.
That's because the market has no desire to deliver growth in the North. To do so requires some form of socialist intervention, and that, as we all know, is taboo.
.
This is clearly not true for a student of history. The Soviet Union achieved a lot of growth from state-led industrialisation. It could only go so far, however, and led to all sorts of distortions and other problems, but it likely made them an industrial economy far faster than a free market would have.
The best way to deliver growth is to have the right regulation, which can mean deregulation but can also mean govt intervention to encourage competition (e.g. anti-trust laws), and also to have the right enablers in place, like education, infrastructure etc.
I'm not so sure. Russia was industrialising at a very rapid pace prior to 1914 (one reason why revolutionary socialism was gaining ground). The Soviets built up a very impressive military-industrial complex (by 1935 they probably had the world's best armed forces, and the industrial infrastructure to support them). The production of consumer goods, OTOH, was woeful, and the diversion of resources from agriculture caused real problems for the peasants.
Which years are you talking about? Per capita GDP was falling during much of the 19th century:
I've not seen any figures, but most books I've read suggest that after 1890, Russia was industrialising rapidly (eg the oil industry on the Caspian Sea).
I've read the same. AIUI Russia was finally industrialising, and lifting its peasants out of poverty, at quite a decent pace by 1914 - which underlines what a tragedy that war was.
Had Europe not thrown itself onto the funeral pyre of the Great War, Russia would have had time to evolve into a prosperous, liberal and stable nation, thus avoiding all the horrors of communism, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
The First World War was probably the greatest mistake ever made by humankind. It also gave us Hitler, of course.
Countries becoming richer does not mean that they also become liberal and/or stable. See, for instance, the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has oil revenues but it is neither liberal nor stable and some of that oil money is used to fund the terrorism and wars we are now seeing.
Russia may well have become more industrialised but I think the stresses within its own society and in other countries were such that it's a little trite to say that, were it not for WW1, everything would have turned out all right in the end.
Smithson’s Merveilleux Election Resultes Systeme des Heuristics (SMERSH)
which also has the benefit of being pre compliant with the new EU President's requirement to adopt French as the official language of the UK.
I could live with that, despite my annoyance at the French, I do like the French Language, particularly swearing in French, it is like wiping your arse with silk.
No no: I think we should agree to join the euro on condition that there is also a Single European Language which will, of course, be English.
(And BTW I am not Taffys - whoever he / she is... the very idea!)
I've been re-reading and re-watching the original House of Cards trilogy, and Francis Urquhart's plan was to have a common language (English) for the EU instead of the single currency.
How does it compare to the American one?
The original series is by far the best.
As much as I like Kevin Spacey, he's no Ian Richardson.
The American series is great if you've never seen the original.
Edit: And I think Kevin Spacey's performances as Verbal Kint, John Doe and Lester Burnham are awesome.
Agreed, this is particularly stark in series 2 of each offering. Richardson delivers an astonishing tour de force which makes the audience question how far they are willing to cast him as the protaganist and where their personal line is crossed. Spacey just starts to be repetitive and tiring to be honest, though I think that's as much the plot and writing as him.
I've read the same. AIUI Russia was finally industrialising, and lifting its peasants out of poverty, at quite a decent pace by 1914 - which underlines what a tragedy that war was.
Had Europe not thrown itself onto the funeral pyre of the Great War, Russia would have had time to evolve into a prosperous, liberal and stable nation, thus avoiding all the horrors of communism, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
The First World War was probably the greatest mistake ever made by humankind. It also gave us Hitler, of course.
I accept there were pockets of industrialisation going on, but I can't believe it was happening, or was on course to happen, at anything like the scale that later happened in the Soviet Union.
As for the evolution into a prosperous liberal nation, I'm generally pretty Whiggish in the way I view history, but this seems a stretch even to me. Apart form a handful of intellectuals, there was no real democratic culture in the country. Most people had only ever known post-serfdom peasantry, autocracy and conservative religion. I think Russia was already on the path to revolution after the Tsar went back on promises of constitutional monarchy earlier in the century, and the monarchy had shown itself to be living utterly with its head in the sand. The First World War just sped up the process.
As for the First World War, I think there's a danger casting it as one collective mistake. Different nations made different decisions to be involved. For some it was a huge mistake. For others it was necessary and just.
Countries becoming richer does not mean that they also become liberal and/or stable. See, for instance, the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has oil revenues but it is neither liberal nor stable and some of that oil money is used to fund the terrorism and wars we are now seeing.
Russia may well have become more industrialised but I think the stresses within its own society and in other countries were such that it's a little trite to say that, were it not for WW1, everything would have turned out all right in the end.
Indeed. History shows that a stable democratic culture requires GDP growth to go to a broad middle class. When wealth becomes concentrated to a wealthy elite there is a movement to autocracy and eventually social upheaval. This has happened in agricultural societies (e.g. colonial Jamaica, tsarist Russia) and resource-based societies (modern Russia, Sierra Leone, the Middle East).
I worry that the same trends are beginning to emerge in financial centres currently. Rich people in London often favour more cheap labour, a dismantling of the welfare state and lower taxes on themselves. They can use their wealth to get politicians' ears more easily, who then change policy in their favour, and an increasingly vicious circle can develop. Just look at people like the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson in the US. We need to stop it happening here.
"As for the First World War, I think there's a danger casting it as one collective mistake. Different nations made different decisions to be involved. For some it was a huge mistake. For others it was necessary and just."
An interesting idea, which countries would you put into each category?
Comments
We are also the venue for Labour's defeat in 1992.
But the scenery in N Yorkshire is magnificent; better perhaps even than the Trough of Bowland.
Just an update on that refinery in Iraq, reportedly fairly firmly in Sunni insurgent hands. No idea what its functionality is though, Maliki's guys have shelled it.
Eng +0.19
SL +41.4
Draw +9.59 atm
The problem with the US version - as with all recent US political dramas - is that the big story arc of the second season is drawn from real life and so you know the way they have to take it from the beginning. But, of course, it is entirely fanciful.
Scottish Independence (25%) * Crazy-fast Euro adoption (6%): 1.5%
Double or triple that time-frame and we start getting into plausible (but not probable) UK adoption.
England 2-2.5 sessions of runs behind - 5 left in test.
If it shortens I'll lay it some more. 4.3 earlier was ridiculous.
Also time to drop Prior, he's had a shocking game.
All wars are usually a bad thing, they have a tendency to breed more wars.
Russia may well have become more industrialised but I think the stresses within its own society and in other countries were such that it's a little trite to say that, were it not for WW1, everything would have turned out all right in the end.
Hence Obama won't do a lot.
Germany's strategy was to get in early before Russia became too wealthy and powerful.
Get your retaliation in first?
As for the evolution into a prosperous liberal nation, I'm generally pretty Whiggish in the way I view history, but this seems a stretch even to me. Apart form a handful of intellectuals, there was no real democratic culture in the country. Most people had only ever known post-serfdom peasantry, autocracy and conservative religion. I think Russia was already on the path to revolution after the Tsar went back on promises of constitutional monarchy earlier in the century, and the monarchy had shown itself to be living utterly with its head in the sand. The First World War just sped up the process.
As for the First World War, I think there's a danger casting it as one collective mistake. Different nations made different decisions to be involved. For some it was a huge mistake. For others it was necessary and just.
I worry that the same trends are beginning to emerge in financial centres currently. Rich people in London often favour more cheap labour, a dismantling of the welfare state and lower taxes on themselves. They can use their wealth to get politicians' ears more easily, who then change policy in their favour, and an increasingly vicious circle can develop. Just look at people like the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson in the US. We need to stop it happening here.
"As for the First World War, I think there's a danger casting it as one collective mistake. Different nations made different decisions to be involved. For some it was a huge mistake. For others it was necessary and just."
An interesting idea, which countries would you put into each category?
Further to your question about smurf potatos this morning...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10919297/North-Yorkshire-road-closed-after-overturned-lorry-spills-instant-mashed-potato.html