On sourcing the rails, are we allowed to prefer British companies under EU law?
The question is whether any British company can make the rails. IANAE, but AIUI high-speed rails are best made in long lengths of many hundreds of metres (and transported on long trains), rather than the traditional sixty-foot lengths thermited together on or near site.
I can't be sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were a special alloy as well: e.g. manganese-steel.
Basically: we'd have to set up a plant to make them in competition to the countries that invested in high-speed rail earlier - e.g. France, Germany and Spain. Setting up our own plant will never be the cheapest way, especially as the new routes are planned to be maintenance-low for quite a few years (i.e. once you build it, you should not need spare rails for a long time).
Gone are the days of turning cast iron rails weekly to even out wear. Until a certain naughty person called Mushet sneaked a steel rail in at Derby in 1857. Ity lasted 17 years instead of the lifetime of a cast-iron rail of a few months.
Companies have always been afraid of new technology.
Thanks for the reply. Great little story about Mushet. Bet he pissed off a lot of people who's jobs relied on constantly turning rails!
If I recall correctly, the rail had been installed without the Midland Railway's knowledge, or their permission. It perplexed them for a while until Mushet owned up.
The Midland were a pioneer in so many things. For instance, they abolished second-class travel. What we call second-class today is actually third-class. It was renamed in the 1960s.
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
I probably shouldn't do this but what the hell. I have heard a whisper that the rail for HS2 has already been purchased. From China.
Really? It seems a little early to be purchasing it, considering they're not even planning to break ground until next year.
I would have thought that rails for high-speed routes are something you can more or less buy off the peg, e.g. from Tata at Hayange in France. Certainly I doubt you'd need many years' advance warning.
Turnouts may be a different matter ...
Last I heard, they hadn't even decided if they were going for ballasted or concreted trackbed.
I hope it's not true, not least because I still have a suspicion that it might not go ahead. The only logic behind buying now is that they might get a better price, but I don't know much about it.
Why would* it not go ahead?
*Not should
The government decide it's too expensive/too much trouble? But then I guess they're talking about Crossrail 2 so I doubt they'd ditch HS2 on financial grounds. It's more that until they actually start building the thing I always think there's a chance they might pull the plug.
Crossrail 2's in London.
I know, but it's another big project - and it wouldn't look good to ditch HS2 which is supposed to be the flagship project for helping the North.
On sourcing the rails, are we allowed to prefer British companies under EU law?
I really don't know, but as has been suggested elsewhere on this topic, the French and Germans seem capable of doing it.
The underlying answer is in principle no. There are a variety of carve outs to the principle of free market procurement but they're quite limited and not for basic industries per se. I know there's a theme that everyone ignores them but us but in my experience that's just not true.
Already many in the Cruz campaign have said that if the convention nominates Kasich or Person X, they will bolt out and form a new party (the only thing they agree with Trump).
But of course he says that now. Nobody is going to go into a brokered convention saying "Well, I'd like to be candidate but ultimately will rally round whoever and go for it again in four years". You have to go in saying, "If I'm not candidate, it's an apocalypse". That doesn't mean it's true.
On sourcing the rails, are we allowed to prefer British companies under EU law?
The question is whether any British company can make the rails. IANAE, but AIUI high-speed rails are best made in long lengths of many hundreds of metres (and transported on long trains), rather than the traditional sixty-foot lengths thermited together on or near site.
I can't be sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were a special alloy as well: e.g. manganese-steel.
Basically: we'd have to set up a plant to make them in competition to the countries that invested in high-speed rail earlier - e.g. France, Germany and Spain. Setting up our own plant will never be the cheapest way, especially as the new routes are planned to be maintenance-low for quite a few years (i.e. once you build it, you should not need spare rails for a long time).
Gone are the days of turning cast iron rails weekly to even out wear. Until a certain naughty person called Mushet sneaked a steel rail in at Derby in 1857. Ity lasted 17 years instead of the lifetime of a cast-iron rail of a few months.
Companies have always been afraid of new technology.
Thanks for the reply. Great little story about Mushet. Bet he pissed off a lot of people who's jobs relied on constantly turning rails!
If I recall correctly, the rail had been installed without the Midland Railway's knowledge, or their permission. It perplexed them for a while until Mushet owned up.
The Midland were a pioneer in so many things. For instance, they abolished second-class travel. What we call second-class today is actually third-class. It was renamed in the 1960s.
Having been "inspired" to see who ia standing for Essex police commissioner, I discover that Bob Spink is a candidate.
Ewwwch!
I can't find a list of candidates for next door in Herts. The existing guy is standing again. I only know that he is as someone ex of this parish Tweeted that they were delivering leaflets for him.
Many thanks for this. The one thing I was looking for was the Lab candidate for Herts and that aint listed. Thanks anyway,
I got the impression that it's an "as far as we know at the moment" list. I believe that the final list will be published on April 13th, which suggest that the deadline is the previous Thursday. What did strike me was the number of English Democrats. In my area, fortunately, we appear to have an experienced and sensible Independent.
I hope that is the case. However it really should be decided by now. Me thinks this will be the last PCC elections as it will be morphed into something else.
Mr. 86, indeed. I suspect there's some scepticism about it up here, given how often the Leeds tram system has been proposed, had millions spent on planning it, and then been dropped.
Meanwhile, electrification of some rail lines (transpennine, I think) have been delayed due to lack of funding.
I'm not sure it's (only) a lack of funding. After the ECML was done in the late 1980s we basically stopped doing it so we lost the skills. And now we've ramped up GWML electrification and the MML supposed to be next. There simply isn't enough expertise to go around to do it all at once.
It's fun to state the mileage electrified under Thatcher /. Major (hundreds) to that under New Labour (a few miles near Stoke).
Labour have never cared for the railways. Only railwaymen.
Mr. 86, indeed. I suspect there's some scepticism about it up here, given how often the Leeds tram system has been proposed, had millions spent on planning it, and then been dropped.
Meanwhile, electrification of some rail lines (transpennine, I think) have been delayed due to lack of funding.
I'm not sure it's (only) a lack of funding. After the ECML was done in the late 1980s we basically stopped doing it so we lost the skills. And now we've ramped up GWML electrification and the MML supposed to be next. There simply isn't enough expertise to go around to do it all at once.
It's fun to state the mileage electrified under Thatcher /. Major (hundreds) to that under New Labour (a few miles near Stoke).
Labour have never cared for the railways. Only railwaymen.
(Ducks for cover, but is right).
I don't think either party has a great record when it comes to railways. Private messaged you about Derby btw.
Mr. 86, indeed. I suspect there's some scepticism about it up here, given how often the Leeds tram system has been proposed, had millions spent on planning it, and then been dropped.
Meanwhile, electrification of some rail lines (transpennine, I think) have been delayed due to lack of funding.
I'm not sure it's (only) a lack of funding. After the ECML was done in the late 1980s we basically stopped doing it so we lost the skills. And now we've ramped up GWML electrification and the MML supposed to be next. There simply isn't enough expertise to go around to do it all at once.
It's fun to state the mileage electrified under Thatcher /. Major (hundreds) to that under New Labour (a few miles near Stoke).
Labour have never cared for the railways. Only railwaymen.
(Ducks for cover, but is right).
I don't think either party has a great record when it comes to railways. Private messaged you about Derby btw.
Cheers.
It's Labour's false-concern that's annoys me. The best thing Thatcher did for the railways was to not pretend she cared for them - it allowed them to get on with running themselves without interference. IMO that, not privatisation, was the start of the turn-around.
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
This is a mad yet brilliant suggestion. And the Tories could get away with it, because of Unionism. V hard for Labour or Nats to oppose. Indeed impossible.
It's brilliant until you realise where we dumped all our unwanted munitions after WW2 ...
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
I probably shouldn't do this but what the hell. I have heard a whisper that the rail for HS2 has already been purchased. From China.
Really? It seems a little early to be purchasing it, considering they're not even planning to break ground until next year.
I would have thought that rails for high-speed routes are something you can more or less buy off the peg, e.g. from Tata at Hayange in France. Certainly I doubt you'd need many years' advance warning.
Turnouts may be a different matter ...
Last I heard, they hadn't even decided if they were going for ballasted or concreted trackbed.
I hope it's not true, not least because I still have a suspicion that it might not go ahead. The only logic behind buying now is that they might get a better price, but I don't know much about it.
Why would* it not go ahead?
*Not should
Euston.
The station alterations will be a major moneypit, and I'm concerned they're trying to cost-reduce it to non-existence. But I haven't had my ear close to the ground for a few months.
Very good point. It's already bad enough that they won't be joining it to HS1. Apparently they didn't build the HS1 tunnel with a box ready for a link line from HS2 to join it - to save money. But I really hope don't they terminate HS1 at Old Oak Common as has been suggested.
The "Link" would would have smashed through Camden, destroying an entire neighbourhood, so thank F for the power of Primrose Hill NIMBYS
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
Having been "inspired" to see who ia standing for Essex police commissioner, I discover that Bob Spink is a candidate.
Ewwwch!
I can't find a list of candidates for next door in Herts. The existing guy is standing again. I only know that he is as someone ex of this parish Tweeted that they were delivering leaflets for him.
Many thanks for this. The one thing I was looking for was the Lab candidate for Herts and that aint listed. Thanks anyway,
I got the impression that it's an "as far as we know at the moment" list. I believe that the final list will be published on April 13th, which suggest that the deadline is the previous Thursday. What did strike me was the number of English Democrats. In my area, fortunately, we appear to have an experienced and sensible Independent.
I hope that is the case. However it really should be decided by now. Me thinks this will be the last PCC elections as it will be morphed into something else.
In the district where I live we ONLY have PCC elections. I wait with bated breath to see the turnout.. As I live near a polling station I might go across with a song and dance act to break the monotony of waiting for a voter!
Sure, but the rate of CGT on BTL property hasn't been changed. @TCPoliticalBetting seems to be thinking that there will be a lot of extra sales as a result of the mortgage changes, but I don't think that is expected to be a big effect. In any case, Osborne has reduced CGT on other assets.
I thought the argument was that the BTL landlords would have to sell up as it becomes less profitable.
It was. But what's happened was a jump in prices as buyers rushed to complete purchases before the Stamp Duty deadline. And rents will now rise to cover the increased costs to landlords.
Sure, but the rate of CGT on BTL property hasn't been changed. @TCPoliticalBetting seems to be thinking that there will be a lot of extra sales as a result of the mortgage changes, but I don't think that is expected to be a big effect. In any case, Osborne has reduced CGT on other assets.
I thought the argument was that the BTL landlords would have to sell up as it becomes less profitable.
Yes. But can only be understood by those with a basic grasp of the concept of profit.
Arriving at Euston is such a depressing experience. You wouldn't believe the world's greatest city is outside the door. The latest change there was to add a few more fast food restaurants on the upper tier.
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
This is a mad yet brilliant suggestion. And the Tories could get away with it, because of Unionism. V hard for Labour or Nats to oppose. Indeed impossible.
It's brilliant until you realise where we dumped all our unwanted munitions after WW2 ...
My late father was kept in the RAF until almost Christmas 1945 so that he could take parties of German soldiers out into the North Sea in fishing boats and have them throw the arms stored in N Denmark over the side.
Sure, but the rate of CGT on BTL property hasn't been changed. @TCPoliticalBetting seems to be thinking that there will be a lot of extra sales as a result of the mortgage changes, but I don't think that is expected to be a big effect. In any case, Osborne has reduced CGT on other assets.
I thought the argument was that the BTL landlords would have to sell up as it becomes less profitable.
It was. But what's happened was a jump in prices as buyers rushed to complete purchases before the Stamp Duty deadline. And rents will now rise to cover the increased costs to landlords.
Osborne, he ain't no genius.
I do not expect rents to rise quickly, we will probably have to wait until some BTL landlords start to sell and exit the market. Hard to predict when, 2017 or 18?
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
This is a mad yet brilliant suggestion. And the Tories could get away with it, because of Unionism. V hard for Labour or Nats to oppose. Indeed impossible.
It's brilliant until you realise where we dumped all our unwanted munitions after WW2 ...
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
Sure, but the rate of CGT on BTL property hasn't been changed. @TCPoliticalBetting seems to be thinking that there will be a lot of extra sales as a result of the mortgage changes, but I don't think that is expected to be a big effect. In any case, Osborne has reduced CGT on other assets.
I thought the argument was that the BTL landlords would have to sell up as it becomes less profitable.
It was. But what's happened was a jump in prices as buyers rushed to complete purchases before the Stamp Duty deadline. And rents will now rise to cover the increased costs to landlords.
Osborne, he ain't no genius.
House I used to live in, let in November for £650 pcm.
House next door to that, which is much smaller and does not have a stunning view or an attached garage, has just been let for £700 pcm. It was available for less than a fortnight.
Britain Elects On nationalising Tata Steel's steel plant in Port Talbot, South Wales: Support: 62% Oppose: 17% (via YouGov / 31 Mar)
Word the question as 'Do you think £millions taxpayers money should be used to bail out a foreign owned business?' Be interesting to see what the answer is then.
Sure, but the rate of CGT on BTL property hasn't been changed. @TCPoliticalBetting seems to be thinking that there will be a lot of extra sales as a result of the mortgage changes, but I don't think that is expected to be a big effect. In any case, Osborne has reduced CGT on other assets.
I thought the argument was that the BTL landlords would have to sell up as it becomes less profitable.
It was. But what's happened was a jump in prices as buyers rushed to complete purchases before the Stamp Duty deadline. And rents will now rise to cover the increased costs to landlords.
Osborne, he ain't no genius.
House I used to live in, let in November for £650 pcm.
House next door to that, which is much smaller and does not have a stunning view or an attached garage, has just been let for £700 pcm. It was available for less than a fortnight.
As you say...
Quite. None of the boy's wizard wheezes have actually increased the number of properties.
I'm with Mr Llama down thread and suspect we risk having the most spectacular crash.
Arriving at Euston is such a depressing experience. You wouldn't believe the world's greatest city is outside the door. The latest change there was to add a few more fast food restaurants on the upper tier.
The whole King's Cross - St Pancras - Euston corridor (and even on to Marylebone and Paddington) deserves better planning. Instead the piecemeal large developments are ruining its potential.
Paddington is middling-glorious. Marylebone is late-Victorian superb. King's Cross is now the best of twentieth and nineteenth centuries (away with the old concourse!) St Pancras is probably the best in the world. And Euston? Bah. Knock down and rebuild.
Dr. Foxinsox, makes a change to sneering about men's issues (like high suicide rates) or claiming Birmingham is like Cologne on New Year's Eve...
That sounds quite romantic.
"We were in Centenary Square as the town hall clock chimed out the old year. I was intoxicated. Was it the allure of her beauty or her perfume that made me dizzy with excitement? Or was it the subtle charm of the city itself? I wasn't sure but I was entranced. To this day, for me, Birmingham is like cologne on New Year's Eve."
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
Camden's a shithole, incomparable to Bath and the Lakes. Running a few more railway lines through it would improve the area.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
No, that's not my view. It's a balance of cost-reward.
By contrast, as an unavowed nimby you'd have no new development near you, and would be happy to be on mud tollroads (in fact, the toll roads would probably have crossed your nouveau rich estates so you'd be against them) to get anywhere. We'd be an eighteenth century agrarian economy.
In fact, I think we might be in a similar position if we were to take nimbyism out of it. I think we might have similar views on Heathrow, for instance (forgive me if I'm wrong).
Having been "inspired" to see who ia standing for Essex police commissioner, I discover that Bob Spink is a candidate.
Ewwwch!
I can't find a list of candidates for next door in Herts. The existing guy is standing again. I only know that he is as someone ex of this parish Tweeted that they were delivering leaflets for him.
Many thanks for this. The one thing I was looking for was the Lab candidate for Herts and that aint listed. Thanks anyway,
I got the impression that it's an "as far as we know at the moment" list. I believe that the final list will be published on April 13th, which suggest that the deadline is the previous Thursday. What did strike me was the number of English Democrats. In my area, fortunately, we appear to have an experienced and sensible Independent.
I hope that is the case. However it really should be decided by now. Me thinks this will be the last PCC elections as it will be morphed into something else.
In the district where I live we ONLY have PCC elections. I wait with bated breath to see the turnout.. As I live near a polling station I might go across with a song and dance act to break the monotony of waiting for a voter!
Same here as to being the only vote. There is a husband/wife team who run my local polling station. At the last PCC election when I rocked up to vote, I was the first person they had seen for an hour or so. They were delighted to see someone and we chatted for about 15 minutes or so about the lack of turnout. I expect next month to be similar.
Sure, but the rate of CGT on BTL property hasn't been changed. @TCPoliticalBetting seems to be thinking that there will be a lot of extra sales as a result of the mortgage changes, but I don't think that is expected to be a big effect. In any case, Osborne has reduced CGT on other assets.
I thought the argument was that the BTL landlords would have to sell up as it becomes less profitable.
It was. But what's happened was a jump in prices as buyers rushed to complete purchases before the Stamp Duty deadline. And rents will now rise to cover the increased costs to landlords.
Osborne, he ain't no genius.
House I used to live in, let in November for £650 pcm.
House next door to that, which is much smaller and does not have a stunning view or an attached garage, has just been let for £700 pcm. It was available for less than a fortnight.
As you say...
Quite. None of the boy's wizard wheezes have actually increased the number of properties.
There are a huge number of new houses going up in Cannock.
Snag is, there is an even huger number of people chasing them as they are priced out of Birmingham proper, and most of them are not intended for letting anyway.
Further snag is, the local amenities/utilities are already at full stretch. Only one new school has been opened since 1951, for example (and that's a private school). Meanwhile the population of the Cannock area has risen from around 36,000 to over 85,000 (I do not have the exact figures, these are estimates from long-standing locals). Chase High and Cardinal Griffin are both bursting at the seams. The others would be too if they weren't rubbish.
Something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong with our urban planning at all levels.
Arriving at Euston is such a depressing experience. You wouldn't believe the world's greatest city is outside the door. The latest change there was to add a few more fast food restaurants on the upper tier.
Euston is ghastly.
To be fair, tho, London now has some world class railway termini. Kings X and St Pancras are peerless.
The latter is arguably the most impressive railway station in the world. As it was meant to be at the time.
It was meant to stick two fingers up at the LNWR at Euston. Which it did, and still does.
It's a shame they ran out of money at Manchester Midland though.
I like the fact the columns of the undercroft at St Pancras (which has now been opened up to the public) were designed so that beer barrels from Bass could be stored between them.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
Camden's a shithole, incomparable to Bath and the Lakes. Running a few more railway lines through it would improve the area.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
There's a topic: best sight in London.
For me: looking across to Greenwich from Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs. A modern update of Canaletto's view.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
What a load of tosh. The view from Waterloo Bridge is tremendous.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
Camden's a shithole, incomparable to Bath and the Lakes. Running a few more railway lines through it would improve the area.
Camden encompasses most of London north of the Strand, South of Kentish Town and West of Kingsway. I.e almost all of the architecture outside of Westminster.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
What a load of tosh. The view from Waterloo Bridge is tremendous.
Wordsworth would agree. But I'm afraid I don't. I find it neither beautifully designed and aesthetically harmonious, or interestingly varied and striking.
Feel free to disagree. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I hate London with a passion.
My view may be coloured somewhat by the fact that my time there was spent with very little money, in Bloomsbury, in the middle of the third-hottest summer ever recorded, so I had nothing to do but work and very little sleep. But strangely all my friends who went there have also left thankfully and headed for more salubrious places. Cardiff is the destination of choice (although that may merely reflect national pride).
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
We live in a state of rapid decline, economic and moral (this isn't a judgement on lifestyles, it's that we don't know where we're going as a country in the UK), and as a consequence, we lack any conviction in architecture. The 18th century had the Romans and Greeks as a rulebook,the Victorians had the exuberant rediscovery of our own Christian medieval culture. Even the early 20th century had that sort of Nietzchean/fascist superman worship architecture, though our time in the sun had really gone by that point so we didn't produce too many great examples of the breed.
We've now at least realised the past was good. That's a step forward.
Indeed we agree on most things. I just think sometimes your Inner Railway Geek takes over and you forget about the stuff you are destroying, in your otherwise admirable passion to make transport more logical and coherent.
The greatest example of this must surely be the plan to level all of Covent Garden, and turn it into an urban motorway. It's like the planners hadn't thought, er, where will people be motorwaying too and from, if we destroy everything that makes London a place people might want to inhabit or visit?
The saving of Covent Garden was THE first and noblest victory in the campaign against corporate-socialist c*ntishness in urban design. All other campaigns spring therefrom. Yay for Covent Garden - which, by the way, has become one of the most fashionable, affluent and desirable parts of London, and now surely contributes *more to the national economy* and *helps more people* than any weird 70s Brutalist motorway-with- a-few-flats
I think there were some before that, but I agree. Another example is Betjeman saving St Pancras Hotel, or the plan to reclad Tower Bridge in steel and glass (the stonework is only cladding around an iron core)
However you miss the point. You are talking about exceptional structures such as Nash and Covent Garden. Regular readers would know my view that the reason we think of (say) Edwardian buildings so highly is because only the exceptional buildings survive. The dross, and especially the dross used by everyday man, gets wiped away by redevelopment.
For this reason, in two hundred years time people will be raving about the glories of brutalist architecture or 1960s tower blocks.
One of the reason areas like Camden can look so good is because of this constant change, where the best is generally preserved (or even improved) and the worst washed away. Perhaps the classic Camden view is along the canal towards the locks, yet that whole area was reshaped by both the canal and the railway.
You rave about the new buildings in London. Yet there is some debate over whether they are right, especially in regards to things like sightlines to St Pauls.
London can only survive through constant change. Keep the best, rebuild the mistakes better.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
Camden's a shithole, incomparable to Bath and the Lakes. Running a few more railway lines through it would improve the area.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
We live in a state of rapid decline, economic and moral (this isn't a judgement on lifestyles, it's that we don't know where we're going as a country in the UK), and as a consequence, we lack any conviction in architecture. The 18th century had the Romans and Greeks as a rulebook,the Victorians had the exuberant rediscovery of our own Christian medieval culture. Even the early 20th century had that sort of Nietzchean/fascist superman worship architecture, though our time in the sun had really gone by that point so we didn't produce too many great examples of the breed.
We've now at least realised the past was good. That's a step forward.
That's absurd rubbish. The remaining bits of the past seem good, because on the whole the best survived. The dross was generally demolished, or rebuilt in new style.
Wow, I go away from PB for 35 minutes and come back to find it's all kicked off! I certainly think that preserving heritage is important but it shouldn't stop progress. Here is what's going on in the Goring Gap:
Describing the electrification of the GWML as "vandalism" is overstating the case. They say that there are less visually intrusive designs but I suspect they are less reliable.
The ECML electrification was done on the cheap. So instead of having a rigid girder across the track the two uprights are connected by wires from which the electric wires hang. See this image:
Now, I certainly think these are less intrusive but they have a big disadvantage. When a dewirement occurs on the WCML which as rigid girders, only one line is affected as the wires are hung independently. When it happens on the ECML, it is absolute carnage and the whole lot comes down causing severe disruption.
On the four track GWML, I'm not sure there is room to have uprights between the main and relief lines to hang the wires independently as such. I'm not sure how this will end but I hope that Network Rail don't have to rip down what they've already done.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
What a load of tosh. The view from Waterloo Bridge is tremendous.
Wordsworth would agree. But I'm afraid I don't. I find it neither beautifully designed and aesthetically harmonious, or interestingly varied and striking.
Feel free to disagree. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I hate London with a passion.
My view may be coloured somewhat by the fact that my time there was spent with very little money, in Bloomsbury, in the middle of the third-hottest summer ever recorded, so I had nothing to do but work and very little sleep. But strangely all my friends who went there have also left thankfully and headed for more salubrious places. Cardiff is the destination of choice (although that may merely reflect national pride).
I think the lack of money is colouring your view. Bloomsbury with a little money is a tremendous place. Rent excepted, far cheaper living costs than Dorset. I spent 2 fabulous years in an ex council flat on Bury Place.
Stumbling home from soho dives was an absolute pleasure. As was London pre-11am on a weekend. Quieter than most provincial towns.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
We live in a state of rapid decline, economic and moral (this isn't a judgement on lifestyles, it's that we don't know where we're going as a country in the UK), and as a consequence, we lack any conviction in architecture. The 18th century had the Romans and Greeks as a rulebook,the Victorians had the exuberant rediscovery of our own Christian medieval culture. Even the early 20th century had that sort of Nietzchean/fascist superman worship architecture, though our time in the sun had really gone by that point so we didn't produce too many great examples of the breed.
We've now at least realised the past was good. That's a step forward.
That's absurd rubbish. The remaining bits of the past seem good, because on the whole the best survived. The dross was generally demolished, or rebuilt in new style.
You do understand history lives on outside of mere buildings, right?
I quite like Euston (possibly my most controversial comment on PB).
I think because lots of adventures have started and ended there. Especially the Caledonian Sleeper.
Ditto.
The Caledonian Sleeper is wonderful. Actually one of the great railway journeys of the world. It's shame it's been rundown because it is a marvellous experience.
You fall asleep in the grime and bustle of Euston and wake up - perfectly - seven hours later to see the Highlands shooting past: and snow scarring the hills of Rannoch Moor.
A friend of mine did the journey, and claims his very last sight in London was some hipster couple snogging on the crowded platform, and the very first thing he saw next morning was a stag cantering in the forest.
Actually it's not being rundown as there is new stock on the way.
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
I probably shouldn't do this but what the hell. I have heard a whisper that the rail for HS2 has already been purchased. From China.
And why not? The long suffering taxpayer deserves value for money.
But are the mathematics beyond the immediate effect of that single transaction upon the exchequer considered? A lower estimate for business from a foreign company is all very well (though totally unenforceable surely), but that money is then quickly out of the economy. Spent in the UK, it is recycled again and again, with the Government benefiting at every stage. It is surely basic use of intelligence to factor that in, and to my knowledge that's what most other countries would do. Us? Not a single British contractor on the Forth replacement bridge project. Not a single ounce of British steel used. It's little short of a mental disease.
Wow, I go away from PB for 35 minutes and come back to find it's all kicked off! I certainly think that preserving heritage is important but it shouldn't stop progress. Here is what's going on in the Goring Gap:
Describing the electrification of the GWML as "vandalism" is overstating the case. They say that there are less visually intrusive designs but I suspect they are less reliable.
The ECML electrification was done on the cheap. So instead of having a rigid girder across the track the two uprights are connected by wires from which the electric wires hang. See this image:
Now, I certainly think these are less intrusive but they have a big disadvantage. When a dewirement occurs on the WCML which as rigid girders, only one line is affected as the wires are hung independently. When it happens on the ECML, it is absolute carnage and the whole lot comes down causing severe disruption.
On the four track GWML, I'm not sure there is room to have uprights between the main and relief lines to hang the wires independently as such. I'm not sure how this will end but I hope that Network Rail don't have to rip down what they've already done.
Apparently it's to do with speed and usage patterns. Whether the trains have single or double pantographs (the things at the top that pick up the power from the catenary (electrical knitting) also matters.
They'd only have gone with the portals if they were strictly necessary - they're more expensive. AIUI.
That's absurd rubbish. The remaining bits of the past seem good, because on the whole the best survived. The dross was generally demolished, or rebuilt in new style.
You do understand history lives on outside of mere buildings, right?
Yes. We were talking about architecture. But buildings are a very good way of interpreting the past, as long as you don't fall into the trap of assuming that it's the whole story.
I quite like Euston (possibly my most controversial comment on PB).
I think because lots of adventures have started and ended there. Especially the Caledonian Sleeper.
Ditto.
The Caledonian Sleeper is wonderful. Actually one of the great railway journeys of the world. It's shame it's been rundown because it is a marvellous experience.
You fall asleep in the grime and bustle of Euston and wake up - perfectly - seven hours later to see the Highlands shooting past: and snow scarring the hills of Rannoch Moor.
A friend of mine did the journey, and claims his very last sight in London was some hipster couple snogging on the crowded platform, and the very first thing he saw next morning was a stag cantering in the forest.
Actually it's not being rundown as there is new stock on the way.
Hooray!
Bloody hell they need it (the new stock). The prices they charge are insane for what you get right now - 1970s carriages and some microwaved haggis. I've done it a few times for travel gigs, for free, and always thought: if I was paying for this, I'd be incensed.
Marketed properly as a unique and premium experience I am sure it could make lots of money. It is world class, potentially.
It's a bit contentious as it seems to get special treatment because of its history. I think you're right that if the new stock is tip top then the high prices can be justified.
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
Nope, not a load of bollocks. I'm in favour of heritage, and have worked to preserve it. Having said that, the railway into Euston has helped more people, and generated more for the national economy, than any work of Nash's.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London - or Edinburgh or Bath or Cambridge - or smash through every exquisite environment - from the Lakes to the Hebrides to West Cornwall to Snowdonia to Giants Causeway - as long as it "helps more people" and "generates more for the national economy". This is the kind of thinking that drives Stalinist or Maoist industrialisation, with all the degradation that ensues.
Your statement is actually quite repugnant, and I am glad that spotty wank-faced geeks like you are ignored.
Camden's a shithole, incomparable to Bath and the Lakes. Running a few more railway lines through it would improve the area.
Camden encompasses most of London north of the Strand, South of Kentish Town and West of Kingsway. I.e almost all of the architecture outside of Westminster.
But does anyone really regard the area south of the three railway stations as 'Camden' ?
Certainly its in the 'London Borough of Camden' but the districts are known as Holborn, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden etc
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
What a load of tosh. The view from Waterloo Bridge is tremendous.
Wordsworth would agree. But I'm afraid I don't. I find it neither beautifully designed and aesthetically harmonious, or interestingly varied and striking.
Feel free to disagree. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I hate London with a passion.
My view may be coloured somewhat by the fact that my time there was spent with very little money, in Bloomsbury, in the middle of the third-hottest summer ever recorded, so I had nothing to do but work and very little sleep. But strangely all my friends who went there have also left thankfully and headed for more salubrious places. Cardiff is the destination of choice (although that may merely reflect national pride).
THEY CHOSE CARDIFF OVER LONDON
*stifles giggles*
I think the debate ends. Sorry. But it's for the best.
Yes, well, it is always embarrassing when the Welsh have something better than anywhere else,* so I won't prolong your confusion
I quite like Euston (possibly my most controversial comment on PB).
I think because lots of adventures have started and ended there. Especially the Caledonian Sleeper.
Ditto.
The Caledonian Sleeper is wonderful. Actually one of the great railway journeys of the world. It's shame it's been rundown because it is a marvellous experience.
You fall asleep in the grime and bustle of Euston and wake up - perfectly - seven hours later to see the Highlands shooting past: and snow scarring the hills of Rannoch Moor.
A friend of mine did the journey, and claims his very last sight in London was some hipster couple snogging on the crowded platform, and the very first thing he saw next morning was a stag cantering in the forest.
Think, with a HS1-HS2 link through Camden, you could have woken up to see the Highland Hills after sipping a latte in Rome the previous afternoon. After travelling on one train ...
(Yes, I know a Rome to Fort Bill sleeper service wouldn't happen. But it could).
I see PB has descended to full on discussions of trains and train stations. Excellent.
Must say St Pancras is a corker.
We've not got onto the really important topic: how the EU referendum might affect the chance of an AV vote on which 80's music we play on railway services to an independent Scotland.
I daresay someone could squeeze cats and shoes into it somewhere, but it'd be taking it off-topic.
I see PB has descended to full on discussions of trains and train stations. Excellent.
Must say St Pancras is a corker.
We've not got onto the really important topic: how the EU referendum might affect the chance of an AV vote on which 80's music we play on railway services to an independent Scotland.
I daresay someone could squeeze cats and shoes into it somewhere, but it'd be taking it off-topic.
Did TSE okay you to announce the contents of the Sunday thread early?
I see PB has descended to full on discussions of trains and train stations. Excellent.
Must say St Pancras is a corker.
We've not got onto the really important topic: how the EU referendum might affect the chance of an AV vote on which 80's music we play on railway services to an independent Scotland.
I daresay someone could squeeze cats and shoes into it somewhere, but it'd be taking it off-topic.
Punters who won big at Cheltenham Festival claim bookmakers are withholding thousands of pounds from them. Some gamblers who took advantage of Cheltenham betting promotions with 138.com, 12Bet and Fun88.co.uk say the bookmakers have closed accounts and withheld winnings. Jake Garlick, from Wakefield, who says he has lost money, told MailOnline: 'They're refusing to pay out £1,600 which is a hell of a lot of money to a 21 year old student.'
One read: 'Following checks for bonus abuse and fraudulent activity, our fraud department has determined that your account is in breach of our terms and conditions, specifically clause 15.2 shown below... '15.2 In the event that we suspect that you or any other player is abusing or attempting to abuse a bonus or other promotion, or is likely to benefit through such abuse we may block, deny, suspend, withhold or cancel the account of any such player, including your account if we determine that you are involved in such.
According to the Mirror, TLCBet has also been closing people's accounts, and 2Bet, TLCBet and Fun88.co.uk are registered with the Gambling Commission under the same licensee TGP Europe Limited. The three players spoken to MailOnline are among those who took to Twitter to vent their anger. Mia Culpa wrote: 'Bet at Cheltenham with fun88.co.uk took their offers of bet 3 x £25 each day and get a free bet for £25 .THEY ARE NOT PAYING OUT.'
F1: hmm. Bottas and Massa are 11 and 13 respectively for a podium. If Ferrari's screwed (unsure how much of a disadvantage they're at but I listened to a snippet of practice and I think Vettel may've had reliability issues), then Williams could be in a good position.
I think less of Red Bull's chances than most others, at Bahrain. If Ferrari and Red Bull are out of the picture, Williams stands to pick up the pieces.
I see PB has descended to full on discussions of trains and train stations. Excellent.
Must say St Pancras is a corker.
We've not got onto the really important topic: how the EU referendum might affect the chance of an AV vote on which 80's music we play on railway services to an independent Scotland.
I daresay someone could squeeze cats and shoes into it somewhere, but it'd be taking it off-topic.
You forgot recipes. - Some of the best topics have been on whose goose is cooked..!
Back to politics, I now foresee a run of modest Labour leads in the polls.
The Tories look divided (and they are, horribly) on Europe, they are very exposed on the steel thing, the deficit is viciously nasty and Osborne is terminally devalued, and most of all Labour and Corbyn haven't done anything TOTALLY or unusually insane for a fortnight.
Corbyn's Labour to lead by 2 or 3 points on average?
If Labour don't have leads under such auspicious circumstances it's hard to believe even the PLP will be sufficiently supine to let things go on this way. Even Iain Duncan Smith had a few 2-3 point leads.
Is there a market on Cameron and Corbyn both to leave office this year?
Sure, but we're kind of used to it now (which is my point) plus the Tories are being unusually SHITE.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
He's passed up being an eminence grise and remained a greasy eminence.
I would get my coat but I'm off to bed. Good night all.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
Ah, a NewsSense™ memorial post. How we have missed them...
An absurd utilitarian view. By your metric, we could tear down every beautiful district of London
I don't think there's much risk of that Mr T. After all, that presupposes there ARE some beautiful parts of London Vicky's lot didn't get.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
What a load of tosh. The view from Waterloo Bridge is tremendous.
Wordsworth would agree. But I'm afraid I don't. I find it neither beautifully designed and aesthetically harmonious, or interestingly varied and striking.
Feel free to disagree. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I hate London with a passion.
My view may be coloured somewhat by the fact that my time there was spent with very little money, in Bloomsbury, in the middle of the third-hottest summer ever recorded, so I had nothing to do but work and very little sleep. But strangely all my friends who went there have also left thankfully and headed for more salubrious places. Cardiff is the destination of choice (although that may merely reflect national pride).
Stumbling home from soho dives was an absolute pleasure. As was London pre-11am on a weekend. Quieter than most provincial towns.
I've always been surprised as to how quiet much of London is on Saturday mornings.
One Saturday morning a couple of years ago I seemed to be the only non-employee in Selfridges and then the only non-employee in the Wallace Collection.
Sure, but we're kind of used to it now (which is my point) plus the Tories are being unusually SHITE.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
I reckon the steel crisis may well bring the government down or at least mortally wound it. The angst on social media is more pronounced than it was even during the banking crisis or the expenses saga.
The working classes are rightly pissed off with our manufacturing sector disappearing without a decent fight. Even the yellow bellied Italians flouted EU state aid rules and propped up their steelworkers.
Fuck it, nationalise it. And nationalise it in a new, modern, one-nation Tory way, by using the steel to build stuff and make Britain great again.
If might sound like pissed emotional bullshit (with me, it usually is) but at least it's better than selling the steel industry off to vultures who will gradually reduce the employees down from 24k to zero over the next two decades. The industry employed 250k in the 70s, and unlike coal we'll always need steel. So let's see it as an opportunity and do something profound. Nationalise it and build with it.
Back to politics, I now foresee a run of modest Labour leads in the polls.
The Tories look divided (and they are, horribly) on Europe, they are very exposed on the steel thing, the deficit is viciously nasty and Osborne is terminally devalued, and most of all Labour and Corbyn haven't done anything TOTALLY or unusually insane for a fortnight.
Corbyn's Labour to lead by 2 or 3 points on average?
There is a sense of general malaise, of 'the country is on the wrong path'.
I think this article captures the feeling somewhat:
' While steelworkers in Port Talbot stare into the abyss, a Saudi playboy swans around London in a fleet of golden supercars.
As a snapshot of modern Britain, it says as much about the state of the nation as that famous old photograph of street urchins staring at top-hatted Harrow public school boys said about the class divide in 1937.
The rich have always been with us. But the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and the common herd has never been greater.
At least the old British moneyed classes maintained a certain decorous restraint. OK, so they lived in grand townhouses and on country estates, but few ever flaunted their money in the faces of the hoi polloi. '
That's absurd rubbish. The remaining bits of the past seem good, because on the whole the best survived. The dross was generally demolished, or rebuilt in new style.
You do understand history lives on outside of mere buildings, right?
Yes. We were talking about architecture. But buildings are a very good way of interpreting the past, as long as you don't fall into the trap of assuming that it's the whole story.
And we must also be careful of falling into the trap of taking a rule 'the best of the past survives', which clearly has some merit, and applying it simplistically and without subtlety across the board when circumstances render it invalid. 1960's tower blocks have had plenty of time and cycles of fashion to become admired and cherished. They are not admired and cherished because they are fuck ugly, horrid to live in, and designed by sociopaths. I am sure many bad Victorian and older buildings were demolished, but a lot of good and even great ones met the same fate, both in town and country, for economic reasons or due to the arrogance of succeeding generations thinking they knew better and that asbestos and pebble dashing were infinitely preferable to porticos and pointed arches.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
Ah, a NewsSense™ memorial post. How we have missed them...
He's right though. What happened to march of the makers?
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
Ah, a NewsSense™ memorial post. How we have missed them...
He's right though. What happened to march of the makers?
Probably. That is certainly the herd consensus view. It's just worth noting that the demise of Osborne's career has been predicted here more often than SeanT flip-flops.
Sure, but we're kind of used to it now (which is my point) plus the Tories are being unusually SHITE.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
I reckon the steel crisis may well bring the government down or at least mortally wound it. The angst on social media is more pronounced than it was even during the banking crisis or the expenses saga.
The working classes are rightly pissed off with our manufacturing sector disappearing without a decent fight. Even the yellow bellied Italians flouted EU state aid rules and propped up their steelworkers.
Fuck it, nationalise it. And nationalise it in a new, modern, one-nation Tory way, by using the steel to build stuff and make Britain great again.
If might sound like pissed emotional bullshit (with me, it usually is) but at least it's better than selling the steel industry off to vultures who will gradually reduce the employees down from 24k to zero over the next two decades. The industry employed 250k in the 70s, and unlike coal we'll always need steel. So let's see it as an opportunity and do something profound. Nationalise it and build with it.
It's a money pit. Whatever the industry is losing now, is a fraction of the investment needed to build and upgrade to modern, energy efficient mills and smelting plant. And even if that money were found and spent, automation would put many out of work. Today's problems are the legacy of decisions and inaction, 30, 40, 50 years ago.
Sure, but we're kind of used to it now (which is my point) plus the Tories are being unusually SHITE.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
That's absurd rubbish. The remaining bits of the past seem good, because on the whole the best survived. The dross was generally demolished, or rebuilt in new style.
You do understand history lives on outside of mere buildings, right?
Yes. We were talking about architecture. But buildings are a very good way of interpreting the past, as long as you don't fall into the trap of assuming that it's the whole story.
And we must also be careful of falling into the trap of taking a rule 'the best of the past survives', which clearly has some merit, and applying it simplistically and without subtlety across the board when circumstances render it invalid. 1960's tower blocks have had plenty of time and cycles of fashion to become admired and cherished. They are not admired and cherished because they are fuck ugly and designed by sociopaths. I am sure many bad Victorian and older buildings were demolished, but a lot of good and even great ones met the same fate, both in town and country, for economic reasons or due to the arrogance of succeeding generations thinking they knew better and that asbestos and pebble dashing were infinitely preferable to porticos and pointed arches.
"1960's tower blocks have had plenty of time and cycles of fashion to become admired and cherished. They are not admired and cherished because they are fuck ugly and designed by sociopaths."
Actually, some are being converted into liveable, desirable properties. It's been going on for some time: when I lived in East London in 1992, a steel-framed tower block in Bethnal Green had been stripped right back to the frame for renovation. I do wonder how it's faired since. The problems of tower blocks were manyfold, but there are ways of curing many of the problems they had.
"I am sure many bad Victorian and older buildings were demolished, but a lot of good and even great ones met the same fate, both in town and country, for economic reasons or due to the arrogance of succeeding generations thinking they knew better and that asbestos and pebble dashing were infinitely preferable to porticos and pointed arches."
Indeed. And a great deal of brilliant architecture was lost through the evils of death duties and other taxes. But do not assume that what replaced them was necessarily worse. As an example, look at housing. Some of Glasgow's tower blocks may be terrible places to live, but are they generally worse than the tenements they replaced?
Sure, but we're kind of used to it now (which is my point) plus the Tories are being unusually SHITE.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
Remind you of any other Chancellor?
Has the Boy Blunder started writing notes in marker pen, and throwing mobile phones at the Garden Girls?
Back to politics, I now foresee a run of modest Labour leads in the polls.
The Tories look divided (and they are, horribly) on Europe, they are very exposed on the steel thing, the deficit is viciously nasty and Osborne is terminally devalued, and most of all Labour and Corbyn haven't done anything TOTALLY or unusually insane for a fortnight.
Corbyn's Labour to lead by 2 or 3 points on average?
There is a sense of general malaise, of 'the country is on the wrong path'.
I think this article captures the feeling somewhat:
' While steelworkers in Port Talbot stare into the abyss, a Saudi playboy swans around London in a fleet of golden supercars.
As a snapshot of modern Britain, it says as much about the state of the nation as that famous old photograph of street urchins staring at top-hatted Harrow public school boys said about the class divide in 1937.
The rich have always been with us. But the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and the common herd has never been greater.
At least the old British moneyed classes maintained a certain decorous restraint. OK, so they lived in grand townhouses and on country estates, but few ever flaunted their money in the faces of the hoi polloi. '
I remember how well Richard Littlejohn damned the Major government as it disintegrated.
I'm struggling to understand what precisely the problem is here other than envy.
The Saudi's haven't made their money here, they've made it in Middle East oil by and large.
They're spending their money here. Ostentatiously maybe, but they are.
If we prevent or discourage the Saudi's from spending their money here what is that going to do? It will lessen the ostentatiously visible gap between rich and poor, that much is true. But it will also reduce the amount of money being spent in the UK and damage our economy.
Money made overseas and spent here is a good thing, not a bad thing. Even if its ostentatious.
Sure, but we're kind of used to it now (which is my point) plus the Tories are being unusually SHITE.
Osborne should have retired as Chancellor right after the election, and taken the plaudits, then become an eminence grise as Foreign Secretary, hovering near the premiership, ready to pounce.
He's now screwed forever, probably.
I reckon the steel crisis may well bring the government down or at least mortally wound it. The angst on social media is more pronounced than it was even during the banking crisis or the expenses saga.
The working classes are rightly pissed off with our manufacturing sector disappearing without a decent fight. Even the yellow bellied Italians flouted EU state aid rules and propped up their steelworkers.
Fuck it, nationalise it. And nationalise it in a new, modern, one-nation Tory way, by using the steel to build stuff and make Britain great again.
If might sound like pissed emotional bullshit (with me, it usually is) but at least it's better than selling the steel industry off to vultures who will gradually reduce the employees down from 24k to zero over the next two decades. The industry employed 250k in the 70s, and unlike coal we'll always need steel. So let's see it as an opportunity and do something profound. Nationalise it and build with it.
How much steel in the new Tesla3, which is where motoring looks to be going? I may have to order one of those for 2017 over the weekend.
Having just bought three tonnes of steel last week I may be in a poor position to argue it is a material heading towards obsolescence. However I would expect alternatives to erode is market place at an increasing rate.
By the way, surely the only way to get a buyer for a priced out of the market steel company is to place an order for the overpriced steel in question. It's very socialistic, but there it is. My suggestion would be to build that bridge to Northern Ireland and tell the contracter to design for that steel specifically. At least there's an added economic benefit. Obviously someone more knowledgeable than I on engineering may tell me that won't work.
Last I heard, they hadn't even decided if they were going for ballasted or concreted trackbed.
Why would* it not go ahead?
*Not should
Euston.
The station alterations will be a major moneypit, and I'm concerned they're trying to cost-reduce it to non-existence. But I haven't had my ear close to the ground for a few months.
Very good point. It's already bad enough that they won't be joining it to HS1. Apparently they didn't build the HS1 tunnel with a box ready for a link line from HS2 to join it - to save money. But I really hope don't they terminate HS1 at Old Oak Common as has been suggested.
The "Link" would would have smashed through Camden, destroying an entire neighbourhood, so thank F for the power of Primrose Hill NIMBYS
You need to re-read Dombey and Son. There was massive disruption when the railway was first built through the area, but would you do without it now?
This is for more than your generation.
What a total load of bollocks. The railway to Euston destroyed half of John Nash's Park Village. A horrible crime. The greatest and most beautiful urban development in Europe, probably in the world, ever, and the fucking railways just shunted a chunk of it into the dust, so they could get to... Euston? Brilliant.
Thank God the bulk of the Nash Terraces survived (despite the 1945 Labour government's plan to level them)
What's the point in destroying beauty to make journeys two minutes faster. There are plenty of ugly routes into London. Use them.
I enjoy the ride out of Euston. I always crane to catch a glimpse of the house my grandfather was brought up in, in Park Village East. https://goo.gl/maps/zp7FAeNzzQr London has some islands of beauty amongst the dross.
But the official verdict is in, from the Royal Town Planning Institute.
Comments
Me thinks this will be the last PCC elections as it will be morphed into something else.
Labour have never cared for the railways. Only railwaymen.
(Ducks for cover, but is right).
It's Labour's false-concern that's annoys me. The best thing Thatcher did for the railways was to not pretend she cared for them - it allowed them to get on with running themselves without interference. IMO that, not privatisation, was the start of the turn-around.
Clinton 53 .. Trump 40
Clinton 51 .. Cruz 45
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/polls/gqr-d-democracy-corps-wvwv-24187
Worth catching.
http://thedownrecorder.co.uk/pages/?title=Undersea_arms_dump_is_giving_up_its_secrets
This is for more than your generation.
As I live near a polling station I might go across with a song and dance act to break the monotony of waiting for a voter!
Dr. Foxinsox, so can a feral rat.
Osborne, he ain't no genius.
My late father was kept in the RAF until almost Christmas 1945 so that he could take parties of German soldiers out into the North Sea in fishing boats and have them throw the arms stored in N Denmark over the side.
PB is a wonderful source due to the diversity of posters.
Thank you.
As it happens, the link wasn't the best idea - it was a bodge, and an operationally dubious one AIUI. But your post above is ridiculous, even for a luvvie writer.
House next door to that, which is much smaller and does not have a stunning view or an attached garage, has just been let for £700 pcm. It was available for less than a fortnight.
As you say...
King Cole, likely only available through Amazon (at the moment, at least), alas.
I'm with Mr Llama down thread and suspect we risk having the most spectacular crash.
Paddington is middling-glorious.
Marylebone is late-Victorian superb.
King's Cross is now the best of twentieth and nineteenth centuries (away with the old concourse!)
St Pancras is probably the best in the world.
And Euston? Bah. Knock down and rebuild.
"We were in Centenary Square as the town hall clock chimed out the old year. I was intoxicated. Was it the allure of her beauty or her perfume that made me dizzy with excitement? Or was it the subtle charm of the city itself? I wasn't sure but I was entranced. To this day, for me, Birmingham is like cologne on New Year's Eve."
Not often you see PILLOCK in a front-page headline. Let alone BLOOD SWASTIKA PILLOCK https://t.co/VDlBV2NTHN
That'll Teach You
@MichaelPDeacon I remember when I first heard John Peel play Blood Swastika Pillock on his show in the 90s.
By contrast, as an unavowed nimby you'd have no new development near you, and would be happy to be on mud tollroads (in fact, the toll roads would probably have crossed your nouveau rich estates so you'd be against them) to get anywhere. We'd be an eighteenth century agrarian economy.
In fact, I think we might be in a similar position if we were to take nimbyism out of it. I think we might have similar views on Heathrow, for instance (forgive me if I'm wrong).
There is a husband/wife team who run my local polling station.
At the last PCC election when I rocked up to vote, I was the first person they had seen for an hour or so.
They were delighted to see someone and we chatted for about 15 minutes or so about the lack of turnout.
I expect next month to be similar.
China whops a 46% tarriff on Welsh steel. Do Leavers still think that we will get a good deal on Free Trade with China?
Snag is, there is an even huger number of people chasing them as they are priced out of Birmingham proper, and most of them are not intended for letting anyway.
Further snag is, the local amenities/utilities are already at full stretch. Only one new school has been opened since 1951, for example (and that's a private school). Meanwhile the population of the Cannock area has risen from around 36,000 to over 85,000 (I do not have the exact figures, these are estimates from long-standing locals). Chase High and Cardinal Griffin are both bursting at the seams. The others would be too if they weren't rubbish.
Something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong with our urban planning at all levels.
It's a shame they ran out of money at Manchester Midland though.
I like the fact the columns of the undercroft at St Pancras (which has now been opened up to the public) were designed so that beer barrels from Bass could be stored between them.
I think because lots of adventures have started and ended there. Especially the Caledonian Sleeper.
I bet you'd describe Battersea as 'South Chelsea' if you lived there.
I used to work/partly live in London. My response whenever I am asked what the best sight in London is; 'a sign saying Reading and the West, M4.' It gets a good laugh, but it's also true.
For me: looking across to Greenwich from Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs. A modern update of Canaletto's view.
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/493/media-493079/large.jpg
I'm very fond of the view from the rear of the Albert Hall towards the Royal College of Music.
The view walking across Waterloo Bridge is quite something.
But I think my first choice would be the Georgian terraces in Belgravia.
Feel free to disagree. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I hate London with a passion.
My view may be coloured somewhat by the fact that my time there was spent with very little money, in Bloomsbury, in the middle of the third-hottest summer ever recorded, so I had nothing to do but work and very little sleep. But strangely all my friends who went there have also left thankfully and headed for more salubrious places. Cardiff is the destination of choice (although that may merely reflect national pride).
We live in a state of rapid decline, economic and moral (this isn't a judgement on lifestyles, it's that we don't know where we're going as a country in the UK), and as a consequence, we lack any conviction in architecture. The 18th century had the Romans and Greeks as a rulebook,the Victorians had the exuberant rediscovery of our own Christian medieval culture. Even the early 20th century had that sort of Nietzchean/fascist superman worship architecture, though our time in the sun had really gone by that point so we didn't produce too many great examples of the breed.
We've now at least realised the past was good. That's a step forward.
However you miss the point. You are talking about exceptional structures such as Nash and Covent Garden. Regular readers would know my view that the reason we think of (say) Edwardian buildings so highly is because only the exceptional buildings survive. The dross, and especially the dross used by everyday man, gets wiped away by redevelopment.
For this reason, in two hundred years time people will be raving about the glories of brutalist architecture or 1960s tower blocks.
One of the reason areas like Camden can look so good is because of this constant change, where the best is generally preserved (or even improved) and the worst washed away. Perhaps the classic Camden view is along the canal towards the locks, yet that whole area was reshaped by both the canal and the railway.
You rave about the new buildings in London. Yet there is some debate over whether they are right, especially in regards to things like sightlines to St Pauls.
London can only survive through constant change. Keep the best, rebuild the mistakes better.
RCP today 4, 8, 12 years ago:
Romney trailed Obama 4.7
McCain led Obama 0.2
Kerry led Bush 1.5
Trump trailing 10.6 and 15.8
#JPupdates
I could ask, how much steel do we export to China?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34581751
Describing the electrification of the GWML as "vandalism" is overstating the case. They say that there are less visually intrusive designs but I suspect they are less reliable.
The ECML electrification was done on the cheap. So instead of having a rigid girder across the track the two uprights are connected by wires from which the electric wires hang. See this image:
http://tinyurl.com/hmyygbp
Now, I certainly think these are less intrusive but they have a big disadvantage. When a dewirement occurs on the WCML which as rigid girders, only one line is affected as the wires are hung independently. When it happens on the ECML, it is absolute carnage and the whole lot comes down causing severe disruption.
On the four track GWML, I'm not sure there is room to have uprights between the main and relief lines to hang the wires independently as such. I'm not sure how this will end but I hope that Network Rail don't have to rip down what they've already done.
Stumbling home from soho dives was an absolute pleasure. As was London pre-11am on a weekend. Quieter than most provincial towns.
They'd only have gone with the portals if they were strictly necessary - they're more expensive. AIUI.
Certainly its in the 'London Borough of Camden' but the districts are known as Holborn, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden etc
Must say St Pancras is a corker.
*nobody mention the rugby
@IainMcGill: Kezia Dugdale, Labours leader, has said it is “not inconceivable” that she could back a vote for the independence https://t.co/CBdVRQy9bi
(Yes, I know a Rome to Fort Bill sleeper service wouldn't happen. But it could).
Scottish Tory Surge (TM) incoming?
Also, Ferrari apparently have a turbo problem. They can't use it the whole length of the straight. No fix until Spain.
Assuming that's all Ferrari engines (and I'll check tomorrow, of course), that's advantage Mercedes-powered cars.
But Dugdale's leadership being more of a train crash than anything since Quintinshill isn't really news, is it?
After we leave the EU, of course the Chinese will open their doors to all our exports and expect nothing in return!
And provide free Owls and Unicorns...
I daresay someone could squeeze cats and shoes into it somewhere, but it'd be taking it off-topic.
Next!
https://youtu.be/j8z34lhKWrQ
Punters who won big at Cheltenham Festival claim bookmakers are withholding thousands of pounds from them.
Some gamblers who took advantage of Cheltenham betting promotions with 138.com, 12Bet and Fun88.co.uk say the bookmakers have closed accounts and withheld winnings.
Jake Garlick, from Wakefield, who says he has lost money, told MailOnline: 'They're refusing to pay out £1,600 which is a hell of a lot of money to a 21 year old student.'
One read: 'Following checks for bonus abuse and fraudulent activity, our fraud department has determined that your account is in breach of our terms and conditions, specifically clause 15.2 shown below...
'15.2 In the event that we suspect that you or any other player is abusing or attempting to abuse a bonus or other promotion, or is likely to benefit through such abuse we may block, deny, suspend, withhold or cancel the account of any such player, including your account if we determine that you are involved in such.
According to the Mirror, TLCBet has also been closing people's accounts, and 2Bet, TLCBet and Fun88.co.uk are registered with the Gambling Commission under the same licensee TGP Europe Limited. The three players spoken to MailOnline are among those who took to Twitter to vent their anger. Mia Culpa wrote: 'Bet at Cheltenham with fun88.co.uk took their offers of bet 3 x £25 each day and get a free bet for £25 .THEY ARE NOT PAYING OUT.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3519581/Angry-punters-say-online-bookmakers-refusing-pay-Cheltenham-race-winnings-closing-accounts.html#ixzz44bt1afsA
I think less of Red Bull's chances than most others, at Bahrain. If Ferrari and Red Bull are out of the picture, Williams stands to pick up the pieces.
I shall ponder this overnight.
(see what I did there
Is there a market on Cameron and Corbyn both to leave office this year?
I would get my coat but I'm off to bed. Good night all.
One Saturday morning a couple of years ago I seemed to be the only non-employee in Selfridges and then the only non-employee in the Wallace Collection.
The working classes are rightly pissed off with our manufacturing sector disappearing without a decent fight. Even the yellow bellied Italians flouted EU state aid rules and propped up their steelworkers.
Fuck it, nationalise it. And nationalise it in a new, modern, one-nation Tory way, by using the steel to build stuff and make Britain great again.
If might sound like pissed emotional bullshit (with me, it usually is) but at least it's better than selling the steel industry off to vultures who will gradually reduce the employees down from 24k to zero over the next two decades. The industry employed 250k in the 70s, and unlike coal we'll always need steel. So let's see it as an opportunity and do something profound. Nationalise it and build with it.
I think this article captures the feeling somewhat:
' While steelworkers in Port Talbot stare into the abyss, a Saudi playboy swans around London in a fleet of golden supercars.
As a snapshot of modern Britain, it says as much about the state of the nation as that famous old photograph of street urchins staring at top-hatted Harrow public school boys said about the class divide in 1937.
The rich have always been with us. But the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and the common herd has never been greater.
At least the old British moneyed classes maintained a certain decorous restraint. OK, so they lived in grand townhouses and on country estates, but few ever flaunted their money in the faces of the hoi polloi. '
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3518400/We-ve-sold-soul-desperate-dash-foreigners-cash-writes-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html
I remember how well Richard Littlejohn damned the Major government as it disintegrated.
herdconsensus view. It's just worth noting that the demise of Osborne's career has been predicted here more often than SeanT flip-flops.Maybe this time it's true.
Actually, some are being converted into liveable, desirable properties. It's been going on for some time: when I lived in East London in 1992, a steel-framed tower block in Bethnal Green had been stripped right back to the frame for renovation. I do wonder how it's faired since. The problems of tower blocks were manyfold, but there are ways of curing many of the problems they had.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/21/park-hill-sheffield-renovation
"I am sure many bad Victorian and older buildings were demolished, but a lot of good and even great ones met the same fate, both in town and country, for economic reasons or due to the arrogance of succeeding generations thinking they knew better and that asbestos and pebble dashing were infinitely preferable to porticos and pointed arches."
Indeed. And a great deal of brilliant architecture was lost through the evils of death duties and other taxes.
The Saudi's haven't made their money here, they've made it in Middle East oil by and large.
They're spending their money here. Ostentatiously maybe, but they are.
If we prevent or discourage the Saudi's from spending their money here what is that going to do? It will lessen the ostentatiously visible gap between rich and poor, that much is true. But it will also reduce the amount of money being spent in the UK and damage our economy.
Money made overseas and spent here is a good thing, not a bad thing. Even if its ostentatious.
Having just bought three tonnes of steel last week I may be in a poor position to argue it is a material heading towards obsolescence. However I would expect alternatives to erode is market place at an increasing rate.
https://goo.gl/maps/zp7FAeNzzQr
London has some islands of beauty amongst the dross.
But the official verdict is in, from the Royal Town Planning Institute.
England's "Greatest Place" is in Liverpool....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-35117849