He had it comin' He had it comin' He only had himself to blame If you'd have been there If you'd have seen it I betcha you would have done the same....
Government increasing losing the plot totally on unlocking. Looks like a dog's breakfast of personal ministerial whims rather than a plan.
Schools not to reopen for all primary as planned. Hancock now talking about "September at earliest" for secondary.
If we get an autumn wave then we could see many pupils not being in school until next spring. That would be an entire year at home.
Yet we plan to reopen shops, beer gardens, theme parks etc etc. Even talk of holidays in EU from July.
I don't think those things are necessarily contradictory. I suspect the chances of the virus spreading outside is very small. Unfortunately schools have to work indoors. I don't see why businesses and consumers should suffer just because we think they are less important than kids going to school.
For schools, I wonder if something like alternating weeks will be needed for some time whereby half the kids go one week and half the kids go the next? It won't be ideal, but we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Where is the evidence that kids pass this virus on? Or even get it themselves in all but a minuscule minority?
Or have I missed something?
None whatsoever. Schools should never have been closed.
I understand closing them was only put in at the last minute.
Of course there is evidence that children can both get the virus - the ONS survey has found no statistically significant differences between the percentages infected in different age groups - and pass it on.
I agree, they can get the virus, but they very rarely suffer from it. They are about as likely to get struck by lightning as to die from COVID, if they have no comorbities.
Whether they pass it on to any significant extent is not clear. A study of one 9-year old boy in the French Alps had the boy visiting three schools whilst symptomatic, but the researchers found no evidence of transmission of the virus to other pupils in follow-up interviews and testing. There are lots of similar studies ongoing.
But until there is overwhelming evidence that children are transmitting the virus and causing a significant number of deaths overall, schools should be open, just as they are in most other European countries.
Though I know, as you say, facts don't get in the way of your opinions.
The facts are equivocal.
What isn't equivocal is the massive damage this is doing to kids' education, especially poorer kids, and to parents' jobs if they can't afford child care.
Also to abused children, who need school to get away from their difficult family situations for a few hours a day. Oh, and hungry ones, who rely on free school meals to feed them.
Closing schools was a disaster. If this virus affected children the way it does old people, there would be a case for it. But there's no case for keeping them closed when other European countries are reopening them without problems.
Much of it comes down to attitude. We've piled kids high and taught them cheap in this country. It amused me to hear a Danish primary school teacher on R5L some weeks ago explaining how they had re-opened. After detailing additional measures, she was asked how many kids in her class now. 15. Oh wow! How many before? (Obviously confused)...15.
Abolish private schools and you will be amazed how quickly class sizes come down in the state sector.
Or alternatively, cut class sizes in the state sector and watch as private schools close for lack of pupils?
Honestly, some people are really dumb.
Your solution would increase class sizes, at least in the short term, not reduce them.
I am not dumb. I think the dumb people are those who think that there will be money to cut class sizes in the state sector as long as the rich and powerful can opt out of it.
I am not convinced you are the best judge of your own ability in light of some of your more bizarre recent posts. Do you seriously think that causing a train wreck in education would help poor students? All that would happen under your proposals in the short term is an explosion in class sizes and the implosion of the teetering state sector, coupled with a sharp rise in the amount of tuition, or even 'home schooling,' paid for by wealthier parents. Who's going to suffer in that scenario? Hint - it isn't the rich.
Of course, Covid-19 coupled with pension changes is going to close a lot of private schools anyway, so in some regions (e.g. round here) it's very possible we will see what happens when they go. But if you want to get rid of private schools, you don't do it by dropping ban hammers to satisfy the personal prejudices of a lot of hardcore near-fascists like the Corbynista Labour party. You do it by making the state sector so good almost nobody will bother to pay large sums of money for an alternative. And the key to that is cutting class sizes.
Blair understood that, but never worked out how to actually achieve it (the solution was to raise taxes, but he couldn't bring himself to order Brown to do it). Gove and Cummings unfortunately did not, and their misguided reforms actually made matters worse by increasing teacher attrition rates.
I already said that I wasn't suggesting a ban, I don't think it would be feasible or consistent with human rights legislation, and it would most likely be too disruptive. I am simply saying that there is a reason the state sector is teetering, and that reason is that people of wealth and power don't care about it. If you have an alternative suggestion for getting state schools better resourced I'd love to hear it. Would love to know which of my posts you consider to be bizarre, I think I'm a pretty reasonable kind of person, certainly by PB standards.
This subject touches a nerve and I am glad you are having a bash at it. There is a great attachment to private schools from many PB posters who will at the same time maintain that equality of opportunity in education and life is one of their top priorities. For me, this does not scan at all, but there you go.
What you will find - I predict - is that in order to convince you will need to roll out a complete white paper which describes in close and compelling detail exactly how you will phase out private schools by disincentivization rather than compulsion over (say) 10 years and realize tremendous tangible benefits to all without a single negative impact, however transitory, on anything or anybody.
And even that didn't work when I did it.
Not that I'm frustrated or anything you understand.
I think a good place to start would be a royal commission on the whole education system to figure out where we are succeeding, where we are failing, what works internationally, how much money we want to spend on it and how it interacts with broader goals to increase social mobility and reduce social exclusion. Efforts should be made to have maximum political buy in and there should be a ten year programme of transformation that transcends party political divides. If the commission finds that private schools are a barrier to creating the kind of system we need then there should be a long term programme to deal with that. Nothing needs to be done hastily.
The problem is not outstanding private schools it is inadequate or requires improvement state schools.
Again the left put expanding mediocrity above expanding excellence.
The middle class who send their children to private schools would not send their kids to anything other than a grammar school or outstanding state comprehensive or academy anyway
The outstanding private schools suck finite resources away from the state schools.
I'd advise drinking Barry's Tea (gold blend, in the red boxes, loose leaf) because it's superior tea.
You think it has anything to do with what the tea tastes like?
A re-education camp awaits you...
He's drinking Earl Grey - while I actually like that blend, I know plenty of people who regard those who drink it as beyond the pale and pretentious hassocks
I tried wading into an argument with PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea on Twitter this morning.
That was a mistake. I basically disagree with everyone.
Twitter is utterly moronic.
You are aware it all started because a Right wing facist tried to go point scoring using Yorkshire Tea as an example.
Yorkshire tea not being idiots didn't want to get involved in something that wasn't their concern but had no choice but to which resulted in their response.
So if you are on the anti- Yorkshire tea / PG Tips side of the argument you've proved Sunil's previous statement about you to be correct.
I don't think you can make that claim without seeing what was said.
I saw both Yorkshire tea and PG Tips initial responses - given the person pushing the point they really did have to respond.
Did they? Why couldn't they have ignored it?
Why are you taking offence at a couple of tea brands wanting to make sure they aren't associated with a fascist?
I am advising companies not to rise to the bait, because it will end up with mischaracterised polarisation (to both sides) that will do them, and us, no good.
That's why I said earlier I ended up disagreeing with basically everyone on Twitter on this issue.
Are you a social media marketing expert? I thought you worked on infrastructure projects.
Social Media Marketing experts actually have a strategy for dealing with this type of issue. Yorkshire tea and PG Tips are both following it.
And the fact that you as a completely unqualified person seem to be happy tell companies how to handle something in direct contradiction to what I suspect very expensive advice has told them to do (looking at the time frame between the initial post and Yorkshire Teas reply) tells me an awful lot..
My only question is why would someone who claims not to be racist gets involved in an argument that was started by racists when it has absolutely nothing to do with him. I mean I know everyone is bored but there are easier places (like here) to have a discussion
You think expensive advice from social media experts, who are possibly subject to confirmation bias, is beyond re-approach?
I have a pig to sell you.
I was trying to see if I could damp down the culture wars. That's all.
Please don't associate with me racism again, either indirectly or otherwise.
Saw your previous posts in reply to mine re "house guest" gate. I think I get it. Let's call it a wrap anyway.
But, look, can I just say something?
You seem to be asking for a special standard to be applied to you. Not to have your positions and opinions assessed - attacked or asked to clarify sometimes - based on what you post, but rather to be treated as if you could not possibly be contaminated by racism in any way shape or form, either consciously or unconsciously.
That seems a bit off to me.
What if you post something that I read and think "Mmm, that seems to have a slightly racist aspect to it. Does he really mean it? Or maybe it doesn't and I'm misunderstanding it. Let me check."
Can't I do that now? Or if I do are you're going to be intensely offended and either flounce or lash out and call me a bad name like "moron".
PS: Not that I am in the habit of probing you on racism as I think you'll acknowledge. Think this was the 1st time.
PPS: Same applies to me. You can probe me any old time on absolutely anything that I post. I like a good probing.
If the government is not seen to apply the rule of law to everybody equally, then people like this will crawl out of the woodwork and doubtless find some support.
This is exactly my fear and I commented on it early this morning when Kay Burley attempted to trash Churchill
I support BLM and the legal removal of slave traders statues but once broadcasters start attacking Churchill and even Nelson we run a huge risk of becoming a horribly divided nation
I still don't *get* people's assumed right not to have to walk past buildings or art that they don't like and feel some disapprobation. I dislike virtually everything built in the 1960's and 70's. More than that, it boils my blood that an elite of sneering architects and taste leaders inflicted brutalist architecture on the lower classes and pulled down beautiful Georgian and Victorian buildings with such zeal. However, I don't feel it's my right to stir up a mob and tear them down. Just deal with it. Get on with life.
Are you me? Hardly a stone would remain standing upon stone if I could have my way with the aesthetic nightmares blighting so many of our cities. Their sheer ugliness causes more psychological harm on a daily basis than an ideologically-incorrect statue ever could. In fact, if you read the justifications modern architects come up with for their vainglorious carbuncles, you often find that their analyses work beautifully on the level of concept and ideology, but fail miserably in the physical, visual, and human sphere ... which is where their buildings actually fucking exist!
High density housing and a thriving commercial space in one. This is how we should regenerate town centres.
Do we need a Bomber Harris before we can do that stuff?
Or Herman Goering? Who did for a fair bit of the area around Teddy Colston's simulacrum?
Not when you have urban planners and modern architects.
Well yes, Clydebank suggests we don't do well with a clean slate. Tbh I was thinking more of friendly bombs falling on what the urban planners and modern architects have produced.
There's a recurring meme in Glasgow that a lot of the tenement housing (eg in the Gorbals) was of such poor quality that it couldn't be upgraded or preserved, so the year zero guys were allowed to run riot in the 50s and 60s on the basis that something had to be be done. That seems quite odd nowadays when expensive extreme measures in terms of new foundations and shoring up are taken to keep tenements literally on the road. Also strange that since the tenement is absolutely THE vernacular style of housing in Glasgow and other Scottish cities hardly anything is done to faithfully reproduce it as in the form of the Dresden developments highlighted by William Glenn, or much of Berlin, a city with which I'm slightly familiar.
Even Edinburgh hasn't been immune. If you look at Princes Street (still beautiful by the way), it contains various monstrosities, as part of a brave new plan (in the 60's) to demolish all the Victorian and Georgian shop frontages, and replace them with a modern shopping precinct on two levels, with a one storey walkable balcony running the length of it.
It truly boggles the mind.
What slightly bothers me is that now we've woken up a lot more to looking after our heritage, but we've fallen into the trap of thinking that the 60's carbuncles somehow deserve preservation too.
At least we avoided bulldozing a motorway through the heart oh it...
Mr. Foremain, Trump is a narcissist, not a psychopaths*.
Psychopaths are glibly charming and highly intelligent. They tend to make excellent leaders. I once read a fascinating article suggesting that it was a species-wide evolutionary advantage to have developed psychopathology.
*Edited extra bit: he also isn't a singular psychopath.
A total absence of empathy is the single most defining characteristic. The glib charm and/or high intelligence is typically present in those who are 'high functioning' but there are thick, obnoxious psychos. Or let me put it this way, if you meet a thick, obnoxious individual do not go assuming they are not a psychopath. It could save your life.
The thick ones tend to be in and out of jail and are easy to spot. It's the clever ones you need to avoid. Surgeons and CEOs have a high prevalence.
Mr. Foremain, Trump is a narcissist, not a psychopaths*.
Psychopaths are glibly charming and highly intelligent. They tend to make excellent leaders. I once read a fascinating article suggesting that it was a species-wide evolutionary advantage to have developed psychopathology.
*Edited extra bit: he also isn't a singular psychopath.
A total absence of empathy is the single most defining characteristic. The glib charm and/or high intelligence is typically present in those who are 'high functioning' but there are thick, obnoxious psychos. Or let me put it this way, if you meet a thick, obnoxious individual do not go assuming they are not a psychopath. It could save your life.
Mr Dancer, I am sure you are right that there is an evolutionary advantage to the tribe to have a very small number of psychopaths on their side. Trump is at very least a pathological narcissist, one of the characteristics of which is a lack of empathy.
I heard recently that there are three identified physical traits in psychopaths: 1. diminished functionality of the mirror neuron system resulting in diminished or absent empathy 2. impaired links between the medial prefrontal cortex (essentially our conscience, the part that inhibits asocial behaviour, exerts self-control over our emotions, and creates the ability to think about our emotions and think about our thoughts) and the limbic brain 3. anosmia (which explains why they can bury the bodies in the crawl space under their houses)
Mr. kinabalu, could be wrong, it's some time since I studied it, but I think high intelligence is actually a defining characteristic of psychopaths, or at least very commonplace.
On empathy, the best description I think I heard was that it's like Data's emotion chip. They understand emotions. And they can feel them, but they can disregard them too, unlike other people.
The glib charm is something of a 'thing' with them but not high intelligence.
We agreed on this before in theory. The best single thing to do in order to disincentivize parental opt-out would be to increase the state education budget to a level which brings the funding per pupil up to the same level as the average private school.
But 'in theory' is the operative term here - because in all honesty what do you rate the chances of this ever happening?
That makes the assumption that sending the kids to private school is for their education rather than making sure they are not subjected to mixing with the "wrong type" of kids - or perhaps for making sure they mix with the "right type".
Good point. Because the educational 'gated community' aspect is surely a big part of it. Another pernicious macro effect. But to stress - I totally understand why individuals who can afford it make this choice and I would never criticize somebody's personal decision to do so. I just think the country as a whole would be much better off in several important ways if nobody did.
I went to a bog standard comp. That is why I chose to privately educate my children. If you are well off enough (and for many of us it can be quite tough to afford it), it is a choice that you weigh up in the interests of your own children. I see it no different to choosing a holiday that other parents might not be able to afford. Is choosing that holiday bad? Personally I think choosing a better quality education (and please let us not kid ourselves on this - it is MUCH better) is more important than taking them on an "educational trip" to the Maldives
PS. The funding per child has little to do with it. Much of it is to do with ethos. If I compare the school I went to to the one kids went to it is stark; the former had a "can't do" attitude and the latter a "can do" attitude. Some state schools manage this of course, and they tend to be the ones that either equal or outperform the independent ones.
I give you a magic wand.
We can transport instantaneously to -
All schools are state schools. Good one in every locale. All pretty decent. Not all the same but all good and no stinkers. If a child goes there they will do as well as their intelligence and diligence can take them. Course, there will still be inequalities arising from social background, parenting etc, but c'est la vie. No private schools. Not a thing at all. Never invented. The very thought seems a little silly.
The Donald does indeed have apoint over the polling. I hadn't realised that most polls were Registered voter rather than Likely Voter.
For instance I have mentioned on multiple occasions Quinnipiac's brutal Likely Voter screen (Did you vote in the last Presidential Election?). But i see from actually checking their polls that they are currently doing Registered voter not Likely voter polls at the moment.
Big re-evaluation by me coming up.
RCS mentioned it in header recently.
The trouble is adjusting from RV to LV is fraught, particularly in the US (with constant demographic change) and particularly at this point in history (with Trump doing his best to divide the GOP and drive away Independents).
Each polling company has its own model to get from RV to LV, and the in-house biases vary widely. I think that is part of the reason that most pollsters here stay with either All Adults or RV until very late in the game: at least if they are all doing RV, then there is some comparability of polls - with LV you are comparing apples with oranges unless you can strip out the house assumptions.
Usually I'd want to look at the RV figures and the eagerness factor for both parties, and make my own adjustments. Just beware that this does not automatically benefit one party or the other. And there may also be a shy Trump vote out there. But my gut is that this is a wave election in the other direction.
Some interesting data on primary school class sizes. Of the seven OECD countries with PISA reading scores higher than the UK for which the OECD has data, all of them had smaller class sizes than the UK state sector, while the UK independent sector had smaller class sizes than all of them. (Class sizes in the OECD 7 ranged from 18.1 to 24.4; UK pub 27.9: UK Ind 12.4; data various OECD publications easily accessible via Google).
Conhome is highighting the reponse of Rishi Sunak to the riots.
More Patel than Johnson, I would say.
Hmmn.
I wonder if there might be a challenge in the new year. Or maybe sooner.
I hope sometime in 2021 Boris will call it a day
Ofboris won't let him. She has had to put with a lot to become FLOTUK and she is going to want more than a couple of years with plague and recession as her bridesmaids.
I genuinely think the best answer to the statue farrago is for more public scultures, statues and art, and build upwards rather than drag downwards.
Still, easier to pretend to be offended by things. RAGE! RAGE HARD!
Exactly what I wanted to say. There's a popular joke in Edinburgh that there are more statues of named animals than of named women, but I'd assume the rectification would be some new statues of noteworthy women, rather than to pull down the animal statues, as seems to be the fashion.
Even though we don't like what some of these status now represent, I think they're important to keep as a link to our past, so that we remember what our history is, rather than pretending it didn't happen, and wasn't celebrated at the time.
I've also been at the local District Hospital this morning (more later, maybe).
Interesting little vignette. 2 shops were open inside - Costa and WH Smiths.
Costa are refusing to take cash. Point blank. Due to the risk.
OTOH, WHS have a self-service machine that refuses to handle your transaction unless you touch the screen with your finger to tell it how many carrier bags you have taken.
"Patient Experience" initial response: "You'll have to talk to WH Smiths directly; we wouldn't be able to deal with that."
After a bit of pressure, they agreed to talk to them but no formal reporting route exists. Interestingly, the nurse I mentioned it too was already reporting the thing up through management.
If you listen only to some people talk about the British Empire you could be forgiven for thinking it was a benevolent enterprise with the sole purpose of eradicating slavery.
We need the statues of people like Colston to survive so that we can see that the reality was different.
I've also been at the local District Hospital this morning (more later, maybe).
Interesting little vignette. 2 shops were open inside - Costa and WH Smiths.
Costa are refusing to take cash. Point blank. Due to the risk.
OTOH, WHS have a self-service machine that refuses to handle your transaction unless you touch the screen with your finger to tell it how many carrier bags you have taken.
"Patient Experience" initial response: "You'll have to talk to WH Smiths directly; we wouldn't be able to deal with that."
After a bit of pressure, they agreed to talk to them but no formal reporting route exists. Interestingly, the nurse I mentioned it too was already reporting the thing up through management.
We agreed on this before in theory. The best single thing to do in order to disincentivize parental opt-out would be to increase the state education budget to a level which brings the funding per pupil up to the same level as the average private school.
But 'in theory' is the operative term here - because in all honesty what do you rate the chances of this ever happening?
That makes the assumption that sending the kids to private school is for their education rather than making sure they are not subjected to mixing with the "wrong type" of kids - or perhaps for making sure they mix with the "right type".
Good point. Because the educational 'gated community' aspect is surely a big part of it. Another pernicious macro effect. But to stress - I totally understand why individuals who can afford it make this choice and I would never criticize somebody's personal decision to do so. I just think the country as a whole would be much better off in several important ways if nobody did.
I went to a bog standard comp. That is why I chose to privately educate my children. If you are well off enough (and for many of us it can be quite tough to afford it), it is a choice that you weigh up in the interests of your own children. I see it no different to choosing a holiday that other parents might not be able to afford. Is choosing that holiday bad? Personally I think choosing a better quality education (and please let us not kid ourselves on this - it is MUCH better) is more important than taking them on an "educational trip" to the Maldives
PS. The funding per child has little to do with it. Much of it is to do with ethos. If I compare the school I went to to the one kids went to it is stark; the former had a "can't do" attitude and the latter a "can do" attitude. Some state schools manage this of course, and they tend to be the ones that either equal or outperform the independent ones.
I give you a magic wand.
We can transport instantaneously to -
All schools are state schools. Good one in every locale. All pretty decent. Not all the same but all good and no stinkers. If a child goes there they will do as well as their intelligence and diligence can take them. Course, there will still be inequalities arising from social background, parenting etc, but c'est la vie. No private schools. Not a thing at all. Never invented. The very thought seems a little silly.
Do you wave your wand? - as it were.
Bad idea. The state system will never deliver suitable flexibility.
If you listen only to some people talk about the British Empire you could be forgiven for thinking it was a benevolent enterprise with the sole purpose of eradicating slavery.
We need the statues of people like Colston to survive so that we can see that the reality was different.
But with a suitable inscription surely?
"He donated generously to the poor of the parish some of the riches he acquired from the trading of black slaves."
I still don't *get* people's assumed right not to have to walk past buildings or art that they don't like and feel some disapprobation. I dislike virtually everything built in the 1960's and 70's. More than that, it boils my blood that an elite of sneering architects and taste leaders inflicted brutalist architecture on the lower classes and pulled down beautiful Georgian and Victorian buildings with such zeal. However, I don't feel it's my right to stir up a mob and tear them down. Just deal with it. Get on with life.
Are you me? Hardly a stone would remain standing upon stone if I could have my way with the aesthetic nightmares blighting so many of our cities. Their sheer ugliness causes more psychological harm on a daily basis than an ideologically-incorrect statue ever could. In fact, if you read the justifications modern architects come up with for their vainglorious carbuncles, you often find that their analyses work beautifully on the level of concept and ideology, but fail miserably in the physical, visual, and human sphere ... which is where their buildings actually fucking exist!
High density housing and a thriving commercial space in one. This is how we should regenerate town centres.
Do we need a Bomber Harris before we can do that stuff?
Or Herman Goering? Who did for a fair bit of the area around Teddy Colston's simulacrum?
Not when you have urban planners and modern architects.
Well yes, Clydebank suggests we don't do well with a clean slate. Tbh I was thinking more of friendly bombs falling on what the urban planners and modern architects have produced.
There's a recurring meme in Glasgow that a lot of the tenement housing (eg in the Gorbals) was of such poor quality that it couldn't be upgraded or preserved, so the year zero guys were allowed to run riot in the 50s and 60s on the basis that something had to be be done. That seems quite odd nowadays when expensive extreme measures in terms of new foundations and shoring up are taken to keep tenements literally on the road. Also strange that since the tenement is absolutely THE vernacular style of housing in Glasgow and other Scottish cities hardly anything is done to faithfully reproduce it as in the form of the Dresden developments highlighted by William Glenn, or much of Berlin, a city with which I'm slightly familiar.
Even Edinburgh hasn't been immune. If you look at Princes Street (still beautiful by the way), it contains various monstrosities, as part of a brave new plan (in the 60's) to demolish all the Victorian and Georgian shop frontages, and replace them with a modern shopping precinct on two levels, with a one storey walkable balcony running the length of it.
It truly boggles the mind.
What slightly bothers me is that now we've woken up a lot more to looking after our heritage, but we've fallen into the trap of thinking that the 60's carbuncles somehow deserve preservation too.
Golly, I hadn't realised that they were thinking quite that far outside the envelope re. Princes St. Actually in Glasgow they seem to have come up with quite a decent cunning plan, to cover over the M8 where it runs through Charing Cross and turn it into an open pedestrian space. Whether that'll come off now in these straitened times, who knows?
I'm not entirely anti brutalism, I quite like the South Bank for its absolute unwillingness to ingratiate for example, and the likes of Poundbury leave me a little queasy.
edit: I see the brave new plan for Princes St is from the 60s, still wouldn't put it past them today though.
Thankfully you'd never get away with it today. It's not stopping some horrors still being built, but they tend not to be demolishing beautiful frontages to do it.
I respectfully diverge from you (and @williamglenn) on the subject of Poundbury, because for all it's air of silliness, people do want to live and work there, because the environment at least tries to be beautiful.
What would be good I think is some objective standard of beauty in buildings based on what is naturally appealing to the human eye. We instinctively prefer lightness and colour to darkness and grey - probably because it evokes cleanliness. We usually prefer ornament to lack of ornament, because it signifies effort and expense. We prefer deeper window recesses, probably because they signify thicker walls and therefore greater safety and security. We prefer stone, brick and other materials that connect a building with its landscape, to concrete.
If we can get this down, we can probably judge objectively that a monstrous pile of dark grey concrete, pebble-dashing, thin metal framed windows, with wind-swept overpasses, never looked good, isn't going to start looking good, isn't going to 'come back into fashion', doesn't deserve preservation.
At the moment, Historic Environment Scotland (I think that's the agency) and English Heritage frown heavily on new buildings done in the style of old buildings. I think that's a mistake. I love the modern extension to the National Museum in Edinburgh - but would we really be sorry if the 1960's crap on Princes Street disappeared behind a plausible Georgian pastiche?
To be an exact replica, which is not of course what you are advocating, you'd have to reopen the quarries at Hailes and Craigleith to get the right stone, which is prtobably impossible now even if the residents were evicted, then the windows would hsve to be different in design, and so on. How close is plausible before it just looks odd? I can see that a modern building using say Clashach stone from the Moray Firth and so on could work better - and indeed an example of that stone is seen in the modern extension to the National Museum.
But I must admit that Poundbury gives me the absolute screaming willies. I came across it unexpectedly one evening when staying in Dorchester and looking for somewhere to eat at dusk. I couldn't understand why I was feeling so uneasy till I realised the buildings were modern - the proportions were wrong, Queen Anne brick houses with tiny modern plastic windows. But what got me were the building stones where those were used. Blue Lias stone on one building and then the next had oolite rubble and the one after that Middle Lias ironstone, and this in Dorset where the stone and location are absolutely linked. Like an Inspector Morse episode where they go into a door from one colleage quadrangle and appear in another a mile away. And (this my partner spotted) no front gardens to the houses either. Going back in daylight didn't improve it, though in fairness it's a nice enough place to live. Though the later phases don't seem so nice (however defined).
I agree about 1960s and 70s Princes Street - mostly (I am sure one or two of the smaller shops might be quite nice but can't remember offhand!).
Interesting what you say about the stone. However, most modern developments in the centre of Edinburgh (like Primark on Princes Street) seem to have a source of similar looking stone for cladding. Perhaps it's just reconstituted or reclaimed stuff they use.
And I can't argue with you about Poundbury because I've never been. Photographs look relatively plausible, though I agree about the windows, they're always a dead giveaway. Either way, people would prefer to live there approximately a million times more than living in Milton Keynes. So that's 1- nil for HRH and his pillars and porticos.
What do you both think of the (under construction) walnut whip hotel? I'm not entirely convinced...
I've stopped looking at Edinburgh developments in recent years as moved away. Is it the thumb shaped building that's sort of reminiscent of an orange being peeled that's replacing (replaced?) St James shopping centre?
If so, I was in equal measure delighted that the existing building is going and disappointed that a rather stupid looking building is replacing it. On balance I see the change as just about positive but a missed opportunity.
We’re graduating from building temples to Mammon, to building whole neighbourhoods...
Comments
He had it comin'
He only had himself to blame
If you'd have been there
If you'd have seen it
I betcha you would have done the same....
Harry Shearer (Mr Burns, etc) was just on the phone to the Good Lady Wifi, pulling his hair out.
"I'm casting for J Edgar Hoover. They just offered me Daniel Radcliffe...."
But, look, can I just say something?
You seem to be asking for a special standard to be applied to you. Not to have your positions and opinions assessed - attacked or asked to clarify sometimes - based on what you post, but rather to be treated as if you could not possibly be contaminated by racism in any way shape or form, either consciously or unconsciously.
That seems a bit off to me.
What if you post something that I read and think "Mmm, that seems to have a slightly racist aspect to it. Does he really mean it? Or maybe it doesn't and I'm misunderstanding it. Let me check."
Can't I do that now? Or if I do are you're going to be intensely offended and either flounce or lash out and call me a bad name like "moron".
PS: Not that I am in the habit of probing you on racism as I think you'll acknowledge. Think this was the 1st time.
PPS: Same applies to me. You can probe me any old time on absolutely anything that I post. I like a good probing.
I support BLM and the legal removal of slave traders statues but once broadcasters start attacking Churchill and even Nelson we run a huge risk of becoming a horribly divided nation
Meanwhile, still testing slogans for November:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1270349782821855239
American Carnage is his best one.
More Patel than Johnson, I would say.
Hmmn.
I wonder if there might be a challenge in the new year. Or maybe sooner.
I heard recently that there are three identified physical traits in psychopaths:
1. diminished functionality of the mirror neuron system resulting in diminished or absent empathy
2. impaired links between the medial prefrontal cortex (essentially our conscience, the part that inhibits asocial behaviour, exerts self-control over our emotions, and creates the ability to think about our emotions and think about our thoughts) and the limbic brain
3. anosmia (which explains why they can bury the bodies in the crawl space under their houses)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/unique-everybody-else/201612/are-psychopaths-really-smarter-the-rest-us
That said, the only one I have knowingly met was quite smart.
He is unlikely to go before brexit transition is over
New bill would prohibit the president from nuking a hurricane
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/08/new-bill-would-prohibit-president-nuking-hurricane/
No rehabilitation for Boris.
We can transport instantaneously to -
All schools are state schools. Good one in every locale. All pretty decent. Not all the same but all good and no stinkers. If a child goes there they will do as well as their intelligence and diligence can take them. Course, there will still be inequalities arising from social background, parenting etc, but c'est la vie. No private schools. Not a thing at all. Never invented. The very thought seems a little silly.
Do you wave your wand? - as it were.
Each polling company has its own model to get from RV to LV, and the in-house biases vary widely. I think that is part of the reason that most pollsters here stay with either All Adults or RV until very late in the game: at least if they are all doing RV, then there is some comparability of polls - with LV you are comparing apples with oranges unless you can strip out the house assumptions.
Usually I'd want to look at the RV figures and the eagerness factor for both parties, and make my own adjustments. Just beware that this does not automatically benefit one party or the other. And there may also be a shy Trump vote out there. But my gut is that this is a wave election in the other direction.
(Class sizes in the OECD 7 ranged from 18.1 to 24.4; UK pub 27.9: UK Ind 12.4; data various OECD publications easily accessible via Google).
Wtf is this shit "anti-racism critics", you mean "racists" BBC.
Even though we don't like what some of these status now represent, I think they're important to keep as a link to our past, so that we remember what our history is, rather than pretending it didn't happen, and wasn't celebrated at the time.
https://makezine.com/projects/diy-capacitive-stylus/
We need the statues of people like Colston to survive so that we can see that the reality was different.
I find that assassin gloves or a small spray container of surgical spirit plus a cloth is my preference.
"He donated generously to the poor of the parish some of the riches he acquired from the trading of black slaves."