It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
The evidence is that when stamp duty is removed prices rise. It’s paid by the buyer but is effectively a tax on the seller.
That being said removing it does marginally benefit the buyer as you can’t borrow to pay stamp duty
More anecdotals, I've a close family member who has had dealings with William's professional staff via work. My impression is the staff in question isn't the type to throw out these sort of allegations lightly. Ok, Meghan probably isn't the only primadonna member of the Royal family, but the reality of the situation contrasts hugely with the image the Sussex's are trying to project (and the reality of William/Kate - by all accounts unflashy and hard working).
As Charles mentioned a few days ago, Harry strikes me a a bit of a lost soul who has never really dealt with the loss of his mother and was probably most at home in the Army, where he couldn't stay put due to circumstances beyond his control. Enter Meghan, and in the space of a few years there's a kid on the scene, Harry is physically, financially isolated and estranged from his family - especially his brother. I'm very concerned for him.
In life we tend to play out the psychodramas of our childhood.
It is the oldest story in psychology, the oedipus one. In Meghan Harry has found a substitute for his mum and he will not let that go, he will do anything for her, because keeping her safe eases the psychological wound the poor chap still carries from being a child and unable to protect his mother. Hence "Meghan gets what she wants." Of course she does. She's his mother, only now he's a grown man with enormous wealth and power and he can protect her in a way he never could protect his mum as a child.
So in my opinion this story has little to do with racism or even "the institution" that the monarchy is. It is just childhood trauma being played out, unfortunately, on the front pages, due to the fame of the individuals involved. And we should cut them all some slack.
Harry would do well to read Larkin's "this be the verse"... for that reason I feel nothing but sympathy for him (and Meghan - they are clearly deeply wounded individuals). But at the same time he should take his money and lead a peaceful, quiet life away from the spotlight, rather than weaponising it against his geriatric gran and using the very media he professes to hate to attack his own family. He has chosen a very self-destructive path and I feel nothing but sadness for the whole family.
Good analysis.
Harry was not an only child. He has a brother who also lost his mother tragically young and also had to do the walk and endure the loss and the grief. Imagine how he feels seeing his younger brother take ownership of their mother's memory hawking her story and how he doesn't want his wife to endure the same and his mental health to make money and giving the impression he is the only true custodian of her memory.
Might William not feel pretty pissed off at Harry? Just because he doesn't show and talk about his loss and grief for the benefit of his favourite chat show host does not mean that he does not feel and has not felt it quite as keenly. He might be just as keen to protect his wife and mother of his children from unfair accusations (and Kate faced plenty of those too).
All of us have suffered grievous loss and pain and suffering in our lives. All of us have to get on with life, to get past it, to endure and - most of us - without the inestimable advantages which this family have. I find something very tiresome in having two people on the cusp of middle age endlessly wailing about how tough their life is / has been and seeking revenge on their families - in order to make even more money than they already have, when the reality is that they have a pretty easy life by comparison with most. If Harry hates the press he should stop courting it. The fact that he cannot stay away from it suggests something rather more calculating - and rather less simpatico - than the poor lost boy wanting to be left alone.
All true, and siblings can process grief in different ways. Harry was younger when it happened and hasn't had the clear focus of purpose to his life that William has. He's a more emotional man and less stable.
But, I agree with the rest of your both: he was best friends with his brother and now they're estranged.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
We can take more precautions wintertime and wash our hands more, but flu is not going away and thus in the balancing assessment a coronavirus like reaction, or even partial reaction, would almost certainly be disproportionate.
Some of the more extreme scientists (those who fall into the very brainy but totally lacking in common sense category, and AFAIK Dr Hopkins isn't one of those) might try it on, but rest assured the sensible ones won't be demanding anything like this. Professor Whitty has already said that we're going to have to learn to live with a certain number of Covid deaths going forward. He has also suggested that we might - possibly - need to bring back masks this Winter, but I very much doubt we'll be going back to social distancing, let alone lockdowns. If we try to keep doing that every year then the consequences will be completely ruinous, and the Government knows it.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
Welcome to my steam train world of the fifties and sixties
They look romantic but in reality they are a bit disgusting. Filthy. Good riddance
Austrian authorities have suspended inoculations with a batch of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the shots, a health agency said on Sunday.
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
Because the sellers simply raise their prices, which they can. Because the buyers aren't buying with their own money, they're buying with a maxed out mortgage. Combine that with a reduction in interest rates and all you've done is raise the price of property while forcing new buyers to take on more debt. That is exactly what has happened.
Except that you're missing two very important points.
Even if the price goes up to match the amount of tax that would have been due they're no worse off. If the price goes up by less than the tax that would have been due they're still better off.
Tax and house prices are not the same thing. Tax needs paying up front 100% and doesn't count towards your mortgage equity. If the price goes up then the amount you would have put up front in tax can be contributed towards your equity in your deposit.
In neither scenario are you worse off by not having to pay the tax. The idea you're better off with lower house prices but tax on top is entirely myopic.
As you profess to be a libertarian I find your fondness for government intervention in free market price discovery a bit surprising.
House prices are simply a function of the affordability as defined by the monthly payment, that has been reduced by a deliberate and calculated reduction in interest rates in order to reduce the cost of borrowing.
The government consistently uses whatever trick it has to push house prices up, be that help to buy or the stamp duty holiday. While reducing the monthly payment via reducing interest rates.
This helps maintain high prices that benefits existing homeowners while new homeowners ultimately pay more over a greater number of years.
It is a racket at best, a ponzi scheme at worst. And it will end in tears sooner or later.
How is not taxing buyers as much an intervention in free market price discovery? Taxes are interfering.
It is not true to say that house prices have gone up due to low interest rates. The price rises occurred before interest rates fell to this level.
Your infographic is interesting but absolutely misleading. The rise in prices occurred in the 2000s when the interest rate was much higher than it is now. The fall in interest rates came afterwards but house prices have relatively stabilised.
House prices rose 7% in 2020, while CPI was estimated at 0.8%. In what way, shape or form, would you say property prices have "stabilised".
Because there's fluctuations from year to year, over the course of the past decade prices have risen a fraction of what they had the decade before.
Have a look at the rise of house prices from 1997-2017 prior to interest rates falling, and contrast that with changes in the past decade.
Incidentally the infographic contained more nonsense. UK household income was not over 20k in 1990 in 1990 pounds. 20k is real household income in today's money after adjusting for inflation. People in 1990 weren't paying their mortgage with inflated cash in today's money. You need to look at actual nominal income in 1990 which isn't the figure on the chart.
When you say there are fluctuations from year on year, can you tell me the last time house prices fell relative to earnings? How many years out of the last ten have house prices fluctuated "down"?
It's a really easy wheeze.
Government controls the cost of borrowing via interest rates. Reduce the interest rates and the property becomes more affordable, however this enables prices to rise - aided by help to buy etc. Existing owners benefit from increased prices, equity etc. New buyers don't feel the pain because their monthly repayment remains the same while the amount they are borrowing increases exponentially.
Except of course it is a house of cards and keeping interest rates artificially low has led to an enormous rise in the gap between rich and poor. Whereas in 1990 you needed to save for a deposit for three or four years nowadays unless you have bank of mum and dad (and mum and dad are rich) then forget about it.
The housing market is an enormous bubble that successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, have had to use every mechanism at their disposal to inflate, because the alternative would be to crash the entire economy.
For decades now governments have intervened to prop up house prices. House prices as they stand now are a direct function of deliberate government policy on interest rates as well as artificial demand side policies such as help to buy,
Now, that may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing. But as a supposed libertarian, I find it odd that you support such extensive government intervention.
The last time house prices fell relative to earnings was 2019.
Three of the last 10 years house prices fluctuated down relative to earnings.
Again house price rises preceded interest rates falls. The price earnings ratio reached roughly its current level in 2007. In July 2007 base rate was 5.75%
As a libertarian I want to see the government get out of housing. Let anyone build whatever they want on any land. Abolish planning consent requirements. House prices would come down to market levels then.
I see you too have been reading those ONS stats.
I'd ask you to respond to the figures Guybrush quotes below. Again I put it to you that successive governments have intervened in the market in a way that benefits existing owners to the detriment of new buyers.
The other thing is that house prices have stagnated in some markets - e.g the south east - while hyperinflating in others (central london prime property where it is used as a bank rather than a home, pre-pandemic) but also increased above average in the rest of the UK, where affordability ratios have declined while those in the south east have remained stagnant.
So the headline figure is slightly misleading, in that the rest of the Uk is merely catching up to the south east.
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
The evidence is that when stamp duty is removed prices rise. It’s paid by the buyer but is effectively a tax on the seller.
That being said removing it does marginally benefit the buyer as you can’t borrow to pay stamp duty
Well precisely, the buyer is still better off even if the price rises.
This quote is about Anas Sarwar's father, a first generation immigrant who took a pretty admirable approach to this I think. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd mock someone not buying into sectarian rivalries?
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
See, Sunil, your Haz-Met suit can do double duty for you!
Hope that someday soon you will have opportunity to ride the Empire Builder from Chicago west to Seattle via Minneapolis, Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Minot, Williston, Wolf Point, Havre, Whitefish, Bonners Ferry, Cour d'Alene, Spokane & Wenatchee.
One of the great train rides of North America, along the old Great Northern route. From Lake Michigan across the Mississippi, across the Great Plains then the Rockies, Columbia River Basin and Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound.
Almost half century ago took this train from Spokane east to Minneapolis in the summer. Left around midnight, and when I woke up a dawn were were at Whitefish, Montana on the southern border of Glacier National Park - incredible scenery. A few miles over the Continental Divide and we were in dry, high plains.
Distinctly remember looking out the window when the train stopped at Havre, Montana. A guy in a cowboy hat was standing by the track; I gave him a wave, and in return he touched the brim of his Stetson, cowboy-style.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
The smell, sounds, sights and rhythm of a classic steam train are simply unmatchable.
Yes, there are airborne particles of burnt (and unburnt) coal in amongst the hot steam. And if you stick your head out the window you might get one or two in your eye. But it's a complete and moving sensory experience, and there's nothing quite like on earth.
Yes, you can have a clean sealed electric train that silently wizzes you from A to B, just like everywhere else, and you can also sit in a sterile room wiped down with disinfectant every day. But there's nothing like getting out into the real open world and smelling it and experiencing it in all it's visceral glory.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
She mentions Israel's caseload plateauing. Which it is. I also mentioned this earlier. Probably a mix of opening schools and antivaxx/not socially isolating communities
HOWEVER she doesn't mention the fact that Israel's death-rate and hospitalisation rate is still in decline. Which is what actually matters
Austrian authorities have suspended inoculations with a batch of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the shots, a health agency said on Sunday.
They don’t want it, which is fine, they should give their batches to someone else.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
Coal fired at home, coal fired power stations, coal powered steam trains. All different.
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
Coal fired at home, coal fired power stations, coal powered steam trains. All different.
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
I love the smell of a steam train.
I look upon someone coming on here and dissing steam trains as I would someone coming on here and saying Bambi's mum deserved to die.
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
The evidence is that when stamp duty is removed prices rise. It’s paid by the buyer but is effectively a tax on the seller.
That being said removing it does marginally benefit the buyer as you can’t borrow to pay stamp duty
Well precisely, the buyer is still better off even if the price rises.
It’s very very marginal. It’s effectively the ability to defer payment of what was duty by taking on a mortgage at a cost
Jesus, what a fucking winter. Jesus, what a fucking year.
I just want to forget it ever happened. Pretend we're back in 2019. Draw a veil.
But I don't believe we will be able to forget Covid, it will leave a scar everywhere, it is burned into our collective consciousness.
I wonder if it might also be a little unifying? We are the generations that experienced Covid, as our grandparents experienced the war. "What did you do in the Year of Plague 2020?" will be a question asked of many, for decades.
Horrible winter. The US election, second lockdown, the B117, the transition cliff edge, the Capitol Insurrection, third lockdown. Let’s not count any chickens re Covid but I can say one thing for certain - the days will be getting longer for at least 3 1/2 months.
Several people have commented to me that having an end date makes it seem longer. 21st June seems a million years away....
They have a point. 3 1/2 months ago the biggest arguments on here were with HYUFD about Trafalgar Group’s polling. That feels like aeons ago.
I can't agree with you there - the US election seems like yesterday. On a similar theme, tomorrow I arrive at a milestone when I reach the age of 66 years and 8 months - ie two thirds of a century old. I have calculated that that was the UK Male life expectancy in Spring 1963 - the year of the Beatles with Harold Wilson having recently become Labour Leader. The Profumo Scandal was imminent with TW3 on our TV screens. Frankly it seems but like a few years ago - quite seriously.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
The smell, sounds, sights and rhythm of a classic steam train are simply unmatchable.
Yes, there are airborne particles of burnt (and unburnt) coal in amongst the hot steam. And if you stick your head out the window you might get one or two in your eye. But it's a complete and moving sensory experience, and there's nothing quite like on earth.
Yes, you can have a clean sealed electric train that silently wizzes you from A to B, just like everywhere else, and you can also sit in a sterile room wiped down with disinfectant every day. But there's nothing like getting out into the real open world and smelling it and experiencing it in all it's visceral glory.
Oh I do love the romance, the whole sensory blast: the full-on Gesamtkunstwerk. And yes high speed trains are antiseptic in comparison. Everything whizzes by so fast you literally can't see anything.
So I am glad steam trains still ply a few of the most romantic routes. I am also glad 99% of normal trains are modernised
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
Coal fired at home, coal fired power stations, coal powered steam trains. All different.
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
Electric for commuting.
Steam for fun.
Well, yes. Exactly. It's very important to preserve our marvellous engineering heritage. It's part of our story of who we are and it inspired me in large part to become an engineer.
I'm shortly writing to my MP about heritage fuels actually on the basis we need some provision for preservation, which would be utterly negligible overall anyway.
They gave him his orders at Monroe Virginia Saying Steve you're way behind time This is not 38 this is old 97 You must put her into Spencer on time
He turned around and said to his black greasy fireman Shovel on a little more coal And when we cross that White Oak Mountain You can watch old 97 roll
It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville In a line on a three-mile grade It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes Oh, you see what a jump he made
And then a telegram came to Washington station This is how it read It said, that brave engineer that has run old 97 Is lying down in Danville, dead.
He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour His whistle broke into a scream He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle Scalded to death by the steam
So now all you pretty ladies you better take a warning From this time on and learn Don't you speak hard words to your true lover husband He may leave you and never return
Addendum: Authorship of this classic is confused, to say the least. Also note that "black greasy fireman" is (probably) NOT a comment on the man's race, but rather the fact that because of his job he was covered with grease & soot.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
She can fucking do one. No more lockdowns
We can cope with flu. We coped before. Fuck off
We may have looked into Pandora’s box and discovered the world of state over reach/over caution into our health
They gave him his orders at Monroe Virginia Saying Steve you're way behind time This is not 38 this is old 97 You must put her into Spencer on time
He turned around and said to his black greasy fireman Shovel on a little more coal And when we cross that White Oak Mountain You can watch old 97 roll
It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville In a line on a three-mile grade It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes Oh, you see what a jump he made
And then a telegram came to Washington station This is how it read It said, that brave engineer that has run old 97 Is lying down in Danville, dead.
He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour His whistle broke into a scream He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle Scalded to death by the steam
So now all you pretty ladies you better take a warning From this time on and learn Don't you speak hard words to your true lover husband He may leave you and never return
Addendum: Authorship of this classic is confused, to say the least. Also note that "black greasy fireman" is (probably) NOT a comment on the man's race, but rather the fact that because of his job he was covered with grease & soot.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
This quote is about Anas Sarwar's father, a first generation immigrant who took a pretty admirable approach to this I think. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd mock someone not buying into sectarian rivalries?
I can't speak for Glasgow, but I understand it uswd to be unremarkable in Manchester in the 50s and 60s to support both City and United. You considered yourself lucky to live in a two-team city because it meant that you could watch a home game every weekend. I fully support this attitude. A friend's disappointment at seeing his favourite team losing is an odd thing to take pleasure in.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
The smell, sounds, sights and rhythm of a classic steam train are simply unmatchable.
Yes, there are airborne particles of burnt (and unburnt) coal in amongst the hot steam. And if you stick your head out the window you might get one or two in your eye. But it's a complete and moving sensory experience, and there's nothing quite like on earth.
Yes, you can have a clean sealed electric train that silently wizzes you from A to B, just like everywhere else, and you can also sit in a sterile room wiped down with disinfectant every day. But there's nothing like getting out into the real open world and smelling it and experiencing it in all it's visceral glory.
Oh I do love the romance, the whole sensory blast: the full-on Gesamtkunstwerk. And yes high speed trains are antiseptic in comparison. Everything whizzes by so fast you literally can't see anything.
So I am glad steam trains still ply a few of the most romantic routes. I am also glad 99% of normal trains are modernised
I think in some respects steam trains were more comfortable and classy.
Modern trains have this horrible ironing board plastic hardback seats, packed in ten a penny, due to cost-cutting and overzealous fireload standards, which make them very uncomfortable. And, infuriatingly, hardly any of them have winged headrests so you can schalf.
Old steam trains, particularly those hauling the Mark I carriages, might have been to old safety standards and basically all made of wood but the deeply upholstered springbound seats with luxuriantly padded headrests, and private cabins with sliding doors, were sublimely comfortable.
She’s on Independent SAGE who are Zero Covid. It’s fair enough if you take that line but I think the ship has sailed. We will, in essence, have had in many parts of the country a lockdown even longer than Melbourne’s, and far longer (if less strict) than Wuhan’s, but we have not suppressed the virus. We (and Ireland I think) have the strictest lockdown in the world right now so to say the Government is relying on vaccines alone is just disingenuous.
I do agree with her about closing the border for 12 months though. No longer but that’s sensible.
She’s on Independent SAGE who are Zero Covid. It’s fair enough if you take that line but I think the ship has sailed. We will, in essence, have had in many parts of the country a lockdown even longer than Melbourne’s, and far longer (if less strict) than Wuhan’s, but we have not suppressed the virus. We (and Ireland I think) have the strictest lockdown in the world right now so to say the Government is relying on vaccines alone is just disingenuous.
I do agree with her about closing the border for 12 months though. No longer but that’s sensible.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
The noise US trains make is one of a kind and living anywhere near a railway line in a city must be seriously annoying. Someone out there told me all the hooting and whistling and ringing was to do with rules on level crossings.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
The noise US trains make is one of a kind and living anywhere near a railway line in a city must be seriously annoying. Someone out there told me all the hooting and whistling and ringing was to do with rules on level crossings.
That’s right. American train horns are loud and tend to sound much more often than in the UK. We live a good mile from the railway but still hear the trains quite clearly. Ironically the subdivision nearest the station is the most upscale in the area, house there go for about half again as much as in our neighbourhood.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
For me as a child in Reading suburbs it was the dulcet tones of being under the Heathrow flightpath bricking myself that the engine noise was of the nuclear missiles that a friend’s mother explained to me has been installed 10 miles away which was why she was joining a peace camp there for ladies only.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
I love the smell of a steam train.
I look upon someone coming on here and dissing steam trains as I would someone coming on here and saying Bambi's mum deserved to die.
Its a difficult one that because while I wouldn't say that I 100% do love my meat.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
The noise US trains make is one of a kind and living anywhere near a railway line in a city must be seriously annoying. Someone out there told me all the hooting and whistling and ringing was to do with rules on level crossings.
That’s right. American train horns are loud and tend to sound much more often than in the UK. We live a good mile from the railway but still hear the trains quite clearly. Ironically the subdivision nearest the station is the most upscale in the area, house there go for about half again as much as in our neighbourhood.
Aren’t there far more railway crossings there? I think they have to sound each one they pass over, even if there are barriers.
That was the attitude last March as I recall. It was only the "Shanghai Sniffle" as one ex-poster called it. 125,000 deaths later and attitudes, well, have they changed?
Perhaps not so much.
I can't see the future - I don't know what variants or mutations are going to emerge. We have to hold the lockdown, which from a public health point of view, has been incredibly successful, in reserve IF something occurs against which the current group of vaccines is ineffective.
Oddly enough, the immunity the vaccinations will provide now may serve us well down the road but it won't help those who come after us who may face something "new" in 30 years - it's happened before, you'd be a brave man to assume it won't happen again.
With vaccination, Covid and influenza can be "coped with" though there's no such thing as complete immunity and we need to ensure treatments mean the maximum number of those hospitalised emerge recover.
I've no problem with experts unlike some it would appear. Maybe I'm more risk averse than you or others but as I said the other night, it's my life and I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Oddly enough, because usually I'm in the minority on most issues, this time I think I'm in the majority.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
Round our way as well as the train horns we have volunteer fire departments that summon firefighters with huge air horns at the fire houses. It’s a perennial topic on local FB groups, newcomers complain about how loud they are and can’t they use cellphones instead, and then get shot down by the townies who go on about poor coverage and “one day you might have a fire and be glad the fire horn is there”.
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
Because the sellers simply raise their prices, which they can. Because the buyers aren't buying with their own money, they're buying with a maxed out mortgage. Combine that with a reduction in interest rates and all you've done is raise the price of property while forcing new buyers to take on more debt. That is exactly what has happened.
Except that you're missing two very important points.
Even if the price goes up to match the amount of tax that would have been due they're no worse off. If the price goes up by less than the tax that would have been due they're still better off.
Tax and house prices are not the same thing. Tax needs paying up front 100% and doesn't count towards your mortgage equity. If the price goes up then the amount you would have put up front in tax can be contributed towards your equity in your deposit.
In neither scenario are you worse off by not having to pay the tax. The idea you're better off with lower house prices but tax on top is entirely myopic.
As you profess to be a libertarian I find your fondness for government intervention in free market price discovery a bit surprising.
House prices are simply a function of the affordability as defined by the monthly payment, that has been reduced by a deliberate and calculated reduction in interest rates in order to reduce the cost of borrowing.
The government consistently uses whatever trick it has to push house prices up, be that help to buy or the stamp duty holiday. While reducing the monthly payment via reducing interest rates.
This helps maintain high prices that benefits existing homeowners while new homeowners ultimately pay more over a greater number of years.
It is a racket at best, a ponzi scheme at worst. And it will end in tears sooner or later.
How is not taxing buyers as much an intervention in free market price discovery? Taxes are interfering.
It is not true to say that house prices have gone up due to low interest rates. The price rises occurred before interest rates fell to this level.
Your infographic is interesting but absolutely misleading. The rise in prices occurred in the 2000s when the interest rate was much higher than it is now. The fall in interest rates came afterwards but house prices have relatively stabilised.
House prices rose 7% in 2020, while CPI was estimated at 0.8%. In what way, shape or form, would you say property prices have "stabilised".
Because there's fluctuations from year to year, over the course of the past decade prices have risen a fraction of what they had the decade before.
Have a look at the rise of house prices from 1997-2017 prior to interest rates falling, and contrast that with changes in the past decade.
Incidentally the infographic contained more nonsense. UK household income was not over 20k in 1990 in 1990 pounds. 20k is real household income in today's money after adjusting for inflation. People in 1990 weren't paying their mortgage with inflated cash in today's money. You need to look at actual nominal income in 1990 which isn't the figure on the chart.
When you say there are fluctuations from year on year, can you tell me the last time house prices fell relative to earnings? How many years out of the last ten have house prices fluctuated "down"?
It's a really easy wheeze.
Government controls the cost of borrowing via interest rates. Reduce the interest rates and the property becomes more affordable, however this enables prices to rise - aided by help to buy etc. Existing owners benefit from increased prices, equity etc. New buyers don't feel the pain because their monthly repayment remains the same while the amount they are borrowing increases exponentially.
Except of course it is a house of cards and keeping interest rates artificially low has led to an enormous rise in the gap between rich and poor. Whereas in 1990 you needed to save for a deposit for three or four years nowadays unless you have bank of mum and dad (and mum and dad are rich) then forget about it.
The housing market is an enormous bubble that successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, have had to use every mechanism at their disposal to inflate, because the alternative would be to crash the entire economy.
For decades now governments have intervened to prop up house prices. House prices as they stand now are a direct function of deliberate government policy on interest rates as well as artificial demand side policies such as help to buy,
Now, that may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing. But as a supposed libertarian, I find it odd that you support such extensive government intervention.
The last time house prices fell relative to earnings was 2019.
Three of the last 10 years house prices fluctuated down relative to earnings.
Again house price rises preceded interest rates falls. The price earnings ratio reached roughly its current level in 2007. In July 2007 base rate was 5.75%
As a libertarian I want to see the government get out of housing. Let anyone build whatever they want on any land. Abolish planning consent requirements. House prices would come down to market levels then.
I see you too have been reading those ONS stats.
I'd ask you to respond to the figures Guybrush quotes below. Again I put it to you that successive governments have intervened in the market in a way that benefits existing owners to the detriment of new buyers.
The other thing is that house prices have stagnated in some markets - e.g the south east - while hyperinflating in others (central london prime property where it is used as a bank rather than a home, pre-pandemic) but also increased above average in the rest of the UK, where affordability ratios have declined while those in the south east have remained stagnant.
So the headline figure is slightly misleading, in that the rest of the Uk is merely catching up to the south east.
I don't think that moves in the past decade have been to the detriment of new buyers. I think Osborne's reforms like putting tax on Buy to Let while giving owner occupiers alone Help to Buy have helped new buyers.
More needs to be done though. Its supply and demand ultimately.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
She can fucking do one. No more lockdowns
We can cope with flu. We coped before. Fuck off
We may have looked into Pandora’s box and discovered the world of state over reach/over caution into our health
The Government kept you and me in the game and financed a vaccine to keep us both on the field for the full 90 minutes didn't they? "State over reach/ over caution"? I'll have an armful of that please.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
Round our way as well as the train horns we have volunteer fire departments that summon firefighters with huge air horns at the fire houses. It’s a perennial topic on local FB groups, newcomers complain about how loud they are and can’t they use cellphones instead, and then get shot down by the townies who go on about poor coverage and “one day you might have a fire and be glad the fire horn is there”.
Generally the way it is with such reoccurring noises. Newcomers (including tourists) tend to find them irritating and annoying, whereas oldtimers are used to them and consider them part of the woodwork, indeed the fabric, of the community.
Have there been any reports from France or Italy about widespread reinfection ?
Those are the places where it would happen if it is going to happen because of their slow vaccinating and still high levels of infection.
Not that I am aware of no. Even the fabled Manaus study which said 76% had been infected and everyone was being reinfected has been shown to be dodgy - it was more like 15%.
This quote is about Anas Sarwar's father, a first generation immigrant who took a pretty admirable approach to this I think. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd mock someone not buying into sectarian rivalries?
I can't speak for Glasgow, but I understand it uswd to be unremarkable in Manchester in the 50s and 60s to support both City and United. You considered yourself lucky to live in a two-team city because it meant that you could watch a home game every weekend. I fully support this attitude. A friend's disappointment at seeing his favourite team losing is an odd thing to take pleasure in.
Was just as common in Liverpool. More so, perhaps, as the grounds are in gentle walking distance. Moreover, till Shankly they spent a long time in different divisions. Everton were the best supported team in England for decades before the rise of Manchester United.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
Coal fired at home, coal fired power stations, coal powered steam trains. All different.
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
Electric for commuting.
Steam for fun.
Britain's first electric main line trains (with sliding doors) were built as long ago as 1938:
For all that Sturgeon was awful in the committee and potentially damaging to both the SNP and the indy movement, "ended all hopes" is probably a bit high on the premature hyperbole scale.
This quote is about Anas Sarwar's father, a first generation immigrant who took a pretty admirable approach to this I think. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd mock someone not buying into sectarian rivalries?
I can't speak for Glasgow, but I understand it uswd to be unremarkable in Manchester in the 50s and 60s to support both City and United. You considered yourself lucky to live in a two-team city because it meant that you could watch a home game every weekend. I fully support this attitude. A friend's disappointment at seeing his favourite team losing is an odd thing to take pleasure in.
Was just as common in Liverpool. More so, perhaps, as the grounds are in gentle walking distance. Moreover, till Shankly they spent a long time in different divisions. Everton were the best supported team in England for decades before the rise of Manchester United.
I like both Everton and Liverpool.
But I hail originally from the other side of the water, so Tranmere Rovers are my first team. Hopefully we'll get promoted back to League One this season. Tranmere are never in the same league as either Everton or Liverpool so I support Liverpool too, but with a soft affection for Everton as well.
I'd rather a Merseyside team win than a club from Manchester or London etc.
That was the attitude last March as I recall. It was only the "Shanghai Sniffle" as one ex-poster called it. 125,000 deaths later and attitudes, well, have they changed?
Perhaps not so much.
I can't see the future - I don't know what variants or mutations are going to emerge. We have to hold the lockdown, which from a public health point of view, has been incredibly successful, in reserve IF something occurs against which the current group of vaccines is ineffective.
Oddly enough, the immunity the vaccinations will provide now may serve us well down the road but it won't help those who come after us who may face something "new" in 30 years - it's happened before, you'd be a brave man to assume it won't happen again.
With vaccination, Covid and influenza can be "coped with" though there's no such thing as complete immunity and we need to ensure treatments mean the maximum number of those hospitalised emerge recover.
I've no problem with experts unlike some it would appear. Maybe I'm more risk averse than you or others but as I said the other night, it's my life and I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Oddly enough, because usually I'm in the minority on most issues, this time I think I'm in the majority.
That wasn't the attitude of one particlar poster, who took his shovel all the way to to Penarth and dug his own bunker.
This quote is about Anas Sarwar's father, a first generation immigrant who took a pretty admirable approach to this I think. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd mock someone not buying into sectarian rivalries?
I can't speak for Glasgow, but I understand it uswd to be unremarkable in Manchester in the 50s and 60s to support both City and United. You considered yourself lucky to live in a two-team city because it meant that you could watch a home game every weekend. I fully support this attitude. A friend's disappointment at seeing his favourite team losing is an odd thing to take pleasure in.
Today may not be the day for an Asian bloke to pop doon the toon in his Rangers top and Sellick scarf in aid of community solidarity and anti sectarianism.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
Coal fired at home, coal fired power stations, coal powered steam trains. All different.
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
Electric for commuting.
Steam for fun.
Britain's first electric main line trains (with sliding doors) were built as long ago as 1938:
< The last time house prices fell relative to earnings was 2019.
Three of the last 10 years house prices fluctuated down relative to earnings.
Again house price rises preceded interest rates falls. The price earnings ratio reached roughly its current level in 2007. In July 2007 base rate was 5.75%
As a libertarian I want to see the government get out of housing. Let anyone build whatever they want on any land. Abolish planning consent requirements. House prices would come down to market levels then.
Well, it's an idea - the problem is any Party proposing it would be annihilated at any and every election.
As I have to keep repeating for those who see it in one-dimensional terms, housing is a multi-layered multi-faceted issue of which bricks and mortar is but one component.
Simplistic notions of a free market on land and development wouldn't begin to address any of the issues with homes and communities.
Housing is about what kind of communities to build, where and in what way such communities will have the required infrastructure to maintain them and asking what are the kinds of housing we want for mid 21st century Britain. It isn't, in my view, about building blocks of small boxes in East London many of which will go into the BTL market rather than to that wonderful class of future Conservative voter, the "first time buyer".
Housing is political - always has been. Housing policy is driven by political objectives and the housing market is also politically motivated.
For many people, their house is not just their home, it's their only meaningful asset, the sale of which funds their retirement or the grandchildren's University education. If that asset starts losing its value, you're going to have a lot of angry middle-class ex-Conservative voters.
If your asset rises 5% a year and inflation is 2%, you're happy and the great thing about the last decade is asset values have continued to rise while the prudent home owner has used historically low interest rates to pay off mortgage debt. It's less risky than playing the stock market or the 3.30 at Lingfield or betting on politics.
It's no different than any other commodity - supply and demand - and most markets are fixed one way or the other. The supply of land combined with planning constraints works to the benefit of existing owners, developers and the Government - why would anyone want to change it?
The other side is it's not all about ownership - strong private and public rental markets are needed for those who choose (and it should be a choice though it often isn't) not to buy at this stage in their lives.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
The smell, sounds, sights and rhythm of a classic steam train are simply unmatchable.
Yes, there are airborne particles of burnt (and unburnt) coal in amongst the hot steam. And if you stick your head out the window you might get one or two in your eye. But it's a complete and moving sensory experience, and there's nothing quite like on earth.
Yes, you can have a clean sealed electric train that silently wizzes you from A to B, just like everywhere else, and you can also sit in a sterile room wiped down with disinfectant every day. But there's nothing like getting out into the real open world and smelling it and experiencing it in all it's visceral glory.
Oh I do love the romance, the whole sensory blast: the full-on Gesamtkunstwerk. And yes high speed trains are antiseptic in comparison. Everything whizzes by so fast you literally can't see anything.
So I am glad steam trains still ply a few of the most romantic routes. I am also glad 99% of normal trains are modernised
I think in some respects steam trains were more comfortable and classy.
Modern trains have this horrible ironing board plastic hardback seats, packed in ten a penny, due to cost-cutting and overzealous fireload standards, which make them very uncomfortable. And, infuriatingly, hardly any of them have winged headrests so you can schalf.
Old steam trains, particularly those hauling the Mark I carriages, might have been to old safety standards and basically all made of wood but the deeply upholstered springbound seats with luxuriantly padded headrests, and private cabins with sliding doors, were sublimely comfortable.
The same Mark 1s with a big diesel on the front is a perfect combination.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
Round our way as well as the train horns we have volunteer fire departments that summon firefighters with huge air horns at the fire houses. It’s a perennial topic on local FB groups, newcomers complain about how loud they are and can’t they use cellphones instead, and then get shot down by the townies who go on about poor coverage and “one day you might have a fire and be glad the fire horn is there”.
Generally the way it is with such reoccurring noises. Newcomers (including tourists) tend to find them irritating and annoying, whereas oldtimers are used to them and consider them part of the woodwork, indeed the fabric, of the community.
Yes, we soon got used to it, even though our first place in the area was just a block from the fire house. Mind you, while I appreciate that our fire fighters are all volunteers, we have a total of ten appliances across the two villages with a total population of around just 20,000. When we lived in Tarrytown our downstairs neighbours had their CO alarm go off so they called 9-1-1 and we had two engines, two fire chief cars and a police car turn out!
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
See, Sunil, your Haz-Met suit can do double duty for you!
Hope that someday soon you will have opportunity to ride the Empire Builder from Chicago west to Seattle via Minneapolis, Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Minot, Williston, Wolf Point, Havre, Whitefish, Bonners Ferry, Cour d'Alene, Spokane & Wenatchee.
One of the great train rides of North America, along the old Great Northern route. From Lake Michigan across the Mississippi, across the Great Plains then the Rockies, Columbia River Basin and Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound.
Almost half century ago took this train from Spokane east to Minneapolis in the summer. Left around midnight, and when I woke up a dawn were were at Whitefish, Montana on the southern border of Glacier National Park - incredible scenery. A few miles over the Continental Divide and we were in dry, high plains.
Distinctly remember looking out the window when the train stopped at Havre, Montana. A guy in a cowboy hat was standing by the track; I gave him a wave, and in return he touched the brim of his Stetson, cowboy-style.
I have actually done two "networks" in the USA:
The New Mexico Rail Runner from Santa Fe to Albuquerque (back in 2009). The RTD "light rail" routes in Denver (as it was back in 2011)
For those looking forward to Crossrail, it's often forgotten it was perfectly possible between the wars to travel from Ealing Broadway direct to Southend. Electric underground train to Whitechapel or East Ham and then a steam train to the seaside.
We got it so wrong in our mania to embrace the automobile and did so much damage - where was the far-sighted thinking then?
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
See, Sunil, your Haz-Met suit can do double duty for you!
Hope that someday soon you will have opportunity to ride the Empire Builder from Chicago west to Seattle via Minneapolis, Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Minot, Williston, Wolf Point, Havre, Whitefish, Bonners Ferry, Cour d'Alene, Spokane & Wenatchee.
One of the great train rides of North America, along the old Great Northern route. From Lake Michigan across the Mississippi, across the Great Plains then the Rockies, Columbia River Basin and Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound.
Almost half century ago took this train from Spokane east to Minneapolis in the summer. Left around midnight, and when I woke up a dawn were were at Whitefish, Montana on the southern border of Glacier National Park - incredible scenery. A few miles over the Continental Divide and we were in dry, high plains.
Distinctly remember looking out the window when the train stopped at Havre, Montana. A guy in a cowboy hat was standing by the track; I gave him a wave, and in return he touched the brim of his Stetson, cowboy-style.
I have actually done two "networks" in the USA:
The New Mexico Rail Runner from Santa Fe to Albuquerque (back in 2009). The RTD "light rail" routes in Denver (as it was back in 2011)
But that's just about it!
You should do the Long Island Railroad out of Penn. The trains even have yellow fronts like God intended.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
The sound of Tube trains OVERGROUND is oddly soothing. Chicka-chacka, chicka-chacka. My older daughter's backgarden abuts an overground Tube line. You'd think it would be annoying, but it is possibly the opposite.
Very different to the sound of planes overhead, which is always annoying, even distressing, if they are close enough
There must be some psycho-acoustic explanation for this. Perhaps train-noise mimics the heartbeat in the womb?
I've heard it said that this is why you famously get a great night's kip on a sleeper train (which you often do). The gently rocking movement mimics the baby's cradle/your pregnant mum walking, the noise mimics your mum's throbbing and loving heart
More anecdotals, I've a close family member who has had dealings with William's professional staff via work. My impression is the staff in question isn't the type to throw out these sort of allegations lightly. Ok, Meghan probably isn't the only primadonna member of the Royal family, but the reality of the situation contrasts hugely with the image the Sussex's are trying to project (and the reality of William/Kate - by all accounts unflashy and hard working).
As Charles mentioned a few days ago, Harry strikes me a a bit of a lost soul who has never really dealt with the loss of his mother and was probably most at home in the Army, where he couldn't stay put due to circumstances beyond his control. Enter Meghan, and in the space of a few years there's a kid on the scene, Harry is physically, financially isolated and estranged from his family - especially his brother. I'm very concerned for him.
In life we tend to play out the psychodramas of our childhood.
It is the oldest story in psychology, the oedipus one. In Meghan Harry has found a substitute for his mum and he will not let that go, he will do anything for her, because keeping her safe eases the psychological wound the poor chap still carries from being a child and unable to protect his mother. Hence "Meghan gets what she wants." Of course she does. She's his mother, only now he's a grown man with enormous wealth and power and he can protect her in a way he never could protect his mum as a child.
So in my opinion this story has little to do with racism or even "the institution" that the monarchy is. It is just childhood trauma being played out, unfortunately, on the front pages, due to the fame of the individuals involved. And we should cut them all some slack.
Harry would do well to read Larkin's "this be the verse"... for that reason I feel nothing but sympathy for him (and Meghan - they are clearly deeply wounded individuals). But at the same time he should take his money and lead a peaceful, quiet life away from the spotlight, rather than weaponising it against his geriatric gran and using the very media he professes to hate to attack his own family. He has chosen a very self-destructive path and I feel nothing but sadness for the whole family.
Good analysis.
Harry was not an only child. He has a brother who also lost his mother tragically young and also had to do the walk and endure the loss and the grief. Imagine how he feels seeing his younger brother take ownership of their mother's memory hawking her story and how he doesn't want his wife to endure the same and his mental health to make money and giving the impression he is the only true custodian of her memory.
Might William not feel pretty pissed off at Harry? Just because he doesn't show and talk about his loss and grief for the benefit of his favourite chat show host does not mean that he does not feel and has not felt it quite as keenly. He might be just as keen to protect his wife and mother of his children from unfair accusations (and Kate faced plenty of those too).
All of us have suffered grievous loss and pain and suffering in our lives. All of us have to get on with life, to get past it, to endure and - most of us - without the inestimable advantages which this family have. I find something very tiresome in having two people on the cusp of middle age endlessly wailing about how tough their life is / has been and seeking revenge on their families - in order to make even more money than they already have, when the reality is that they have a pretty easy life by comparison with most. If Harry hates the press he should stop courting it. The fact that he cannot stay away from it suggests something rather more calculating - and rather less simpatico - than the poor lost boy wanting to be left alone.
All true, and siblings can process grief in different ways. Harry was younger when it happened and hasn't had the clear focus of purpose to his life that William has. He's a more emotional man and less stable.
But, I agree with the rest of your both: he was best friends with his brother and now they're estranged.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
At least, the dirt would have been less obviously visible back in those days, with everyone in black and white.
Coal fired at home, coal fired power stations, coal powered steam trains. All different.
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
Electric for commuting.
Steam for fun.
Britain's first electric main line trains (with sliding doors) were built as long ago as 1938:
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
One of those things from the past viewed through rose tinted spectacles. There are many similar examples. The Ford Capri springs to mind.
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
Hopefully the government keep up the public information campaign of masks and regular hand washing. Its not a magic bullet, but until COVID how many people really washed their hands properly?
This quote is about Anas Sarwar's father, a first generation immigrant who took a pretty admirable approach to this I think. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd mock someone not buying into sectarian rivalries?
I can't speak for Glasgow, but I understand it uswd to be unremarkable in Manchester in the 50s and 60s to support both City and United. You considered yourself lucky to live in a two-team city because it meant that you could watch a home game every weekend. I fully support this attitude. A friend's disappointment at seeing his favourite team losing is an odd thing to take pleasure in.
Was just as common in Liverpool. More so, perhaps, as the grounds are in gentle walking distance. Moreover, till Shankly they spent a long time in different divisions. Everton were the best supported team in England for decades before the rise of Manchester United.
I went to the second leg of the 2003 CL semi final, a Milanese derby at the San Siro, and the crowd was not segregated. Lovely atmosphere as I recall. We were stood five yards away from the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, we pretended he was Paolo Maldini’s playboy brother
Next day we drove to Turin to watch Juve beat Real 3-1 in the other semi.
That was the attitude last March as I recall. It was only the "Shanghai Sniffle" as one ex-poster called it. 125,000 deaths later and attitudes, well, have they changed?
Perhaps not so much.
I can't see the future - I don't know what variants or mutations are going to emerge. We have to hold the lockdown, which from a public health point of view, has been incredibly successful, in reserve IF something occurs against which the current group of vaccines is ineffective.
Oddly enough, the immunity the vaccinations will provide now may serve us well down the road but it won't help those who come after us who may face something "new" in 30 years - it's happened before, you'd be a brave man to assume it won't happen again.
With vaccination, Covid and influenza can be "coped with" though there's no such thing as complete immunity and we need to ensure treatments mean the maximum number of those hospitalised emerge recover.
I've no problem with experts unlike some it would appear. Maybe I'm more risk averse than you or others but as I said the other night, it's my life and I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Oddly enough, because usually I'm in the minority on most issues, this time I think I'm in the majority.
That wasn't the attitude of one particlar poster, who took his shovel all the way to to Penarth and dug his own bunker.
Covid a year ago was unknown, new scary, no pre-existing immunity. Lockdown, well, it worked to a degree, but at what cost. 125,000 deaths occurred anyway despite the biggest restrictions on freedom since WW2.
Flu, none of those things. As my flint knapping friend so eloquently said, she can do one. The prominent positioning on the beeb does feel like they're trying to soften us up for more of this in future, I fear.
< The last time house prices fell relative to earnings was 2019.
Three of the last 10 years house prices fluctuated down relative to earnings.
Again house price rises preceded interest rates falls. The price earnings ratio reached roughly its current level in 2007. In July 2007 base rate was 5.75%
As a libertarian I want to see the government get out of housing. Let anyone build whatever they want on any land. Abolish planning consent requirements. House prices would come down to market levels then.
Well, it's an idea - the problem is any Party proposing it would be annihilated at any and every election.
As I have to keep repeating for those who see it in one-dimensional terms, housing is a multi-layered multi-faceted issue of which bricks and mortar is but one component.
Simplistic notions of a free market on land and development wouldn't begin to address any of the issues with homes and communities.
Housing is about what kind of communities to build, where and in what way such communities will have the required infrastructure to maintain them and asking what are the kinds of housing we want for mid 21st century Britain. It isn't, in my view, about building blocks of small boxes in East London many of which will go into the BTL market rather than to that wonderful class of future Conservative voter, the "first time buyer".
Housing is political - always has been. Housing policy is driven by political objectives and the housing market is also politically motivated.
For many people, their house is not just their home, it's their only meaningful asset, the sale of which funds their retirement or the grandchildren's University education. If that asset starts losing its value, you're going to have a lot of angry middle-class ex-Conservative voters.
If your asset rises 5% a year and inflation is 2%, you're happy and the great thing about the last decade is asset values have continued to rise while the prudent home owner has used historically low interest rates to pay off mortgage debt. It's less risky than playing the stock market or the 3.30 at Lingfield or betting on politics.
It's no different than any other commodity - supply and demand - and most markets are fixed one way or the other. The supply of land combined with planning constraints works to the benefit of existing owners, developers and the Government - why would anyone want to change it?
The other side is it's not all about ownership - strong private and public rental markets are needed for those who choose (and it should be a choice though it often isn't) not to buy at this stage in their lives.
Of course a free market would address the issues. What issues won't be addressed?
Yes it will undercut people's profits they've sweated out of their homes. Tough as far as I'm concerned. Far better that everyone has a good home they can afford to live in than that some people do at overinflated prices and others are screwed.
That was the attitude last March as I recall. It was only the "Shanghai Sniffle" as one ex-poster called it. 125,000 deaths later and attitudes, well, have they changed?
Perhaps not so much.
I can't see the future - I don't know what variants or mutations are going to emerge. We have to hold the lockdown, which from a public health point of view, has been incredibly successful, in reserve IF something occurs against which the current group of vaccines is ineffective.
Oddly enough, the immunity the vaccinations will provide now may serve us well down the road but it won't help those who come after us who may face something "new" in 30 years - it's happened before, you'd be a brave man to assume it won't happen again.
With vaccination, Covid and influenza can be "coped with" though there's no such thing as complete immunity and we need to ensure treatments mean the maximum number of those hospitalised emerge recover.
I've no problem with experts unlike some it would appear. Maybe I'm more risk averse than you or others but as I said the other night, it's my life and I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Oddly enough, because usually I'm in the minority on most issues, this time I think I'm in the majority.
That wasn't the attitude of one particlar poster, who took his shovel all the way to to Penarth and dug his own bunker.
Covid a year ago was unknown, new scary, no pre-existing immunity. Lockdown, well, it worked to a degree, but at what cost. 125,000 deaths occurred anyway despite the biggest restrictions on freedom since WW2.
Flu, none of those things. As my flint knapping friend so eloquently said, she can do one. The prominent positioning on the beeb does feel like they're trying to soften us up for more of this in future, I fear.
Who are "they"?
"Independent SAGE" like her are cranks and weirdos not the government's real advisors.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
One of those things from the past viewed through rose tinted spectacles. There are many similar examples. The Ford Capri springs to mind.
A year ago yesterday, I did my most recent "inter-city" rail journey, Aberdeen to Inverness. Also the last time I "coloured in" a newly traversed section of track on my Baker GB Railway Atlas.
Covid severely fucked up my attempt to finish off the official GB "National Rail" network in 2020! Especially when I just had two trains left to do (both from Inverness, incidentally!).
Anyway, my railway Bouquet-list includes:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso/Wick
and also:
The Sunday-only "Dale Rail" from Clitheroe to Hellifield The Manchester Metrolink branch to Trafford Centre (only open from Mother's Day last year - the day before lockdown!)
The Inverness to Kyle train journey is one I did last summer. It's gorgeous: a real treat
The only better journey I have done, in the UK, is one I did on that same trip. Mallaig to Fort William, by steam. It is sublime. One of the greatest train journeys in the world, for sure, even if it only lasts an hour or two.
What I didn't know - until then - is just how filthy steam trains are. I always imagined they puffed out, well, STEAM. They don't. It is smoke and steam, mixed with soot, which gently rains on everything behind. By the end of the journey, when we arrived in Fort William - windows open to the wonderful Highlands sunset - everyone and everything was covered with a fine layer of dirt.
My mother always mentions the dirt when recalling the steam trains of her youth
Dirt and hot cinders. I distinctly remember once being sat stationary on a train for about an hour somewhere in the vicinity of Doncaster. It transpired that a steam leisure outing had been up the line ahead of us, and the crap coming out of it had set fire to dry grass along the tracks. We were therefore obliged to wait for the flames to be doused before we could continue on our way. It was not amusing.
One of those things from the past viewed through rose tinted spectacles. There are many similar examples. The Ford Capri springs to mind.
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
Hopefully the government keep up the public information campaign of masks and regular hand washing. Its not a magic bullet, but until COVID how many people really washed their hands properly?
Surgeons, actors who played surgeons on TV shows and obsessive compulsives.
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
Hopefully the government keep up the public information campaign of masks and regular hand washing. Its not a magic bullet, but until COVID how many people really washed their hands properly?
Surgeons, actors who played surgeons on TV shows and obsessive compulsives.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
She can fucking do one. No more lockdowns
We can cope with flu. We coped before. Fuck off
It kills a fair number of people every year - they aren't around to disagree with you, but I expect they mostly would. Like Stodge, I'll be as risk-averse as I choose, and plenty of us have noted the fall in all kinds of infections due to social distancing, masks etc.
I think the answer is somewhere in between - most people will go back to something resembling their previous lives, but will be a bit less willing to pack into crowds. But anyway my understanding of point is that we need to have the NHS on alert in November as the usual winter crisis may be more acute than usual. That doesn't seem controversial.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
The sound of Tube trains OVERGROUND is oddly soothing. Chicka-chacka, chicka-chacka. My older daughter's backgarden abuts an overground Tube line. You'd think it would be annoying, but it is possibly the opposite.
Very different to the sound of planes overhead, which is always annoying, even distressing, if they are close enough
There must be some psycho-acoustic explanation for this. Perhaps train-noise mimics the heartbeat in the womb?
I've heard it said that this is why you famously get a great night's kip on a sleeper train (which you often do). The gently rocking movement mimics the baby's cradle/your pregnant mum walking, the noise mimics your mum's throbbing and loving heart
I won't pretend to proffer an alternative explanation, but that sounds like convenient pablum dreamt up by some train marketing executive.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
She can fucking do one. No more lockdowns
We can cope with flu. We coped before. Fuck off
It kills a fair number of people every year - they aren't around to disagree with you, but I expect they mostly would. Like Stodge, I'll be as risk-averse as I choose, and plenty of us have noted the fall in all kinds of infections due to social distancing, masks etc.
I think the answer is somewhere in between - most people will go back to something resembling their previous lives, but will be a bit less willing to pack into crowds. But anyway my understanding of point is that we need to have the NHS on alert in November as the usual winter crisis may be more acute than usual. That doesn't seem controversial.
No. It may be fine and dandy for affluent, asexual, board-game-playing geekaloid introverts like you, but Covid lockdowns damage most people, mentally.
I will keep handwashing, I will wear a mask in public if I have a sniffle, I will get jabbed for flu; other than that let us live our lives as we did. We cannot let life become a living death, through fear of death
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
When I was a boy in WVa, my hometown was on the Ohio River AND the (then) Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O RR) mainline. So got to hear many trainAND (when it was foggy) tug boat whistles. Doubly blessed!
The sound of Tube trains OVERGROUND is oddly soothing. Chicka-chacka, chicka-chacka. My older daughter's backgarden abuts an overground Tube line. You'd think it would be annoying, but it is possibly the opposite.
Very different to the sound of planes overhead, which is always annoying, even distressing, if they are close enough
There must be some psycho-acoustic explanation for this. Perhaps train-noise mimics the heartbeat in the womb?
I've heard it said that this is why you famously get a great night's kip on a sleeper train (which you often do). The gently rocking movement mimics the baby's cradle/your pregnant mum walking, the noise mimics your mum's throbbing and loving heart
Yes, the customary sounds of a train running over track ARE soothing. They are regular, of sufficient duration so their patterns are absorbed by the listener, and signs of both activity and normalcy.
Same goes for train whistles (of whatever national or local style), foghorns and the like.
Sirens are different, they are signs something is wrong nearby, but also that something is being done. Think they have troubled many millions of folks in many parts of the world at one time or another during the current pandemic, myself included.
As noted, plain noises are different, though must say that the sound of a small plane - especially float planes commonly seen flying over Seattle - can be quite nice IF NOT too low above your own location.
Highway noise tends to be the most irritating. Though occasionally have found (say when staying at a Motel 6 just off a busy interstate exit) that even the highway whine of a constant stream of big rigs can be oddly soothing once you get used to it. Sometimes.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
She can fucking do one. No more lockdowns
We can cope with flu. We coped before. Fuck off
It kills a fair number of people every year - they aren't around to disagree with you, but I expect they mostly would. Like Stodge, I'll be as risk-averse as I choose, and plenty of us have noted the fall in all kinds of infections due to social distancing, masks etc.
I think the answer is somewhere in between - most people will go back to something resembling their previous lives, but will be a bit less willing to pack into crowds. But anyway my understanding of point is that we need to have the NHS on alert in November as the usual winter crisis may be more acute than usual. That doesn't seem controversial.
If some people want to hide themselves away from the world, that's their decision.
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
Hopefully the government keep up the public information campaign of masks and regular hand washing. Its not a magic bullet, but until COVID how many people really washed their hands properly?
Surgeons, actors who played surgeons on TV shows and obsessive compulsives.
I hope chefs.
It's best to believe that, without looking into it too closely. A legal but not highest hygeine rating is still cause for concern.
Trains: Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
That one sentence is like a whole book in itself. It makes the reader want to know more even though it might turn out to be utterly prosaic.
My personal view at the moment is that absolutely must not let the medical establishment pressure politicians into lockdown next winter for flu.
I'm prepared to keep a bit of an open mind on this, but it feels to me like we would get into a situation where we never really have a normal society again because we live in fear of flu which we have lived with for tens of thousands of years.
This was a one off pandemic. Once in a decades event. We cannot allow it to change our long held attitude to flu and other winter illnesses.
She can fucking do one. No more lockdowns
We can cope with flu. We coped before. Fuck off
It kills a fair number of people every year - they aren't around to disagree with you, but I expect they mostly would. Like Stodge, I'll be as risk-averse as I choose, and plenty of us have noted the fall in all kinds of infections due to social distancing, masks etc.
I think the answer is somewhere in between - most people will go back to something resembling their previous lives, but will be a bit less willing to pack into crowds. But anyway my understanding of point is that we need to have the NHS on alert in November as the usual winter crisis may be more acute than usual. That doesn't seem controversial.
No. It may be fine and dandy for affluent, asexual, board-game-playing geekaloid introverts like you, but Covid lockdowns damage most people, mentally.
I will keep handwashing, I will wear a mask in public if I have a sniffle, I will get jabbed for flu; other than that let us live our lives as we did. We cannot let life become a living death, through fear of death
Does NOT sound to me, that you and Nick are very far apart on this. Certainly re: your 2nd paragraph.
My guess is that mask wearing in particular will be MUCH more socially acceptable in western countries post-COVID.
Comments
That being said removing it does marginally benefit the buyer as you can’t borrow to pay stamp duty
But, I agree with the rest of your both: he was best friends with his brother and now they're estranged.
It's desperately sad.
If I were the Ed this would be a banning offence.
I'd ask you to respond to the figures Guybrush quotes below. Again I put it to you that successive governments have intervened in the market in a way that benefits existing owners to the detriment of new buyers.
The other thing is that house prices have stagnated in some markets - e.g the south east - while hyperinflating in others (central london prime property where it is used as a bank rather than a home, pre-pandemic) but also increased above average in the rest of the UK, where affordability ratios have declined while those in the south east have remained stagnant.
So the headline figure is slightly misleading, in that the rest of the Uk is merely catching up to the south east.
Hope that someday soon you will have opportunity to ride the Empire Builder from Chicago west to Seattle via Minneapolis, Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Minot, Williston, Wolf Point, Havre, Whitefish, Bonners Ferry, Cour d'Alene, Spokane & Wenatchee.
One of the great train rides of North America, along the old Great Northern route. From Lake Michigan across the Mississippi, across the Great Plains then the Rockies, Columbia River Basin and Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound.
Almost half century ago took this train from Spokane east to Minneapolis in the summer. Left around midnight, and when I woke up a dawn were were at Whitefish, Montana on the southern border of Glacier National Park - incredible scenery. A few miles over the Continental Divide and we were in dry, high plains.
Distinctly remember looking out the window when the train stopped at Havre, Montana. A guy in a cowboy hat was standing by the track; I gave him a wave, and in return he touched the brim of his Stetson, cowboy-style.
Yes, there are airborne particles of burnt (and unburnt) coal in amongst the hot steam. And if you stick your head out the window you might get one or two in your eye. But it's a complete and moving sensory experience, and there's nothing quite like on earth.
Yes, you can have a clean sealed electric train that silently wizzes you from A to B, just like everywhere else, and you can also sit in a sterile room wiped down with disinfectant every day. But there's nothing like getting out into the real open world and smelling it and experiencing it in all it's visceral glory.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.27.433180v1
HOWEVER she doesn't mention the fact that Israel's death-rate and hospitalisation rate is still in decline. Which is what actually matters
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
https://www.gov.il/en/departments/guides/information-corona
The UK probably has a more vax-supporting public (in total). We have grounds to be cautiously optimistic. Her fears are overblown
But, steam trains weren't a "novelty" at the time so people didn't generally spend the whole journey with the windows wide open sticking their heads out - which is how most smuts get in - and even then it depends on the wind and the weather.
And diesel trains are far "dirtier" in terms of the great plumes of noxious fumes and nasty carcinogenic particles they kick out. And we have plenty of those in service still today.
Steam for fun.
On a similar theme, tomorrow I arrive at a milestone when I reach the age of 66 years and 8 months - ie two thirds of a century old. I have calculated that that was the UK Male life expectancy in Spring 1963 - the year of the Beatles with Harold Wilson having recently become Labour Leader. The Profumo Scandal was imminent with TW3 on our TV screens. Frankly it seems but like a few years ago - quite seriously.
So I am glad steam trains still ply a few of the most romantic routes. I am also glad 99% of normal trains are modernised
I'm shortly writing to my MP about heritage fuels actually on the basis we need some provision for preservation, which would be utterly negligible overall anyway.
Net zero doesn't mean gross zero.
They gave him his orders at Monroe Virginia
Saying Steve you're way behind time
This is not 38 this is old 97
You must put her into Spencer on time
He turned around and said to his black greasy fireman
Shovel on a little more coal
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain
You can watch old 97 roll
It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville
In a line on a three-mile grade
It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes
Oh, you see what a jump he made
And then a telegram came to Washington station
This is how it read
It said, that brave engineer that has run old 97
Is lying down in Danville, dead.
He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour
His whistle broke into a scream
He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle
Scalded to death by the steam
So now all you pretty ladies you better take a warning
From this time on and learn
Don't you speak hard words to your true lover husband
He may leave you and never return
Addendum: Authorship of this classic is confused, to say the least. Also note that "black greasy fireman" is (probably) NOT a comment on the man's race, but rather the fact that because of his job he was covered with grease & soot.
Possibly the most mournful but beautiful sound remembered from my childhood was the sound of a train's whistle in the far distance over the prairie in the middle of the hot summer night, heard from an isolated small motel somewhere in Kansas.
I fully support this attitude. A friend's disappointment at seeing his favourite team losing is an odd thing to take pleasure in.
Modern trains have this horrible ironing board plastic hardback seats, packed in ten a penny, due to cost-cutting and overzealous fireload standards, which make them very uncomfortable. And, infuriatingly, hardly any of them have winged headrests so you can schalf.
Old steam trains, particularly those hauling the Mark I carriages, might have been to old safety standards and basically all made of wood but the deeply upholstered springbound seats with luxuriantly padded headrests, and private cabins with sliding doors, were sublimely comfortable.
I do agree with her about closing the border for 12 months though. No longer but that’s sensible.
Those are the places where it would happen if it is going to happen because of their slow vaccinating and still high levels of infection.
Perhaps not so much.
I can't see the future - I don't know what variants or mutations are going to emerge. We have to hold the lockdown, which from a public health point of view, has been incredibly successful, in reserve IF something occurs against which the current group of vaccines is ineffective.
Oddly enough, the immunity the vaccinations will provide now may serve us well down the road but it won't help those who come after us who may face something "new" in 30 years - it's happened before, you'd be a brave man to assume it won't happen again.
With vaccination, Covid and influenza can be "coped with" though there's no such thing as complete immunity and we need to ensure treatments mean the maximum number of those hospitalised emerge recover.
I've no problem with experts unlike some it would appear. Maybe I'm more risk averse than you or others but as I said the other night, it's my life and I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Oddly enough, because usually I'm in the minority on most issues, this time I think I'm in the majority.
More needs to be done though. Its supply and demand ultimately.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1364963342129971202
Moreover, till Shankly they spent a long time in different divisions.
Everton were the best supported team in England for decades before the rise of Manchester United.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_503
Or just one knife.
But I hail originally from the other side of the water, so Tranmere Rovers are my first team. Hopefully we'll get promoted back to League One this season. Tranmere are never in the same league as either Everton or Liverpool so I support Liverpool too, but with a soft affection for Everton as well.
I'd rather a Merseyside team win than a club from Manchester or London etc.
https://twitter.com/paulmitchell20/status/1368621883797671938?s=21
As I have to keep repeating for those who see it in one-dimensional terms, housing is a multi-layered multi-faceted issue of which bricks and mortar is but one component.
Simplistic notions of a free market on land and development wouldn't begin to address any of the issues with homes and communities.
Housing is about what kind of communities to build, where and in what way such communities will have the required infrastructure to maintain them and asking what are the kinds of housing we want for mid 21st century Britain. It isn't, in my view, about building blocks of small boxes in East London many of which will go into the BTL market rather than to that wonderful class of future Conservative voter, the "first time buyer".
Housing is political - always has been. Housing policy is driven by political objectives and the housing market is also politically motivated.
For many people, their house is not just their home, it's their only meaningful asset, the sale of which funds their retirement or the grandchildren's University education. If that asset starts losing its value, you're going to have a lot of angry middle-class ex-Conservative voters.
If your asset rises 5% a year and inflation is 2%, you're happy and the great thing about the last decade is asset values have continued to rise while the prudent home owner has used historically low interest rates to pay off mortgage debt. It's less risky than playing the stock market or the 3.30 at Lingfield or betting on politics.
It's no different than any other commodity - supply and demand - and most markets are fixed one way or the other. The supply of land combined with planning constraints works to the benefit of existing owners, developers and the Government - why would anyone want to change it?
The other side is it's not all about ownership - strong private and public rental markets are needed for those who choose (and it should be a choice though it often isn't) not to buy at this stage in their lives.
and a police car turn out!
The New Mexico Rail Runner from Santa Fe to Albuquerque (back in 2009).
The RTD "light rail" routes in Denver (as it was back in 2011)
But that's just about it!
We got it so wrong in our mania to embrace the automobile and did so much damage - where was the far-sighted thinking then?
Very different to the sound of planes overhead, which is always annoying, even distressing, if they are close enough
There must be some psycho-acoustic explanation for this. Perhaps train-noise mimics the heartbeat in the womb?
I've heard it said that this is why you famously get a great night's kip on a sleeper train (which you often do). The gently rocking movement mimics the baby's cradle/your pregnant mum walking, the noise mimics your mum's throbbing and loving heart
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1368625149264748545?s=20
“He’s Strange”?
Living a “Single Life”
Missed opportunity to open that vid with “Word Up”
Three reasons.
Most of it I expect.
Next day we drove to Turin to watch Juve beat Real 3-1 in the other semi.
Flu, none of those things. As my flint knapping friend so eloquently said, she can do one. The prominent positioning on the beeb does feel like they're trying to soften us up for more of this in future, I fear.
Yes it will undercut people's profits they've sweated out of their homes. Tough as far as I'm concerned. Far better that everyone has a good home they can afford to live in than that some people do at overinflated prices and others are screwed.
Oh right...
"Independent SAGE" like her are cranks and weirdos not the government's real advisors.
I think the answer is somewhere in between - most people will go back to something resembling their previous lives, but will be a bit less willing to pack into crowds. But anyway my understanding of point is that we need to have the NHS on alert in November as the usual winter crisis may be more acute than usual. That doesn't seem controversial.
I will keep handwashing, I will wear a mask in public if I have a sniffle, I will get jabbed for flu; other than that let us live our lives as we did. We cannot let life become a living death, through fear of death
Same goes for train whistles (of whatever national or local style), foghorns and the like.
Sirens are different, they are signs something is wrong nearby, but also that something is being done. Think they have troubled many millions of folks in many parts of the world at one time or another during the current pandemic, myself included.
As noted, plain noises are different, though must say that the sound of a small plane - especially float planes commonly seen flying over Seattle - can be quite nice IF NOT too low above your own location.
Highway noise tends to be the most irritating. Though occasionally have found (say when staying at a Motel 6 just off a busy interstate exit) that even the highway whine of a constant stream of big rigs can be oddly soothing once you get used to it. Sometimes.
My guess is that mask wearing in particular will be MUCH more socially acceptable in western countries post-COVID.