A lot along the lines of stuff Cyclefree has a tendency to put in her thread headers. - she has written many political suggestions I agree.
Equality before the law. - Policies to ensure this is protected. Many laws passed I support on this issue.
A free and fair judicial system. - Policies to ensure this is protected. Agree with Cyclefree the backlog on justice etc is a very bad thing and this needs sorting out.
A free and fair Parliamentary democracy. - Policies to ensure this is protected. Against changes in electoral system etc that could mess with this.
That all people, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or anything else are free and equal. - Again support policies to support this. Again supported laws for years on this.
Welcoming anyone who comes to make this country their home. - Support policies ensuring this. Against those who campaign to do otherwise.
Generosity of spirit both at home and abroad. Giving aid to those who need it. - A good example of this is charities like Children in Need etc, policies like Gift Aid to facilitate and support this.
That anyone who gets sick in this country will be looked after. - Is the NHS not a policy area for you? Seriously?
Etc etc etc
Why would you NOT want policies to support these issues and to unify people? Of course you SHOULD not Thank God you don't.
I agree with all of those, and would gladly help you in any campaign for them. They don't strike me as uniquely English or British - arguably Denmark, of the countries that I know well, epitomises them more completely. As a programme for a Britain that we can all feel comfortable in, though, that's excellent.
Beating the shit out of small countries, and not feeling ashamed about it. That's England. We are a warrior nation. We still are, though we have sublimated these feelings into political exceptionalism and sport
Not necessarily sure that that's what I'd add to my list of English cultural norms, but a welcome addition to the debate nonetheless.
I'd say Englishness, or Britishness, is more noticeable when you see something that isn't it. The Batley Grammar School incident, for example. Because here, religion doesn't justify trading other norms like freedom of speech. That's not solely true of Britain, but it is far from universal in the world.
On a more edifying note, I want to encourage anyone interested in what British culture is to go to Blackpool. Over the road from the tower there is a massive art installation in the pavement - basically it's punchline after punchline after punchline. And every British person will know what almost all of it is about. It will be utterly impenetrable to most foreigners,even Anglophone ones. It's brilliant - my favourite piece of public art in the country.
I think one thing that cuts across political lines (by and large, some find it too awkward or embarrassing to be funny - particular the older generation) are modern British comedies.
They tend to be predicated on unwritten rules and codes of behaviour that you only know if you've been brought up or live here, which is why - for example - the British Office is so different to the American one.
It means my wife sits in stony silence whilst I watch The Office, Alan Partridge, and Peep Show whilst I laugh my head off.
Others, of course, like Blackadder and Allo' Allo' you really have to do history at a British school first.
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
Unlikely but it would unleash chaos.
Pakistan has nukes. Iran is close to nukes. Turkey is a powerful military player, and quasi-Islamist. Egypt has unlimited manpower. Saudi has a pretty effective air force
Israel is a resourceful and tough little country, heavily armed, but it could not resist these combined powers, if it did something as insane as killing millions of Muslims in a nuclear strike
And America, the protector, wanes, as China rises. And there is no Israeli lobby in Beijing
Obviously you are right to say that defining a nationality is inherently difficult. My problem is that I get the feeling that you think it’s peculiar to England. It isn’t.
What I would say is that the extent to which regional identities are strong varies dramatically across England. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a regional identity despite living in Woking almost of my life. By contrast, the Merseyside identity is very strong.
I'm sure it's not and from what small amount of travelling I've done, it's the same almost everywhere.
I agree completely about regional identities - in some areas very strong, in others much less so. In Switzerland, the German, French and Italian speaking areas are very different from each other as an example,
@NickPalmer might think differently but I always thought there was a strong Sonderjysk identity and the Fynboer always considered themselves different as did those from Lolland and Falster.
Yes, identities can be multilayered and complimentary.
The genius of Britishness is that it is a capacious and inclusive enough umbrella for multiple, multi-layered and complementary identities.
Sadly we don’t hear enough about that sort of Britishness these days. It’s not a very flag-wavey thing.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
What counts as predicting failure?
Many journos who have consistently reported that the scheme was in trouble, costs were escalating blah blah blah yet never ever reporting why it was never going to be binned.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
I think those are values - with some policies - but I'm not sure they are the basis for a common identity.
I think it starts with identifying with the land, and sense of place, together with the people that live there.
This is where I struggle - as I said yesterday, there are many Englands - the bit of England in which I live is, I sense, very different from where some others on here reside.
There's an old adage - "people like people like themselves". We gravitate toward people and places and lifestyles and relationships which work for us. All too often, we want to be with people who think like we do, act like we do and are how we are because we recognise and understand that.
I suppose "my" England isn't anyone else's England but that doesn't matter. No one has a monopoly on the definition of what it is to be English. To try, as some do, to distil it or refine it or reduce it is futile - it defies and should defy such actions.
Certainly, no political party or movement can claim to be the mouthpiece of the English - it's absurd.
It is the variety, diversity and difference in which our greater commonality resides - the whole is the sum of the parts, both positive and negative.
Perhaps that is as near as I can get to defining what it is to be English.
I'll have a go, using Bill Buford, from Among the Thugs, his description of his years as an English football hooligan. He's in a stramash in Italy, fleeing down the road, and being chased by cops:
"Someone shouted that we were all English. Why are we running? The English don't run. And so it went on. Having fled in panic, some of the supporters would then remember that they were English and this was important, and they would remind the others that they too were English, and this was important, and with renewed sense of national identity, they would come abruptly to a halt, turn around, and charge the Italian police"
That, basically, is Brexit. We ran away for forty years then we remembered who we are.
That is us. A confused rabble, often uncouth, and yet, we finally turn and fight. And generally we win
Play up! Play up! And play the game! Sir Henry Newbolt
There's a breathless hush in the close to-night Ten to make and the match to win A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play, and the last man in. And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat. Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote "Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
The sand of the desert is sodden red- Red with the wreck of the square that broke The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed its banks, And England's far and Honor a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks- "Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
EDIT - As Fenian clueless re: "ten to make" and "bumping pitch" have always liked this poem.
I think those are values - with some policies - but I'm not sure they are the basis for a common identity.
I think it starts with identifying with the land, and sense of place, together with the people that live there.
This is where I struggle - as I said yesterday, there are many Englands - the bit of England in which I live is, I sense, very different from where some others on here reside.
There's an old adage - "people like people like themselves". We gravitate toward people and places and lifestyles and relationships which work for us. All too often, we want to be with people who think like we do, act like we do and are how we are because we recognise and understand that.
I suppose "my" England isn't anyone else's England but that doesn't matter. No one has a monopoly on the definition of what it is to be English. To try, as some do, to distil it or refine it or reduce it is futile - it defies and should defy such actions.
Certainly, no political party or movement can claim to be the mouthpiece of the English - it's absurd.
It is the variety, diversity and difference in which our greater commonality resides - the whole is the sum of the parts, both positive and negative.
Perhaps that is as near as I can get to defining what it is to be English.
I'll have a go, using Bill Buford, from Among the Thugs, his description of his years as an English football hooligan. He's in a stramash in Italy, fleeing down the road, and being chased by cops:
"Someone shouted that we were all English. Why are we running? The English don't run. And so it went on. Having fled in panic, some of the supporters would then remember that they were English and this was important, and they would remind the others that they too were English, and this was important, and with renewed sense of national identity, they would come abruptly to a halt, turn around, and charge the Italian police"
That, basically, is Brexit. We ran away for forty years then we remembered who we are.
That is us. A confused rabble, often uncouth, and yet, we finally turn and fight. And generally we win
I just read this book a couple of weeks ago, 30 years after it was published.
Well, better late than never. It was a great read back in the 1980s, and I'm sure it is still very readable.
Smash them, smash them into the ground. No half measures, do it properly this time Netanyahu.
That won't work.
Neither have the alternatives.
The two groups are never going to disappear from the area, and cannot eradicate each other. Better agreement sooner and fewer deaths.
I can't see there being peace - much as I would love for both sides to be able to
Unfortunately it has got to pretty much the stage where neither side will accept less than the whole. Positions are too entrenched, and both sides talk only to themselves and deliberately past each other. The Israelis see no reason to give up what they hold which suits them rather nicely, and with Gaza out of the way an annexation of the West Bank could be done comparatively easily. Meanwhile Hamas are adamant that the Arabs should hold all of Palestine, and for some strange reason the stranglehold Israel have put over them in Gaza isn’t changing their mind or softening their attitude.
There is a book on this, called ‘The Two State Delusion’ by Padruig O’Malley that goes into this in some depth and is well worth reading.
The “Two State Delusion” could be about the Anglo-Scottish Union.
Shoulda smashed us into the ground when they had the chance.
You were asking about the Shetland result a few days ago, this is some explanation. Sobering reading for British and Scottish nationalists.
The Israelis therefore will be firing on civilians.
The snag - and it is a snag - is that while it shows Hamas are scum, it says a lot and not in a good way that it doesn’t unduly bother the IDF either.
"our goal is only to strike terror"
??
I guess it could be a really clumsy way of saying "we want to strike terrorists" but why did they not say that? Nearly all Israelis have an excellent command of English, especially those - one presumes - in charge of English language social media for the Israeli army.
It sounds like "out goal is only to strike terror into your hearts". Which really isn't a great look
Smash them, smash them into the ground. No half measures, do it properly this time Netanyahu.
That won't work.
Neither have the alternatives.
The two groups are never going to disappear from the area, and cannot eradicate each other. Better agreement sooner and fewer deaths.
I can't see there being peace - much as I would love for both sides to be able to
Unfortunately it has got to pretty much the stage where neither side will accept less than the whole. Positions are too entrenched, and both sides talk only to themselves and deliberately past each other. The Israelis see no reason to give up what they hold which suits them rather nicely, and with Gaza out of the way an annexation of the West Bank could be done comparatively easily. Meanwhile Hamas are adamant that the Arabs should hold all of Palestine, and for some strange reason the stranglehold Israel have put over them in Gaza isn’t changing their mind or softening their attitude.
There is a book on this, called ‘The Two State Delusion’ by Padruig O’Malley that goes into this in some depth and is well worth reading.
The “Two State Delusion” could be about the Anglo-Scottish Union.
Shoulda smashed us into the ground when they had the chance.
You were asking about the Shetland result a few days ago, this is some explanation. Sobering reading for British and Scottish nationalists.
Smash them, smash them into the ground. No half measures, do it properly this time Netanyahu.
That won't work.
Neither have the alternatives.
The two groups are never going to disappear from the area, and cannot eradicate each other. Better agreement sooner and fewer deaths.
I can't see there being peace - much as I would love for both sides to be able to
Unfortunately it has got to pretty much the stage where neither side will accept less than the whole. Positions are too entrenched, and both sides talk only to themselves and deliberately past each other. The Israelis see no reason to give up what they hold which suits them rather nicely, and with Gaza out of the way an annexation of the West Bank could be done comparatively easily. Meanwhile Hamas are adamant that the Arabs should hold all of Palestine, and for some strange reason the stranglehold Israel have put over them in Gaza isn’t changing their mind or softening their attitude.
There is a book on this, called ‘The Two State Delusion’ by Padruig O’Malley that goes into this in some depth and is well worth reading.
The “Two State Delusion” could be about the Anglo-Scottish Union.
Shoulda smashed us into the ground when they had the chance.
You were asking about the Shetland result a few days ago, this is some explanation. Sobering reading for British and Scottish nationalists.
I think that is pretty good from my (limited, but with a good friend who is Shetlander) experience. I'ce always been surprised by the ferry contract for one thing, and the Road Equivalent Tariff issue. Not a mistake I woiuld make if I were the relevant minister.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Yes, of course, but it all lies within the same geography - that's what I mean by land.
The reason England "works" and still exists as a state is because you and I, Leon, Gallowgate, Philip, David Herdson, Richard Tyndall, TSE, Bunnco, Nigel etc. all identify as having something in common within a defined geography. We have choices as to what we emphasise in that - and some are uncomfortable specifying anything at all - but there need to be sufficient similarities for that to hold true.
If it did not hold true, England would have already split up into, say, Wessex, Cornwall, Northumbria and Mercia or other successor states. Alternatively, it might have been wholly absorbed upwards into a transcontinental state.
I see this as axiomatic otherwise you could simply come up with a list of values and say anyone who subscribes to it anywhere in the world would be "English", and I think that fundamentally misconstrues what nationality is; you'd be describing a club or society, not a nationality.
The geography works to a point but it's the history that defines England and we are the result of that history.
Oddly enough, I'd argue the conquests by first Cnut and later William and the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon ruling class and its replacement by a Norman ruling class, unified the English. We were subjugated as one and ruled as one by the conquerors who made no differentiation - we were the Saxons (and don't forget England in 1066 was the most prosperous part of northern and western Europe, that's why William and Harald Hardrada went to all the trouble).
From 1066, we were no longer Wessex, Northumberland or Mercia but just England. Our unification happened earlier and under different circumstances to France, Spain, Germany or Italy but the net effect was the same.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Unfortunately, McKinsey just did a report that might have shat the bed on the other side of that because under pressure from the Treasury they've suggested the Leeds to York Transpennine route could be done for £1.5bn to the DfT, which it absolutely couldn't. We're talking £7-9bn for a full high-speed upgrade.
And people why projects go "overbudget" - it's because they start with fantasy figures under political pressure.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Agred II
Integrated Rail Plan (which will lead to NPR) is due very very shortly.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Unfortunately, McKinsey just did a report that might have shat the bed on the other side of that because under pressure from the Treasury they've suggested the Leeds to York Transpennine route could be done for £1.5bn to the DfT, which it absolutely couldn't. We're talking £7-9bn for a full high-speed upgrade.
And people why projects go "overbudget" - it's because they start with fantasy figures under political pressure.
Christian Wolmar called it the ‘boiled frogs syndrome’ - you start with the water nice and low, so the frog/cost is comfortable, and slowly turn it up until too late, the frog realises it is about to be boiled but can no longer escape.
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
By who?
The entire Arab/Muslim world. You think they wouldn't respond if Israel "flattened Tehran" - presumably with nukes - killing 10m people?
Don't talk nonsense
Most of the Gulf states now have formal relationships with Israel. It would be Iran left in the cold.
No, a pre-emptive strike "flattening Tehran", killing millions - which, remember, is what we are discussing here - would simultaneously unite the Muslim world. No Muslim regime could resist the anger of the people
The desire for revenge would be overwhelming and Israel would we wiped out. This is why Netanyahu will not do it and it will remain a lurid fantasy of pro-Israeli hardliners
This vexed question sends people mad, on both sides
The Israelis therefore will be firing on civilians.
The snag - and it is a snag - is that while it shows Hamas are scum, it says a lot and not in a good way that it doesn’t unduly bother the IDF either.
"our goal is only to strike terror"
??
I guess it could be a really clumsy way of saying "we want to strike terrorists" but why did they not say that? Nearly all Israelis have an excellent command of English, especially those - one presumes - in charge of English language social media for the Israeli army.
It sounds like "out goal is only to strike terror into your hearts". Which really isn't a great look
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Unfortunately, McKinsey just did a report that might have shat the bed on the other side of that because under pressure from the Treasury they've suggested the Leeds to York Transpennine route could be done for £1.5bn to the DfT, which it absolutely couldn't. We're talking £7-9bn for a full high-speed upgrade.
And people why projects go "overbudget" - it's because they start with fantasy figures under political pressure.
Christian Wolmar called it the ‘boiled frogs syndrome’ - you start with the water nice and low, so the frog/cost is comfortable, and slowly turn it up until too late, the frog realises it is about to be boiled but can no longer escape.
Christian Wollmar would love to be trundling around the country in steam trains built 100 years ago.
He is not a good advocate for a modern 21st century railway having objected to both Crossrail and HS2.
Smash them, smash them into the ground. No half measures, do it properly this time Netanyahu.
That won't work.
Neither have the alternatives.
The two groups are never going to disappear from the area, and cannot eradicate each other. Better agreement sooner and fewer deaths.
I can't see there being peace - much as I would love for both sides to be able to
Unfortunately it has got to pretty much the stage where neither side will accept less than the whole. Positions are too entrenched, and both sides talk only to themselves and deliberately past each other. The Israelis see no reason to give up what they hold which suits them rather nicely, and with Gaza out of the way an annexation of the West Bank could be done comparatively easily. Meanwhile Hamas are adamant that the Arabs should hold all of Palestine, and for some strange reason the stranglehold Israel have put over them in Gaza isn’t changing their mind or softening their attitude.
There is a book on this, called ‘The Two State Delusion’ by Padruig O’Malley that goes into this in some depth and is well worth reading.
The “Two State Delusion” could be about the Anglo-Scottish Union.
Shoulda smashed us into the ground when they had the chance.
You were asking about the Shetland result a few days ago, this is some explanation. Sobering reading for British and Scottish nationalists.
Unst - Hermaness NNR (seabirds) at noprth end (and almost sea-level Arctic flora at Keen of Hamar). Staying in what was then the northernmost b&b in the UK with sheep baaing outside the window at 2 am in the dawn light.
Mainland - south end - Sumburgh, Jarlshof remains, walk to Sumburgh head, more birds and lighthouse, St Ninians tombolo. The Sumburgh Hotel is/was next door to Jarlshof.
Some of the way up - Mousa broch and seals disporting themselcves on other side of Mousa island
Lerwick - Lerwick, museum, etc.,. broch, etc. We had a nice walk on Bressay island to see the old WW1 gun, but that's just me.
Trundle on the bus along the length of the archipelago form fertry to ferry ...
Go in the summer to see the simmer dim (almost midnight sun). But be prepared for any weather up to storm force.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Unfortunately, McKinsey just did a report that might have shat the bed on the other side of that because under pressure from the Treasury they've suggested the Leeds to York Transpennine route could be done for £1.5bn to the DfT, which it absolutely couldn't. We're talking £7-9bn for a full high-speed upgrade.
And people why projects go "overbudget" - it's because they start with fantasy figures under political pressure.
Christian Wolmar called it the ‘boiled frogs syndrome’ - you start with the water nice and low, so the frog/cost is comfortable, and slowly turn it up until too late, the frog realises it is about to be boiled but can no longer escape.
Christian Wollmar would love to be trundling around the country in steam trains built 100 years ago.
He is not a good advocate for a modern 21st century railway having objected to both Crossrail and HS2.
The first electric trains were built 100 years ago (or more).
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
Yes, of course, but it all lies within the same geography - that's what I mean by land.
The reason England "works" and still exists as a state is because you and I, Leon, Gallowgate, Philip, David Herdson, Richard Tyndall, TSE, Bunnco, Nigel etc. all identify as having something in common within a defined geography. We have choices as to what we emphasise in that - and some are uncomfortable specifying anything at all - but there need to be sufficient similarities for that to hold true.
If it did not hold true, England would have already split up into, say, Wessex, Cornwall, Northumbria and Mercia or other successor states. Alternatively, it might have been wholly absorbed upwards into a transcontinental state.
I see this as axiomatic otherwise you could simply come up with a list of values and say anyone who subscribes to it anywhere in the world would be "English", and I think that fundamentally misconstrues what nationality is; you'd be describing a club or society, not a nationality.
The geography works to a point but it's the history that defines England and we are the result of that history.
Oddly enough, I'd argue the conquests by first Cnut and later William and the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon ruling class and its replacement by a Norman ruling class, unified the English. We were subjugated as one and ruled as one by the conquerors who made no differentiation - we were the Saxons (and don't forget England in 1066 was the most prosperous part of northern and western Europe, that's why William and Harald Hardrada went to all the trouble).
From 1066, we were no longer Wessex, Northumberland or Mercia but just England. Our unification happened earlier and under different circumstances to France, Spain, Germany or Italy but the net effect was the same.
I agree with most of that, but I don't think we were struggling with an English identity for the 150 years or so before - that was forged by and large through fighting the Vikings and first claimed by Alfred the Great in the 880s and cemented by Athelstan - we were just conquered by the Normans, plain and simple.
I guess you can be unified against an enemy without, or an enemy within, so long as you know you're differentiated.
Incidentally I got the first real feelings of a return to normality today - nothing major, it's still tough out there, still cruel, still hard, still deadly, and the new normality is austere, impoverished, challenging, but I definitely did feel better as I downed an entire bottle of Sancerre with a huge plate of fruits de mer with a friend outside Bibendum on the Fulham Road, in the warm spring sun
I had a stunning Pouilly Fumé (Château de Tracy 2019) - in an online Wine Society cheese & wine tasting, paired beautifully with a Sainte Maure de Tourraine (not sure how it'd go with oysters!). The Wine Soc has sold out of it since the tasting. I highly recommend it; probably my favourite Sauv Blanc I've ever had, and worth every penny of the £23 it cost.
I think this is probably mostly evidence of the awesome power of auto-suggestion, but I got every flavour in this rather detailed set of tasting notes from the maker's website:
"Apparence : Pale yellow with bright green-tinged highlights Nose: Very intense. At first, fresh notes of blackcurrants, boxwood, peppermint and tarragon dominate. The nose then evolves towards fruitier notes of lemon followed by exotic fruit such as mango and passionfruit. Aromas of kiwi fruit are also revealed on a mineral and spicy background (coriander and green pepper) Palate: First impressions are full-bodied and supple with appetising notes of blackcurrant. The acidity then progressively rises, echoing the ripe, lemony flavours found on the nose. Flavours of exotic fruit and mango coulis bring it softness. The finish is long and structured and reveals notes of lime and grapefruit peel."
I thought you might be! But then noticed that the actual* winery's link that I'd posted had sold out too, so thought I best give a useful link to my recommendation
The wine/cheese tasting was rather funny, for me. Some old uni friends and I have been doing some of these tastings together, remotely; wathcing the same "expert" on laptops, while zooming in our group.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
America would be unlikely to let that happen...
America would surely stop Israel pre-emptively nuking Tehran.
If Israel did it off their own bat, would America intervene to save Israel?
I genuinely doubt it. The mood in Washington turns against Israel. The latest Dems are probably the least Israeli-friendly American government in decades. Trump has gone. Black Lives Matter shades into leftist support for Palestine....
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Unfortunately, McKinsey just did a report that might have shat the bed on the other side of that because under pressure from the Treasury they've suggested the Leeds to York Transpennine route could be done for £1.5bn to the DfT, which it absolutely couldn't. We're talking £7-9bn for a full high-speed upgrade.
And people why projects go "overbudget" - it's because they start with fantasy figures under political pressure.
Christian Wolmar called it the ‘boiled frogs syndrome’ - you start with the water nice and low, so the frog/cost is comfortable, and slowly turn it up until too late, the frog realises it is about to be boiled but can no longer escape.
Christian Wollmar would love to be trundling around the country in steam trains built 100 years ago.
He is not a good advocate for a modern 21st century railway having objected to both Crossrail and HS2.
I think that’s a slightly unfair characterisation.
He thinks all railways should be closed except for those beginning or ending in London which should be nationalised.
Some of his work on the impact pandemic was truly astonishing, calling for example for the closure of all lines in Wales except for the line to Holyhead and the Great Western Mainline to Swansea on the grounds that nobody important used the others.
Incidentally I got the first real feelings of a return to normality today - nothing major, it's still tough out there, still cruel, still hard, still deadly, and the new normality is austere, impoverished, challenging, but I definitely did feel better as I downed an entire bottle of Sancerre with a huge plate of fruits de mer with a friend outside Bibendum on the Fulham Road, in the warm spring sun
I had a stunning Pouilly Fumé (Château de Tracy 2019) - in an online Wine Society cheese & wine tasting, paired beautifully with a Sainte Maure de Tourraine (not sure how it'd go with oysters!). The Wine Soc has sold out of it since the tasting. I highly recommend it; probably my favourite Sauv Blanc I've ever had, and worth every penny of the £23 it cost.
I think this is probably mostly evidence of the awesome power of auto-suggestion, but I got every flavour in this rather detailed set of tasting notes from the maker's website:
"Apparence : Pale yellow with bright green-tinged highlights Nose: Very intense. At first, fresh notes of blackcurrants, boxwood, peppermint and tarragon dominate. The nose then evolves towards fruitier notes of lemon followed by exotic fruit such as mango and passionfruit. Aromas of kiwi fruit are also revealed on a mineral and spicy background (coriander and green pepper) Palate: First impressions are full-bodied and supple with appetising notes of blackcurrant. The acidity then progressively rises, echoing the ripe, lemony flavours found on the nose. Flavours of exotic fruit and mango coulis bring it softness. The finish is long and structured and reveals notes of lime and grapefruit peel."
I thought you might be! But then noticed that the actual* winery's link that I'd posted had sold out too, so thought I best give a useful link to my recommendation
The wine/cheese tasting was rather funny, for me. Some old uni friends and I have been doing some of these tastings together, remotely; wathcing the same "expert" on laptops, while zooming in our group.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
Quite right too. Thpugh I'm not used ot the concept of flint in the Kimmeridgian Stage, at least on the north coast of the Channel. More accustomed to the Oil Shale. Wonder what that would do to the wine once the vineyards move to Dorset?
Obviously you are right to say that defining a nationality is inherently difficult. My problem is that I get the feeling that you think it’s peculiar to England. It isn’t.
What I would say is that the extent to which regional identities are strong varies dramatically across England. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a regional identity despite living in Woking almost of my life. By contrast, the Merseyside identity is very strong.
I'm sure it's not and from what small amount of travelling I've done, it's the same almost everywhere.
I agree completely about regional identities - in some areas very strong, in others much less so. In Switzerland, the German, French and Italian speaking areas are very different from each other as an example,
@NickPalmer might think differently but I always thought there was a strong Sonderjysk identity and the Fynboer always considered themselves different as did those from Lolland and Falster.
Yes, identities can be multilayered and complimentary.
The genius of Britishness is that it is a capacious and inclusive enough umbrella for multiple, multi-layered and complementary identities.
Sadly we don’t hear enough about that sort of Britishness these days. It’s not a very flag-wavey thing.
Ditto for Americanism.
In larger measure because the Left in both lands is generally too dumb to wave the flag despite (or rather because) of the obvious stains it's picked up over the centuries.
Whereas the Right wraps itself in the Union Jack or Old Glory, ignoring or whitewashing (or blue- or red-washing) the same stains.
Years ago, in the aftermath of the Seattle WTO protests & riots, there was a small protest in front of the King County Courthouse. An even smaller group of protesters was preparing to burn an American flag.
Until another protester, a union member who was also a VietNam veteran, talked them out of it. By gently explaining why a guy like him, who agreed with them on globalism, etc. was opposed to flag-burning.
Because of what the Flag meant to him: the sacrifices that others have made for their country AND it's promise - often unfulfilled but ALWAYS the hope and goal - of liberty, justice and freedom for all.
He showed me the flag he'd saved, I'm guessing he still has it.
Which brings us to the interesting concept of denial of things people don't want to be true. There is a True Faith of the Anti-Anti-Ballistic-Missile church - people who believe that you can never stop ballistic weapons. Hilariously, they have tried to claim that Iron Dome (limited though it is) can't work, actually misses everything, or costs 10 trillion dollars. Often all of the above.
This is because they are ideologically opposed to anti-ballistic weapons.
The mental processes involved are fascinating.
I once watched as someone created a whole new denial in response to a scientific fact we were discussing. I wish I could have videoed it.
The little spoken about fact is that Israel won the Second Intifada because of the construction of the wall, and the Iron Dome has built upon that.
Quite frankly Israel always had major military superiority but their defences now make terrorism very hard and miniscule, relatively.
Which brings us to the interesting concept of denial of things people don't want to be true. There is a True Faith of the Anti-Anti-Ballistic-Missile church - people who believe that you can never stop ballistic weapons. Hilariously, they have tried to claim that Iron Dome (limited though it is) can't work, actually misses everything, or costs 10 trillion dollars. Often all of the above.
This is because they are ideologically opposed to anti-ballistic weapons.
The mental processes involved are fascinating.
I once watched as someone created a whole new denial in response to a scientific fact we were discussing. I wish I could have videoed it.
The little spoken about fact is that Israel won the Second Intifada because of the construction of the wall, and the Iron Dome has built upon that.
Quite frankly Israel always had major military superiority but their defences now make terrorism very hard and miniscule, relatively.
I did wonder, watching those videos, how many more launchers it would need to saturate Iron Dome. That attack gave a fair idea, and it would - presumably - be quicker and cheaper to import more than it would be to beef up Iron Dome.
Whenever I check out anything on YouTube dealing with war OR country music, am currently getting bombarded with pro-NRA ads.
Actually have an NRA belt-buckle I got at a thrift store years ago, no doubt belonged to an old-school NRA supporter who'd made a small contribution. Like lots of people I knew back in WVA used to do. But no so much anymore, even back there.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
The reason they’re not connecting HS2 to HS1 is that they don’t want the hassle of building passport control and customs at HS2 stations. Far easier to have everyone pile off at St Pancras and traipse down to Euston.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
America would be unlikely to let that happen...
America would surely stop Israel pre-emptively nuking Tehran.
If Israel did it off their own bat, would America intervene to save Israel?
I genuinely doubt it. The mood in Washington turns against Israel. The latest Dems are probably the least Israeli-friendly American government in decades. Trump has gone. Black Lives Matter shades into leftist support for Palestine....
Jewish American would NOT be quite so blasé. And most are Democrats.
Most I know HATE Netanyahu with a burning passion, and have a large degree of sympathy, even empathy for the Palestinians.
But they are NOT anti-Israel. And most certainly would NOT stand by idly IF they thought Israel was in danger of imminent destruction.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
America would be unlikely to let that happen...
America would surely stop Israel pre-emptively nuking Tehran.
If Israel did it off their own bat, would America intervene to save Israel?
I genuinely doubt it. The mood in Washington turns against Israel. The latest Dems are probably the least Israeli-friendly American government in decades. Trump has gone. Black Lives Matter shades into leftist support for Palestine....
Jewish American would NOT be quite so blasé. And most are Democrats.
Most I know HATE Netanyahu with a burning passion, and have a large degree of sympathy, even empathy for the Palestinians.
But they are NOT anti-Israel. And most certainly would NOT stand by idly IF they thought Israel was in danger of imminent destruction.
If Israel had just pre-emptively wiped out Tehran with a nuke, I do not believe America would intervene to stop the revenge. More importantly, even if America was thusly minded, I don't think America any longer has the will to sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives for foreign countries, nor the capability to enforce this will, globally
Incidentally I got the first real feelings of a return to normality today - nothing major, it's still tough out there, still cruel, still hard, still deadly, and the new normality is austere, impoverished, challenging, but I definitely did feel better as I downed an entire bottle of Sancerre with a huge plate of fruits de mer with a friend outside Bibendum on the Fulham Road, in the warm spring sun
I had a stunning Pouilly Fumé (Château de Tracy 2019) - in an online Wine Society cheese & wine tasting, paired beautifully with a Sainte Maure de Tourraine (not sure how it'd go with oysters!). The Wine Soc has sold out of it since the tasting. I highly recommend it; probably my favourite Sauv Blanc I've ever had, and worth every penny of the £23 it cost.
I think this is probably mostly evidence of the awesome power of auto-suggestion, but I got every flavour in this rather detailed set of tasting notes from the maker's website:
"Apparence : Pale yellow with bright green-tinged highlights Nose: Very intense. At first, fresh notes of blackcurrants, boxwood, peppermint and tarragon dominate. The nose then evolves towards fruitier notes of lemon followed by exotic fruit such as mango and passionfruit. Aromas of kiwi fruit are also revealed on a mineral and spicy background (coriander and green pepper) Palate: First impressions are full-bodied and supple with appetising notes of blackcurrant. The acidity then progressively rises, echoing the ripe, lemony flavours found on the nose. Flavours of exotic fruit and mango coulis bring it softness. The finish is long and structured and reveals notes of lime and grapefruit peel."
I thought you might be! But then noticed that the actual* winery's link that I'd posted had sold out too, so thought I best give a useful link to my recommendation
The wine/cheese tasting was rather funny, for me. Some old uni friends and I have been doing some of these tastings together, remotely; wathcing the same "expert" on laptops, while zooming in our group.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
Quite right too. Thpugh I'm not used ot the concept of flint in the Kimmeridgian Stage, at least on the north coast of the Channel. More accustomed to the Oil Shale. Wonder what that would do to the wine once the vineyards move to Dorset?
I know as much as the wiki page told me about the Kimmeridgean Stage. Which was luckily 100% more than my mates know. They thought I'd made it up!
I got the flinty bit from the Ch de Tracy website, and then the lady showed her slide.
Is there a flint difference in the Portlandian and Tithonian definitions of Kimmeridgean?
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
(sniff) I want to go to Barcelona. I miss Spain in general, and Barcelona in particular. Seville even more so, especially in February when it's like early Summer anywhere normal and the orange trees are in blossom. (sniff)
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
That line needed the hideous "spur" across Camden, which would have involved knocking down most of Camden. We here in Camden objected, and we are not without influence. So it didn't happen. Sorry
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
The country lane where I usually go for a bike ride is about to be blocked off in order to make way for it. They've already demolished a large number of trees in the area.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
That line needed the hideous "spur" across Camden, which would have involved knocking down most of Camden. We here in Camden objected, and we are not without influence. So it didn't happen. Sorry
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
£400 for the sleeper or £30 for EasyJet. That's why there aren't any sleepers.
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
America would be unlikely to let that happen...
America would surely stop Israel pre-emptively nuking Tehran.
If Israel did it off their own bat, would America intervene to save Israel?
I genuinely doubt it. The mood in Washington turns against Israel. The latest Dems are probably the least Israeli-friendly American government in decades. Trump has gone. Black Lives Matter shades into leftist support for Palestine....
Jewish American would NOT be quite so blasé. And most are Democrats.
Most I know HATE Netanyahu with a burning passion, and have a large degree of sympathy, even empathy for the Palestinians.
But they are NOT anti-Israel. And most certainly would NOT stand by idly IF they thought Israel was in danger of imminent destruction.
If Israel had just pre-emptively wiped out Tehran with a nuke, I do not believe America would intervene to stop the revenge. More importantly, even if America was thusly minded, I don't think America any longer has the will to sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives for foreign countries, nor the capability to enforce this will, globally
Israel would do no such thing WITHOUT prior approval from Washington. And no POTUS would give them a green light for it, including #45.
Risk of such an extreme unilateral action would simply be too high, for ANY Israeli government, no matter how crazy.
Incidentally I got the first real feelings of a return to normality today - nothing major, it's still tough out there, still cruel, still hard, still deadly, and the new normality is austere, impoverished, challenging, but I definitely did feel better as I downed an entire bottle of Sancerre with a huge plate of fruits de mer with a friend outside Bibendum on the Fulham Road, in the warm spring sun
I had a stunning Pouilly Fumé (Château de Tracy 2019) - in an online Wine Society cheese & wine tasting, paired beautifully with a Sainte Maure de Tourraine (not sure how it'd go with oysters!). The Wine Soc has sold out of it since the tasting. I highly recommend it; probably my favourite Sauv Blanc I've ever had, and worth every penny of the £23 it cost.
I think this is probably mostly evidence of the awesome power of auto-suggestion, but I got every flavour in this rather detailed set of tasting notes from the maker's website:
"Apparence : Pale yellow with bright green-tinged highlights Nose: Very intense. At first, fresh notes of blackcurrants, boxwood, peppermint and tarragon dominate. The nose then evolves towards fruitier notes of lemon followed by exotic fruit such as mango and passionfruit. Aromas of kiwi fruit are also revealed on a mineral and spicy background (coriander and green pepper) Palate: First impressions are full-bodied and supple with appetising notes of blackcurrant. The acidity then progressively rises, echoing the ripe, lemony flavours found on the nose. Flavours of exotic fruit and mango coulis bring it softness. The finish is long and structured and reveals notes of lime and grapefruit peel."
I thought you might be! But then noticed that the actual* winery's link that I'd posted had sold out too, so thought I best give a useful link to my recommendation
The wine/cheese tasting was rather funny, for me. Some old uni friends and I have been doing some of these tastings together, remotely; wathcing the same "expert" on laptops, while zooming in our group.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
Quite right too. Thpugh I'm not used ot the concept of flint in the Kimmeridgian Stage, at least on the north coast of the Channel. More accustomed to the Oil Shale. Wonder what that would do to the wine once the vineyards move to Dorset?
I know as much as the wiki page told me about the Kimmeridgean Stage. Which was luckily 100% more than my mates know. They thought I'd made it up!
I got the flinty bit from the Ch de Tracy website, and then the lady showed her slide.
Is there a flint difference in the Portlandian and Tithonian definitions of Kimmeridgean?
Not familiar with the French terroirs. Flint is usually a very specific reference to a particular type of siliceous nodule in the Chalk. I wonder if there is a translation issue here and the reference is actually to a more generic siliceous precipitate such as chert?
Smash them, smash them into the ground. No half measures, do it properly this time Netanyahu.
That won't work.
Neither have the alternatives.
The two groups are never going to disappear from the area, and cannot eradicate each other. Better agreement sooner and fewer deaths.
I can't see there being peace - much as I would love for both sides to be able to
Unfortunately it has got to pretty much the stage where neither side will accept less than the whole. Positions are too entrenched, and both sides talk only to themselves and deliberately past each other. The Israelis see no reason to give up what they hold which suits them rather nicely, and with Gaza out of the way an annexation of the West Bank could be done comparatively easily. Meanwhile Hamas are adamant that the Arabs should hold all of Palestine, and for some strange reason the stranglehold Israel have put over them in Gaza isn’t changing their mind or softening their attitude.
There is a book on this, called ‘The Two State Delusion’ by Padruig O’Malley that goes into this in some depth and is well worth reading.
Years ago when Harry's place was up and running they showed excerpts from KIDS tv shows in Gaza - a whole generation indoctrinated to hate and want to kill
There is a whole chapter in that book on how both sides establish ‘narratives’ about the other.
You would find equally disturbing items in the educational programme for IDF conscripts. The whole programme is geared to developing a siege mentality - ‘we’re alone against the world, and if we don’t fight like tigers we’ll all be killed.’ It’s no coincidence much of it happens at Yad Vashem.
Saw this in student debates four decades ago. Both sides were utterly and passionately convinced of the justice of their cause, to the complete exclusion of the other.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
Now in Canada you can get yourself a kip on a train. Half a dozen of them.
I see it's trains and speculation about nuclear strikes. Or Tuesday on PB.
I think we did nuclear-powered trains some months back ... old Eagle comic cutaways and the like.
Of course, there are also the kind of trains which carry nuke missiles. Vide the US proposdals for nuclear shell games. But too depressing even for a Tuesday.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
Some of those IETs that are currently being checked for cracks are bi-modal so that they can run on diesel from Edinburgh to Inverness and Aberdeen.
The obvious thing would have been to have scrapped direct London services and make people change at Edinburgh Waverley. But apparently forcing people to change trains really does suppress demand.
In reality, HS2 will only ever cater for the domestic market. No matter what they come up with in London, it will still make more sense to fly from Manchester to Paris.
Incidentally I got the first real feelings of a return to normality today - nothing major, it's still tough out there, still cruel, still hard, still deadly, and the new normality is austere, impoverished, challenging, but I definitely did feel better as I downed an entire bottle of Sancerre with a huge plate of fruits de mer with a friend outside Bibendum on the Fulham Road, in the warm spring sun
I had a stunning Pouilly Fumé (Château de Tracy 2019) - in an online Wine Society cheese & wine tasting, paired beautifully with a Sainte Maure de Tourraine (not sure how it'd go with oysters!). The Wine Soc has sold out of it since the tasting. I highly recommend it; probably my favourite Sauv Blanc I've ever had, and worth every penny of the £23 it cost.
I think this is probably mostly evidence of the awesome power of auto-suggestion, but I got every flavour in this rather detailed set of tasting notes from the maker's website:
"Apparence : Pale yellow with bright green-tinged highlights Nose: Very intense. At first, fresh notes of blackcurrants, boxwood, peppermint and tarragon dominate. The nose then evolves towards fruitier notes of lemon followed by exotic fruit such as mango and passionfruit. Aromas of kiwi fruit are also revealed on a mineral and spicy background (coriander and green pepper) Palate: First impressions are full-bodied and supple with appetising notes of blackcurrant. The acidity then progressively rises, echoing the ripe, lemony flavours found on the nose. Flavours of exotic fruit and mango coulis bring it softness. The finish is long and structured and reveals notes of lime and grapefruit peel."
I thought you might be! But then noticed that the actual* winery's link that I'd posted had sold out too, so thought I best give a useful link to my recommendation
The wine/cheese tasting was rather funny, for me. Some old uni friends and I have been doing some of these tastings together, remotely; wathcing the same "expert" on laptops, while zooming in our group.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
Quite right too. Thpugh I'm not used ot the concept of flint in the Kimmeridgian Stage, at least on the north coast of the Channel. More accustomed to the Oil Shale. Wonder what that would do to the wine once the vineyards move to Dorset?
I know as much as the wiki page told me about the Kimmeridgean Stage. Which was luckily 100% more than my mates know. They thought I'd made it up!
I got the flinty bit from the Ch de Tracy website, and then the lady showed her slide.
Is there a flint difference in the Portlandian and Tithonian definitions of Kimmeridgean?
Not familiar with the French terroirs. Flint is usually a very specific reference to a particular type of siliceous nodule in the Chalk. I wonder if there is a translation issue here and the reference is actually to a more generic siliceous precipitate such as chert?
Just put this into Google Translate and it blew up!
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
Incidentally I got the first real feelings of a return to normality today - nothing major, it's still tough out there, still cruel, still hard, still deadly, and the new normality is austere, impoverished, challenging, but I definitely did feel better as I downed an entire bottle of Sancerre with a huge plate of fruits de mer with a friend outside Bibendum on the Fulham Road, in the warm spring sun
I had a stunning Pouilly Fumé (Château de Tracy 2019) - in an online Wine Society cheese & wine tasting, paired beautifully with a Sainte Maure de Tourraine (not sure how it'd go with oysters!). The Wine Soc has sold out of it since the tasting. I highly recommend it; probably my favourite Sauv Blanc I've ever had, and worth every penny of the £23 it cost.
I think this is probably mostly evidence of the awesome power of auto-suggestion, but I got every flavour in this rather detailed set of tasting notes from the maker's website:
"Apparence : Pale yellow with bright green-tinged highlights Nose: Very intense. At first, fresh notes of blackcurrants, boxwood, peppermint and tarragon dominate. The nose then evolves towards fruitier notes of lemon followed by exotic fruit such as mango and passionfruit. Aromas of kiwi fruit are also revealed on a mineral and spicy background (coriander and green pepper) Palate: First impressions are full-bodied and supple with appetising notes of blackcurrant. The acidity then progressively rises, echoing the ripe, lemony flavours found on the nose. Flavours of exotic fruit and mango coulis bring it softness. The finish is long and structured and reveals notes of lime and grapefruit peel."
I thought you might be! But then noticed that the actual* winery's link that I'd posted had sold out too, so thought I best give a useful link to my recommendation
The wine/cheese tasting was rather funny, for me. Some old uni friends and I have been doing some of these tastings together, remotely; wathcing the same "expert" on laptops, while zooming in our group.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
Quite right too. Thpugh I'm not used ot the concept of flint in the Kimmeridgian Stage, at least on the north coast of the Channel. More accustomed to the Oil Shale. Wonder what that would do to the wine once the vineyards move to Dorset?
I know as much as the wiki page told me about the Kimmeridgean Stage. Which was luckily 100% more than my mates know. They thought I'd made it up!
I got the flinty bit from the Ch de Tracy website, and then the lady showed her slide.
Is there a flint difference in the Portlandian and Tithonian definitions of Kimmeridgean?
Not familiar with the French terroirs. Flint is usually a very specific reference to a particular type of siliceous nodule in the Chalk. I wonder if there is a translation issue here and the reference is actually to a more generic siliceous precipitate such as chert?
Just put this into Google Translate and it blew up!
Well, you sling a rock into most machinery, it does tend to go graunch-poot.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
That line needed the hideous "spur" across Camden, which would have involved knocking down most of Camden. We here in Camden objected, and we are not without influence. So it didn't happen. Sorry
Typical. The one aspect of HS2 I would have approved of, and it got cancelled.
I see it's trains and speculation about nuclear strikes. Or Tuesday on PB.
What else would you prefer?
Voter ID?
Or back to houses?
"For the past four weeks, Peter Mandelson has been retreading old footsteps. Canvassing for the Labour Party around Hartlepool, the north-east coastal town he represented as an MP from 1992-2004, he encountered many former voters.
“I was struck going back on to all the old council estates where I used to draw so much support [by] what owner-occupation and new private house-building has done; there’s a smartness and tidiness to those houses and their gardens,” he told me from the cottage he rents on a farm in Wiltshire.
“I can see people are proud of what they’ve achieved, they’re aspirational, and they’re not so sure now that they’ve achieved that with Labour.”
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
That line needed the hideous "spur" across Camden, which would have involved knocking down most of Camden. We here in Camden objected, and we are not without influence. So it didn't happen. Sorry
Typical. The one aspect of HS2 I would have approved of, and it got cancelled.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
Some of those IETs that are currently being checked for cracks are bi-modal so that they can run on diesel from Edinburgh to Inverness and Aberdeen.
The obvious thing would have been to have scrapped direct London services and make people change at Edinburgh Waverley. But apparently forcing people to change trains really does suppress demand.
In reality, HS2 will only ever cater for the domestic market. No matter what they come up with in London, it will still make more sense to fly from Manchester to Paris.
As a massive train fan (and a non driver) I am always amazed at what puts people off using trains. Having to change is a biggy amongst drivers I know....
The newly announced Paris to Vienna sleeper sounds good. My old flatmate lives there so I'll definitely be trying that at some point.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
£400 for the sleeper or £30 for EasyJet. That's why there aren't any sleepers.
I, for one, would prefer to pay the £400 and would be happy to do so. Plenty of others would be too, which is why it wouldn't be so expensive.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
Now in Canada you can get yourself a kip on a train. Half a dozen of them.
The greatest sleeper train in the world is in Britain. Euston to Fort William. The Caledonian
It is the perfect length - about 11 hours? - enough time for supper, wine and a good sleep. You go from the throbbing heart of a great world city to a true and glorious wilderness, the majestic highlands, meres and forests of northwest Scotland. Glencoe!
A friend of mine did it and he fell asleep looking at some rave in north London and he woke up - literally - to see a red stag staring through the window.
Nowhere else in the world matches this, in just one night. And no one wants MORE than one night on a sleeper train
I once did the Ghan in Australia. Rubbish in comparison. Three days of tedious desert and then it gets exciting for the last 5 minutes as you reach the rainforest, but then it ends
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
£400 for the sleeper or £30 for EasyJet. That's why there aren't any sleepers.
Of course Leon typically
a) arranges for someone else to pick up the tab for his travel b) strives to share his sleeper with another and NOT for purposes of slumber.
So he has no incentive to economize.
And while it IS possible to have congress in economy class, it IS rather awkward AND frowned upon by airlines, judges and (most) fellow air travelers.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
I was kidding about the sleeper. But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
That line needed the hideous "spur" across Camden, which would have involved knocking down most of Camden. We here in Camden objected, and we are not without influence. So it didn't happen. Sorry
Typical. The one aspect of HS2 I would have approved of, and it got cancelled.
If you want this, then you northerners need to pay the tax for a tunnel all the way under London. Doddle
I see it's trains and speculation about nuclear strikes. Or Tuesday on PB.
Some of us are trying to chat about wine and related stratigraphy!
Has anyone watched "The Wine Show"?
I'm not sure what channel it was on originally, but I've watched it on Amazon. I've found it a really fun and interesting introduction to loads of wines I knew nothing about.
I think the presenters are excellent; Matthew Goode, James Puefoy, Joe Fattorini and Matthew Rhys all impressed me.
And has anyone else seen Matthew Rhys in The Americans?
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
Liverpool to Florence or Athens would do it for me. Done too much flying in my life.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
£400 for the sleeper or £30 for EasyJet. That's why there aren't any sleepers.
The Caledonian Sleeper is insanely expensive compared to other routes (airlines, normal trains)
Yet it is consistently sold out, even in First Class - and they have pretty crap trains, still, despite some updating
The new thing in travel is Experience, not just arriving somewhere on a normal boring plane to sit on a beach. Going by sleeper - especially on a brilliant route like Euston-Fort William - is an amazing experience IN ITSELF.
Other famous sleeper trains around the world - the Ghan for sure, maybe the Trans Siberian? - are also commercially successful. People want to have the experience
I see it's trains and speculation about nuclear strikes. Or Tuesday on PB.
What else would you prefer?
Voter ID?
Or back to houses?
"For the past four weeks, Peter Mandelson has been retreading old footsteps. Canvassing for the Labour Party around Hartlepool, the north-east coastal town he represented as an MP from 1992-2004, he encountered many former voters.
“I was struck going back on to all the old council estates where I used to draw so much support [by] what owner-occupation and new private house-building has done; there’s a smartness and tidiness to those houses and their gardens,” he told me from the cottage he rents on a farm in Wiltshire.
“I can see people are proud of what they’ve achieved, they’re aspirational, and they’re not so sure now that they’ve achieved that with Labour.”
Smash them, smash them into the ground. No half measures, do it properly this time Netanyahu.
That won't work.
Neither have the alternatives.
The two groups are never going to disappear from the area, and cannot eradicate each other. Better agreement sooner and fewer deaths.
I can't see there being peace - much as I would love for both sides to be able to
Unfortunately it has got to pretty much the stage where neither side will accept less than the whole. Positions are too entrenched, and both sides talk only to themselves and deliberately past each other. The Israelis see no reason to give up what they hold which suits them rather nicely, and with Gaza out of the way an annexation of the West Bank could be done comparatively easily. Meanwhile Hamas are adamant that the Arabs should hold all of Palestine, and for some strange reason the stranglehold Israel have put over them in Gaza isn’t changing their mind or softening their attitude.
There is a book on this, called ‘The Two State Delusion’ by Padruig O’Malley that goes into this in some depth and is well worth reading.
The “Two State Delusion” could be about the Anglo-Scottish Union.
Shoulda smashed us into the ground when they had the chance.
You were asking about the Shetland result a few days ago, this is some explanation. Sobering reading for British and Scottish nationalists.
I concur with the writer on travel costs. I’m going to Yell for work purposes on Thursday and it costs £475 for the flights or 375 for a cabin on the ferry (not serving food at present on a 12 hour crossing) + rail fare to Aberdeen.
May have been missed my many but Queens speech included HS2 from Crewe to Manc today.
Many have predicted the failure of HS2 since right back in 2008, 13 years on it continues to progress.
Once it was built as far as Crewe, it was always going to be extended to Manchester. And it is being built as far as Crewe. I regularly drive past the construction works at Kings Bromley and Handsacre. So that’s no surprise.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
Agreed
Never mind HS2, what’s happened to HS3?
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
That is another good question.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Agreed. Liverpool to Hull. And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
You don't want high speed rail for sleeper services.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep 2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
London to Nice would be brilliant though. Slow it down just a bit, make it a 12 hour journey. Going to sleep in St Pancras, or somewhere in Kent, then waking up in Provence, as you pull in to the Riviera!
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
Oddest train trip I’ve done was the Ulan Bator to Erdenet sleeper at the start of a cycling holiday. Woke up in the middle of the night when someone shouted “it’s snowing a blizzard!” and opened a window. Turned out to be the densest whisper (if that’s the correct term) of white moths imaginable and the rest of the night was spent chasing them down before we could get back to sleep.
He needs to flatten Tehran also. Stands up and informs Israel that he has approved the deployment of a preemptive attack on Iran.
Iran is a mighty regional power. If Israel did something as insane as that Israel would be crushed
America would be unlikely to let that happen...
America would surely stop Israel pre-emptively nuking Tehran.
If Israel did it off their own bat, would America intervene to save Israel?
I genuinely doubt it. The mood in Washington turns against Israel. The latest Dems are probably the least Israeli-friendly American government in decades. Trump has gone. Black Lives Matter shades into leftist support for Palestine....
Jewish American would NOT be quite so blasé. And most are Democrats.
Most I know HATE Netanyahu with a burning passion, and have a large degree of sympathy, even empathy for the Palestinians.
But they are NOT anti-Israel. And most certainly would NOT stand by idly IF they thought Israel was in danger of imminent destruction.
If it got to the stage of nukes being lobbed, such considerations would be rendered almost irrelevant. Preventing further nuclear escalation would be the prime consideration.
Comments
They tend to be predicated on unwritten rules and codes of behaviour that you only know if you've been brought up or live here, which is why - for example - the British Office is so different to the American one.
It means my wife sits in stony silence whilst I watch The Office, Alan Partridge, and Peep Show whilst I laugh my head off.
Others, of course, like Blackadder and Allo' Allo' you really have to do history at a British school first.
Israel is a resourceful and tough little country, heavily armed, but it could not resist these combined powers, if it did something as insane as killing millions of Muslims in a nuclear strike
And America, the protector, wanes, as China rises. And there is no Israeli lobby in Beijing
Sadly we don’t hear enough about that sort of Britishness these days. It’s not a very flag-wavey thing.
Put down the crackpipe
Turning Manchester into a suburb of London.
Of more interest/concern is the ongoing silence over the eastern leg to Leeds.
https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1392197117343584257?s=20
Sir Henry Newbolt
There's a breathless hush in the close to-night
Ten to make and the match to win
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play, and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat.
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
The sand of the desert is sodden red-
Red with the wreck of the square that broke
The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed its banks,
And England's far and Honor a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks-
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
EDIT - As Fenian clueless re: "ten to make" and "bumping pitch" have always liked this poem.
"Israel Defense Forces
@IDF
To the citizens of Gaza:
The IDF is striking Hamas weapons stores hidden inside civilian buildings in Gaza.
Although Hamas wants to put you in harm's way, we urge you to stay away from Hamas' weapons sites and get to safety.
Our goal is only to strike terror."
https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1392197175627681796?s=20
The Israelis therefore will be firing on civilians.
The snag - and it is a snag - is that while it shows Hamas are scum, it says a lot and not in a good way that it doesn’t unduly bother the IDF either.
You were asking about the Shetland result a few days ago, this is some explanation. Sobering reading for British and Scottish nationalists.
https://twitter.com/bellacaledonia/status/1392138433494241283?s=20
France, for example, did 510k yesterday and 657k today, but they're not showing up on OWID yet.
??
I guess it could be a really clumsy way of saying "we want to strike terrorists" but why did they not say that? Nearly all Israelis have an excellent command of English, especially those - one presumes - in charge of English language social media for the Israeli army.
It sounds like "out goal is only to strike terror into your hearts". Which really isn't a great look
I would love to go.
On reading the preceding posts I had assumed that block quote was messed up and it was you suggesting a nuclear strike on Tehran…
😔
It ought to be possible to get from Liverpool to Leeds in less than hour.
Oddly enough, I'd argue the conquests by first Cnut and later William and the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon ruling class and its replacement by a Norman ruling class, unified the English. We were subjugated as one and ruled as one by the conquerors who made no differentiation - we were the Saxons (and don't forget England in 1066 was the most prosperous part of northern and western Europe, that's why William and Harald Hardrada went to all the trouble).
From 1066, we were no longer Wessex, Northumberland or Mercia but just England. Our unification happened earlier and under different circumstances to France, Spain, Germany or Italy but the net effect was the same.
And people why projects go "overbudget" - it's because they start with fantasy figures under political pressure.
Really, an ambitious railway builder would be running the high speed rails to Newcastle and possibly Hull rather than just Leeds, even if they weren’t 250mph on parts of the track (170 would be ample and cut costs by a third) as well as building a line across the Pennines.
Integrated Rail Plan (which will lead to NPR) is due very very shortly.
Hmmm.....
https://twitter.com/JanNWolfe/status/1392203479599435778
The desire for revenge would be overwhelming and Israel would we wiped out. This is why Netanyahu will not do it and it will remain a lurid fantasy of pro-Israeli hardliners
This vexed question sends people mad, on both sides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
He is not a good advocate for a modern 21st century railway having objected to both Crossrail and HS2.
Unst - Hermaness NNR (seabirds) at noprth end (and almost sea-level Arctic flora at Keen of Hamar). Staying in what was then the northernmost b&b in the UK with sheep baaing outside the window at 2 am in the dawn light.
Mainland - south end - Sumburgh, Jarlshof remains, walk to Sumburgh head, more birds and lighthouse, St Ninians tombolo. The Sumburgh Hotel is/was next door to Jarlshof.
Some of the way up - Mousa broch and seals disporting themselcves on other side of Mousa island
Lerwick - Lerwick, museum, etc.,. broch, etc. We had a nice walk on Bressay island to see the old WW1 gun, but that's just me.
Trundle on the bus along the length of the archipelago form fertry to ferry ...
Go in the summer to see the simmer dim (almost midnight sun). But be prepared for any weather up to storm force.
Liverpool to Hull.
And connect HS1 to HS2, so you can take a sleeper from Preston to Paris.
I guess you can be unified against an enemy without, or an enemy within, so long as you know you're differentiated.
I'd had quite a slow day, even by current standards, on the day of the tasting and spent quite a while researching all the wines and cheeses before it. None of us ever do this, and normally our wine discussion doesn't go far beyond "ooh I like that", or noticing things in the tasting notes you get from the Wine Soc.
I said of the Tracy, "mmm, can you taste the Kimmeridgean marl?"
They said, "What?"
"The flinty clay and limestone. Like what makes up the stratigraphic layer you can see at Kimmeridge in Dorset, which Kimmeridge Clay comes form" (then explained that stratigraphers in the UK wouldn't actually call the soil base in the Loire "Kimmeridgean" as we use that term as the start of the Portlandian, the French use it as the end of the Tithonian, because I thought I'd really smart arse it).
They all looked at me like they were worried I'd lost it.
Then something amazingly lucky happened. The lovely Wine Soc online tasting lady put up a picture of rocks on her feed, withe heading "KIMMERIDGEAN FLINT".
I heard all four of my mates say "f**king hell" as they saw it!
If Israel did it off their own bat, would America intervene to save Israel?
I genuinely doubt it. The mood in Washington turns against Israel. The latest Dems are probably the least Israeli-friendly American government in decades. Trump has gone. Black Lives Matter shades into leftist support for Palestine....
A Texas judge has thrown out the NRA's bankruptcy case, clearing the way for New York's attempts to dissolve the group
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-bankruptcy-judge-rejects-nra-bid-reorganize-texas-2021-05-11/
He thinks all railways should be closed except for those beginning or ending in London which should be nationalised.
Some of his work on the impact pandemic was truly astonishing, calling for example for the closure of all lines in Wales except for the line to Holyhead and the Great Western Mainline to Swansea on the grounds that nobody important used the others.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good metaphor.
In larger measure because the Left in both lands is generally too dumb to wave the flag despite (or rather because) of the obvious stains it's picked up over the centuries.
Whereas the Right wraps itself in the Union Jack or Old Glory, ignoring or whitewashing (or blue- or red-washing) the same stains.
Years ago, in the aftermath of the Seattle WTO protests & riots, there was a small protest in front of the King County Courthouse. An even smaller group of protesters was preparing to burn an American flag.
Until another protester, a union member who was also a VietNam veteran, talked them out of it. By gently explaining why a guy like him, who agreed with them on globalism, etc. was opposed to flag-burning.
Because of what the Flag meant to him: the sacrifices that others have made for their country AND it's promise - often unfulfilled but ALWAYS the hope and goal - of liberty, justice and freedom for all.
He showed me the flag he'd saved, I'm guessing he still has it.
Quite frankly Israel always had major military superiority but their defences now make terrorism very hard and miniscule, relatively.
Actually have an NRA belt-buckle I got at a thrift store years ago, no doubt belonged to an old-school NRA supporter who'd made a small contribution. Like lots of people I knew back in WVA used to do. But no so much anymore, even back there.
1. Too fast, and folk can't sleep
2. Get there too quick, you don't have long enough in bed
International sleeper services were planned when the tunnel opened. Then somebody did the sums properly and realised that they'd be a financial disaster. By that time the trains had been procured. 'Nightstar'. Exported to Canada, IIRC.
Or even London to Barcelona, or Rome!
It would be one of the great sleeper journeys of the world
Most I know HATE Netanyahu with a burning passion, and have a large degree of sympathy, even empathy for the Palestinians.
But they are NOT anti-Israel. And most certainly would NOT stand by idly IF they thought Israel was in danger of imminent destruction.
But I still think you should be able to travel, say, Manchester to Paris direct.
I got the flinty bit from the Ch de Tracy website, and then the lady showed her slide.
Is there a flint difference in the Portlandian and Tithonian definitions of Kimmeridgean?
Or Tuesday on PB.
Risk of such an extreme unilateral action would simply be too high, for ANY Israeli government, no matter how crazy.
Not much has changed since.
Of course, there are also the kind of trains which carry nuke missiles. Vide the US proposdals for nuclear shell games. But too depressing even for a Tuesday.
The obvious thing would have been to have scrapped direct London services and make people change at Edinburgh Waverley. But apparently forcing people to change trains really does suppress demand.
In reality, HS2 will only ever cater for the domestic market. No matter what they come up with in London, it will still make more sense to fly from Manchester to Paris.
Voter ID?
"For the past four weeks, Peter Mandelson has been retreading old footsteps. Canvassing for the Labour Party around Hartlepool, the north-east coastal town he represented as an MP from 1992-2004, he encountered many former voters.
“I was struck going back on to all the old council estates where I used to draw so much support [by] what owner-occupation and new private house-building has done; there’s a smartness and tidiness to those houses and their gardens,” he told me from the cottage he rents on a farm in Wiltshire.
“I can see people are proud of what they’ve achieved, they’re aspirational, and they’re not so sure now that they’ve achieved that with Labour.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2021/05/peter-mandelson-i-m-afraid-keir-starmer-has-come-badly-unstuck
The newly announced Paris to Vienna sleeper sounds good. My old flatmate lives there so I'll definitely be trying that at some point.
It is the perfect length - about 11 hours? - enough time for supper, wine and a good sleep. You go from the throbbing heart of a great world city to a true and glorious wilderness, the majestic highlands, meres and forests of northwest Scotland. Glencoe!
A friend of mine did it and he fell asleep looking at some rave in north London and he woke up - literally - to see a red stag staring through the window.
Nowhere else in the world matches this, in just one night. And no one wants MORE than one night on a sleeper train
I once did the Ghan in Australia. Rubbish in comparison. Three days of tedious desert and then it gets exciting for the last 5 minutes as you reach the rainforest, but then it ends
a) arranges for someone else to pick up the tab for his travel
b) strives to share his sleeper with another and NOT for purposes of slumber.
So he has no incentive to economize.
And while it IS possible to have congress in economy class, it IS rather awkward AND frowned upon by airlines, judges and (most) fellow air travelers.
NEW THREAD
Has anyone watched "The Wine Show"?
I'm not sure what channel it was on originally, but I've watched it on Amazon. I've found it a really fun and interesting introduction to loads of wines I knew nothing about.
I think the presenters are excellent; Matthew Goode, James Puefoy, Joe Fattorini and Matthew Rhys all impressed me.
And has anyone else seen Matthew Rhys in The Americans?
Might be my favourite TV show ever..
Yet it is consistently sold out, even in First Class - and they have pretty crap trains, still, despite some updating
The new thing in travel is Experience, not just arriving somewhere on a normal boring plane to sit on a beach. Going by sleeper - especially on a brilliant route like Euston-Fort William - is an amazing experience IN ITSELF.
Other famous sleeper trains around the world - the Ghan for sure, maybe the Trans Siberian? - are also commercially successful. People want to have the experience