When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Indeed, beings back memories - impala, kudu, ostrich cooked on the braai.
I can't see this (as reported). Might mandate that extensions and the like will be fitted with alternative heating, rather than extending existing CH or fitting a new, bigger boiler. But that often makes sense anyway - in-laws had the choice of a new boiler to service exta load of large extension or electric heating. Given the new extension was well insulated, it made more sense to go electric (few hundred for the electric heating installation versus several thousand for boiler and plumbing - that's many years of increased running costs covered).
Sales of new fossil boilers will be banned at some point and that will be controversial if the replacements (electric boilers) are more expensive to run. As they will be (electric boilers already close to 100% efficient, but electricity is far more expensive per kWh than gas), unless gas gets much more expensive or electricity much cheaper. The latter is not impossible as more turbines/solar come on line, increasing supply, but there will also be more demand with electric cars and the like.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
Yeah BBQing is an art form. Happily I'm better than I used to be but still a lot of room for improvement. Now that we have a bigger garden I'm really looking forwards to this summer.
Seems to say heat pumps, or at least a minimum % of the things. But there must be more to it than that.
Heat pumps can make sense for new build, I think - you're already digging big holes (if ground source) and the building will be well insulated and the plumbing new, so you can fit the larger radiators needed for lower water temp. Doesn't have to be horrendously more expensive to install and if well designed the efficiency can bring longer term savings.
But rarely going to be a good retroft option outside of major works.
Going to be an interesting one this. As I live in countryside we burn oil for heating. I'd like to look at alternatives, but solar isn't really an option as my house is listed, and there must be many other reasons why it will be challenging to go carbon neutral for many folk. I will be genuinely interested to see how the government approach it, particularly in rural areas.
Yep I am in the same boat as you. I am currently going through the long process of getting listed building consent to build an extension for a wood fired boiler. We have an old bullet proof oil fired boiler in the cellar but I can see the way thigs are going and want to get an alternative of my choice in place before they ban them. Again being a listed property I have had all applications for solar panels and windpower turned down both on the building and within the curtilage.
The "curtilage" rule is ridiculous. I have often thought if I could afford it, it would almost be worthwhile buying a neighbour's house and putting solars on it. We have a couple of outbuilding that were built in the 80s but we cant even put panels on them! Good luck with extension. We went through that some years ago. It is pretty painful. My experience was that the conservation officers are often perverse and seem to make it up as they go along. We had to have sheep's wool for insulation (that no-one will see) FFS! A lot depends on whose jurisdiction you are under. Some counties are much more reasonable than others.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
I will still pay a premium for hill-farmed lamb. But it would be nice to be able to include lamb chops in my diet as a regular item.
Going to be an interesting one this. As I live in countryside we burn oil for heating. I'd like to look at alternatives, but solar isn't really an option as my house is listed, and there must be many other reasons why it will be challenging to go carbon neutral for many folk. I will be genuinely interested to see how the government approach it, particularly in rural areas.
Yep I am in the same boat as you. I am currently going through the long process of getting listed building consent to build an extension for a wood fired boiler. We have an old bullet proof oil fired boiler in the cellar but I can see the way thigs are going and want to get an alternative of my choice in place before they ban them. Again being a listed property I have had all applications for solar panels and windpower turned down both on the building and within the curtilage.
The "curtilage" rule is ridiculous. I have often thought if I could afford it, it would almost be worthwhile buying a neighbour's house and putting solars on it. We have a couple of outbuilding that were built in the 80s but we cant even put panels on them! Good luck with extension. We went through that some years ago. It is pretty painful. My experience was that the conservation officers are often perverse and seem to make it up as they go along. We had to have sheep's wool for insulation (that no-one will see) FFS! A lot depends on whose jurisdiction you are under. Some counties are much more reasonable than others.
It's not about what people will see. It's about the integrity of the property.
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
Yep, there's a Museum/UCL Bloomsbury and a Holburny Bloomsbury, and at least one more if you count the slightly seamier bit around TCR. I personally don't think of that last zone as Bloomsbury because it doesn't feel to me like my idea of what Bloomsbury should feel like.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
When owner-occupiers sell their homes, or carry out significant renovations, they would need to make sure their heating systems comply with tougher new environmental standards, people familiar with the proposals said. That’s likely to involve replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump, which can typically cost more than 10,000 pounds ($14,154).
If that's the proposal its f***ing stupid!
So a perfectly fine, perfectly working boiler should be ditched just because somebody is moving home? Why? That's madness. What if someone listing their home doesn't have £10k to cover the costs until completion?
Most boilers need replacing in 10-15 years anyway, just ban the sale of new boilers and as they die let them naturally get replaced with alternatives. Stupid to force the sale of working equipment because of something so abitrary. Maybe set a deadline for them to be replaced by (eg 15 years after the ban on new ones) but forcing something to be replaced so abitrarily is just plain silly.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Indeed, beings back memories - impala, kudu, ostrich cooked on the braai.
Going to be an interesting one this. As I live in countryside we burn oil for heating. I'd like to look at alternatives, but solar isn't really an option as my house is listed, and there must be many other reasons why it will be challenging to go carbon neutral for many folk. I will be genuinely interested to see how the government approach it, particularly in rural areas.
Yep I am in the same boat as you. I am currently going through the long process of getting listed building consent to build an extension for a wood fired boiler. We have an old bullet proof oil fired boiler in the cellar but I can see the way thigs are going and want to get an alternative of my choice in place before they ban them. Again being a listed property I have had all applications for solar panels and windpower turned down both on the building and within the curtilage.
The "curtilage" rule is ridiculous. I have often thought if I could afford it, it would almost be worthwhile buying a neighbour's house and putting solars on it. We have a couple of outbuilding that were built in the 80s but we cant even put panels on them! Good luck with extension. We went through that some years ago. It is pretty painful. My experience was that the conservation officers are often perverse and seem to make it up as they go along. We had to have sheep's wool for insulation (that no-one will see) FFS! A lot depends on whose jurisdiction you are under. Some counties are much more reasonable than others.
It's not about what people will see. It's about the integrity of the property.
Well indeed, but there are other aspects that I won't bore you with that one wouldn't think they would allow that they did allow. I always found the sheep's wool thing particularly bizarre and perverse, because around here they have an obsession that any extension should be clearly different (and therefore modern in appearance) to the ancient building. We were therefore not required to build in timber frame (as the old house is), but we were required to use sheep's wool which is not in the old part of the house.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Indeed, beings back memories - impala, kudu, ostrich cooked on the braai.
Boerewors cooked in a spiral. Yum yum.
So the Brits fought and (for a time) subdued the Boers NOT for the gold, but for the braai?
EDIT - And isn't THAT how they finally dispatched Cecil Rhodes in the end?
Tangentialy related, we viewed a house late last year that still had a coal boiler - as in someone turns up with bags of coal and you periodically have to shovel it in. 1960s house in reasonable size village, so not some ancient pile in the sticks. Bit of a shocker that - my gran had one until it was replaced with gas in the early 90s, but I'd no idea they still existed.
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
I was a foreign tourist who spent a LOT of time during various trips to London in Bloomsbury. And was certainly NOT alone in that, not by a long short.
I spent 4 years working in Soho and drinking in Bloomsbury because Soho was full of tourists. I guess it's all relative.
Yes there's more tourists in Soho than Bloomsbury.
Going to be an interesting one this. As I live in countryside we burn oil for heating. I'd like to look at alternatives, but solar isn't really an option as my house is listed, and there must be many other reasons why it will be challenging to go carbon neutral for many folk. I will be genuinely interested to see how the government approach it, particularly in rural areas.
Yep I am in the same boat as you. I am currently going through the long process of getting listed building consent to build an extension for a wood fired boiler. We have an old bullet proof oil fired boiler in the cellar but I can see the way thigs are going and want to get an alternative of my choice in place before they ban them. Again being a listed property I have had all applications for solar panels and windpower turned down both on the building and within the curtilage.
Interesting proposal now that it may be gong to happen. A good one to wake people up imo. Good to not subsidize something that should not be done before the fabric.
Not good for the balance of payments unless we have UK HP makers or plants. I am not aware of any currently.
Solar has never been a good idea for heating (except maybe solar water heating plus night rate boost, as winter insolation is only about 10% of peak.
I know people who are planting a couple of acres of coppice for their heating, but that requires dedication.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The last war demolished that argument in relation to food supply. The possibility that eating depends on Russia, China, the next Trump and international finance collectively thinking it is in their interests for us to do so as studious readers of Ricardo, is not serious.
Which doesn't mean that Ricardo is not one of the great geniuses of modernity.
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
Yep, there's a Museum/UCL Bloomsbury and a Holburny Bloomsbury, and at least one more if you count the slightly seamier bit around TCR. I personally don't think of that last zone as Bloomsbury because it doesn't feel to me like my idea of what Bloomsbury should feel like.
Bloomsbury is all about a couple of great squares. They're a bit blighted now.
Fitzrovia is, and has always been, an interesting area. No nice squares though - and lord knows what fool chose to make Cavendish (their only claim) into a car park.
Why does agriculture take up so much land? Perhaps you need land to grow soy to feed to cows to turn into burgers? Think about how much more efficient things would be if we concrete over the farms and turn them into nice office parks full of people mining Britcoin which we then use to buy food grown by foreign wasters happy to be inefficient.
Yes, a sure way to a secure and prosperous future.
Yep, the UK dedicates 71.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 0.61% of UK GDP.
In contrast Sweden uses 6.5% of its land for agriculture to generate 1.44% of GDP.
Norway uses 2.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 1.93% of GDP.
I think their definition of agricultural land may be different. In theory all of northern Scandinavia could be designated as 'farmland' because it is used for reindeer grazing.
In any case, all that tells us is that Scandinavia is not heavily populated.
Can you name any heavily populated nation on the planet that so inefficiently wastes 71% of its land to generate below 1% of GDP?
Japan would probably be more comparable to the UK. They dedicated 12% of land to agriculture and they get 1.14% of GDP from agriculture.
Why is ours so inefficient compared to everyone else?
You've got your hand on some nice stats there Philip.
Perhaps it's do with our brand. Brit food doesn't have the best rep.
Why does agriculture take up so much land? Perhaps you need land to grow soy to feed to cows to turn into burgers? Think about how much more efficient things would be if we concrete over the farms and turn them into nice office parks full of people mining Britcoin which we then use to buy food grown by foreign wasters happy to be inefficient.
Yes, a sure way to a secure and prosperous future.
Yep, the UK dedicates 71.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 0.61% of UK GDP.
In contrast Sweden uses 6.5% of its land for agriculture to generate 1.44% of GDP.
Norway uses 2.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 1.93% of GDP.
So we should waste less land growing food and import it? Perhaps some kind of open border free trade area with the places we'd then buy food from would be a good idea...
That's one suggestion.
Another suggestion would be that we use our land better and get more return from it and be more efficient.
Why is it that Sweden can use 1/10th of its land as we do for agriculture, but get a better GDP return than we do? ...
Probably as our GDP is five and a half times theirs, and our land area about half ?
That still leaves the UK as being inefficient, by more than half (without considering the fact our extra population should see more GDP anyway.
Let alone comparing with the likes of Italy and Japan with much more comparable population densities were the same thing is very much the case.
There's something with these stats, and I can't put a finger on it.
Sweden is a low productivity agricultural sector, due to climate and short season.
And UK has traditonally been a driver for productivity within the EU. What has changed to justify the numbers, oe what is variable in the numbers?
I can see that some things would throw it off - eg glasshouses in NL, or 15% of Italian agriculture being wine.
UK productivity may have been reduced by set-aside or organics, but I can't account for the apparent gaps of 50% or double.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Yes I tend to agree that British BBQs are a bit lame, though that is changing now. YouTube and generally people favouring quality over quantity has meant BBQs are better focused with fewer types of meat done better than when I was growing up.
Hey Max, this is Marcus's website. Well worth a look as it has some nice ideas on there. Obviously commercial as he is trying to make a living but still very good.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Indeed, beings back memories - impala, kudu, ostrich cooked on the braai.
Boerewors cooked in a spiral. Yum yum.
So the Brits fought and (for a time) subdued the Boers NOT for the gold, but for the braai?
EDIT - And isn't THAT how they finally dispatched Cecil Rhodes in the end?
Though the Boers did gain rugby.
Cooking with Black South Africans is a different experience. Much less extravagant in terms of fuel.
Going to be an interesting one this. As I live in countryside we burn oil for heating. I'd like to look at alternatives, but solar isn't really an option as my house is listed, and there must be many other reasons why it will be challenging to go carbon neutral for many folk. I will be genuinely interested to see how the government approach it, particularly in rural areas.
Yep I am in the same boat as you. I am currently going through the long process of getting listed building consent to build an extension for a wood fired boiler. We have an old bullet proof oil fired boiler in the cellar but I can see the way thigs are going and want to get an alternative of my choice in place before they ban them. Again being a listed property I have had all applications for solar panels and windpower turned down both on the building and within the curtilage.
The "curtilage" rule is ridiculous. I have often thought if I could afford it, it would almost be worthwhile buying a neighbour's house and putting solars on it. We have a couple of outbuilding that were built in the 80s but we cant even put panels on them! Good luck with extension. We went through that some years ago. It is pretty painful. My experience was that the conservation officers are often perverse and seem to make it up as they go along. We had to have sheep's wool for insulation (that no-one will see) FFS! A lot depends on whose jurisdiction you are under. Some counties are much more reasonable than others.
It's not about what people will see. It's about the integrity of the property.
Well indeed, but there are other aspects that I won't bore you with that one wouldn't think they would allow that they did allow. I always found the sheep's wool thing particularly bizarre and perverse, because around here they have an obsession that any extension should be clearly different (and therefore modern in appearance) to the ancient building. We were therefore not required to build in timber frame (as the old house is), but we were required to use sheep's wool which is not in the old part of the house.
Lucky you got properly treated sheeps wool insulation. There have been some which was supposed to be, but which wasn't:
IF you like USA BBQ, then next time you are willing & able to hope across the pond with some time on your hands, and in season, check out the tailgating in the parking lots at American pro & college football games...
I have to confess I always imagined that was a euphemism for an entirely different activity. Though it did seem an odd thing to be going on in the football parking lot.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Yes I tend to agree that British BBQs are a bit lame, though that is changing now. YouTube and generally people favouring quality over quantity has meant BBQs are better focused with fewer types of meat done better than when I was growing up.
Hey Max, this is Marcus's website. Well worth a look as it has some nice ideas on there. Obviously commercial as he is trying to make a living but still very good.
Tangentialy related, we viewed a house late last year that still had a coal boiler - as in someone turns up with bags of coal and you periodically have to shovel it in. 1960s house in reasonable size village, so not some ancient pile in the sticks. Bit of a shocker that - my gran had one until it was replaced with gas in the early 90s, but I'd no idea they still existed.
Was it in a mining area? Many houses had coal boilers cos they got free coal by virtue of working for the NCB. Didn't make sense to put anything else in.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The last war demolished that argument in relation to food supply. The possibility that eating depends on Russia, China, the next Trump and international finance collectively thinking it is in their interests for us to do so as studious readers of Ricardo, is not serious.
Which doesn't mean that Ricardo is not one of the great geniuses of modernity.
The other flaw is that implicit to Ricardo is that every country can have competitive advantage in some area. The reality is that some countries or parts of countries do not, or at least not to the point above starvation, poverty and emigration.
It is the same flaw as a meritocracy. If we reward the meritocratic, how are the mediocre or below-average to live? And in a civilised world we should not expect them to starve.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
On the contrary, there is a significant weight of scientific evidence that use of growth hormones and prophylactic antibiotics are a risk to human health and public health in general. Whether one is in favour of the EU or against, it is not difficult to agree that it was a good decision. It could be argued that the WTO position is more driven by economics of WTO members than by science.
I would not knowingly feed growth hormone meat to anyone I cared about if I had a choice in that decision. I would also say that having regularly eaten US meat, I suspect that it may account for a more bland flavour, but that is just a personal opinion and guess.
I don't usually 'random Twitter retweet' but this is quiet sharp:
Sean Moore @Seanjames344 · 4h Replying to @Peston Think anyone pushing for extension of lockdown beyond 21st June given current data should be asked to state bank balance on 23rd March 2020 & what it is now on 21st May 2021!
Vaccine proof on the way - Guernsey has been talking to UK and other CTA members and from July 1 border control will be based on being able to demonstrate vaccine history if travelling from outside CTA:
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Tangentialy related, we viewed a house late last year that still had a coal boiler - as in someone turns up with bags of coal and you periodically have to shovel it in. 1960s house in reasonable size village, so not some ancient pile in the sticks. Bit of a shocker that - my gran had one until it was replaced with gas in the early 90s, but I'd no idea they still existed.
Was it in a mining area? Many houses had coal boilers cos they got free coal by virtue of working for the NCB. Didn't make sense to put anything else in.
Good point. Selby coalfield area, but that finished completely in 2004 and the direction of travel was clear well before then - maybe coal boilers last a lot longer than gas, but it would have to have been 20+ years old for that to explain it?
One of the 'posh' bits of the area too, not really associated with the pits and quite a large house. Could have belonged to someone more senior, I guess.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
It is in no way a misinterpretation. It is you who are ignoring facts.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
When we were working together in Aberdeen Marcus had a couple of restaurants that he used to guest chef at. It really is another world entirely to taste a real expert in BBQ compared to what I do on my little grill.
There was a TV show where they sent the guy from Masterchef to Argentina who then stated he had been doing BBQ wrong all his life
I must admit I was one of those who thought the whole point of the lid on the BBQ was to keep the rain off Boy was I wrong. The first trick I learnt was you have to have coals over only maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of your BBQ so that you have a place for indirect heat. Makes a huge difference.
I am still pretty rubbish at it but miles better than I was 5 years ago.
I have lived in the Deep South of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All do better BBQ than Britain, but none are as good as a South African Braai. It is such a cultural centrepiece there.
The problem with British BBQ is that we do it rarely, often by men who rarely cook otherwise and usually while drunk. It is surprising that the food is edible at all...
Indeed, beings back memories - impala, kudu, ostrich cooked on the braai.
Boerewors cooked in a spiral. Yum yum.
So the Brits fought and (for a time) subdued the Boers NOT for the gold, but for the braai?
EDIT - And isn't THAT how they finally dispatched Cecil Rhodes in the end?
Though the Boers did gain rugby.
Cooking with Black South Africans is a different experience. Much less extravagant in terms of fuel.
The Boer War was a pyrrhic victory.
Rather than take over the Transvaal and Orange Free State the Boers simply used the Union to do a reverse takeover of the whole of SA.
Going to be an interesting one this. As I live in countryside we burn oil for heating. I'd like to look at alternatives, but solar isn't really an option as my house is listed, and there must be many other reasons why it will be challenging to go carbon neutral for many folk. I will be genuinely interested to see how the government approach it, particularly in rural areas.
Yep I am in the same boat as you. I am currently going through the long process of getting listed building consent to build an extension for a wood fired boiler. We have an old bullet proof oil fired boiler in the cellar but I can see the way thigs are going and want to get an alternative of my choice in place before they ban them. Again being a listed property I have had all applications for solar panels and windpower turned down both on the building and within the curtilage.
The "curtilage" rule is ridiculous. I have often thought if I could afford it, it would almost be worthwhile buying a neighbour's house and putting solars on it. We have a couple of outbuilding that were built in the 80s but we cant even put panels on them! Good luck with extension. We went through that some years ago. It is pretty painful. My experience was that the conservation officers are often perverse and seem to make it up as they go along. We had to have sheep's wool for insulation (that no-one will see) FFS! A lot depends on whose jurisdiction you are under. Some counties are much more reasonable than others.
It's not about what people will see. It's about the integrity of the property.
Well indeed, but there are other aspects that I won't bore you with that one wouldn't think they would allow that they did allow. I always found the sheep's wool thing particularly bizarre and perverse, because around here they have an obsession that any extension should be clearly different (and therefore modern in appearance) to the ancient building. We were therefore not required to build in timber frame (as the old house is), but we were required to use sheep's wool which is not in the old part of the house.
Lucky you got properly treated sheeps wool insulation. There have been some which was supposed to be, but which wasn't:
Thank you so much for that, it is really interesting. We had an infestation of moths a few years after our extension, as our carpets (they only attacked the higher quality carpets) and my cashmere jumpers will attest to. Makes me wonder whether the two things weren't related. We had to have the whole house fumigated! @Richard_Tyndall : best not to let them insist on sheep wool insulation - quite aside from fact it is about 10 times more expensive!"
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
I lived there for four years, and it was like a quite village, with great shops and local restaurants, and no tourists at all (except on Charlotte Street).
We were outbid by the smallest of sums for a house on Fitzroy Square. Which still saddens me.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
On the contrary, there is a significant weight of scientific evidence that use of growth hormones and prophylactic antibiotics are a risk to human health and public health in general. Whether one is in favour of the EU or against, it is not difficult to agree that it was a good decision. It could be argued that the WTO position is more driven by economics of WTO members than by science.
I would not knowingly feed growth hormone meat to anyone I cared about if I had a choice in that decision. I would also say that having regularly eaten US meat, I suspect that it may account for a more bland flavour, but that is just a personal opinion and guess.
That something to be debated - and if Parliament decides that hormone-fed beef is to be banned, something I don't support myself, then I would accept that applying to Aussie etc exports to the UK too.
Dropping tariffs is not the same as dropping standards. They're two very different issues, which is what Richard was bothered by. If Aussie farms are farming non-hormone treated beef then that is legal to export to the EU as far as I understand so I see no reason why that should be subject to tariffs. If there's no welfare issues, if they're meeting our laws, then that's just plain competition not a difference in standards.
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
I lived there for four years, and it was like a quite village, with great shops and local restaurants, and no tourists at all (except on Charlotte Street).
We were outbid by the smallest of sums for a house on Fitzroy Square. Which still saddens me.
Yup, we used to walk up from Great Marlborough Street after work for drinks in Fitzrovia to escape the hordes in Oxford Circus and Soho. Really great location, one of my favourites in London.
Seems to say heat pumps, or at least a minimum % of the things. But there must be more to it than that.
Heat pumps are currently very very expensive and will not heat your house in the way a gas boiler does. i.e. on a cold day your house will be cold.
The technology has to change for them to be a viable alternative.
This goes back to my comment yesterday about electric cars. The technology simply isn't there to meet the Government targets without a massive change in the way we live. Changing the law and hoping the technology will catch up is a dangerous game to play.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
That is quite sad. In an irony the XR types will probably never get, they have an almost exact mirror image in the American far-right Three Percenters, that 3% being their estimate of the proportion of the citizenry necessary to bring down their own government by force of arms...
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
Yep, there's a Museum/UCL Bloomsbury and a Holburny Bloomsbury, and at least one more if you count the slightly seamier bit around TCR. I personally don't think of that last zone as Bloomsbury because it doesn't feel to me like my idea of what Bloomsbury should feel like.
Bloomsbury is all about a couple of great squares. They're a bit blighted now.
Fitzrovia is, and has always been, an interesting area. No nice squares though - and lord knows what fool chose to make Cavendish (their only claim) into a car park.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
It is in no way a misinterpretation. It is you who are ignoring facts.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
You must have written that at roughly the same time as I wrote my similar answer. Sadly Philip won't back down even when it becomes more obvious than usual that he knows nothing about the subject
Meanwhile, the 70,000 shortage of drivers is creating a stand-off between suppliers and supermarkets. Wage inflation (like £5k instant payrise) for the remaining drivers means there's still a shortage of delivery slots AND upward pressure on prices that can't be contained.
Someone will foot the bill. Unless the supermarkets have a radical change of heart it will be punters.
So the market is solving the issue and the drivers are getting a pay rise.
Funny that's again exactly what I said would happen weeks ago.
1. There still is a BIG shortage of drivers. There is no fantasy pool of redundant drivers waiting to be recommissioned nor time to train new drivers. So lack of transport shoves costs up 2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up 2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
IF you like USA BBQ, then next time you are willing & able to hope across the pond with some time on your hands, and in season, check out the tailgating in the parking lots at American pro & college football games...
I have to confess I always imagined that was a euphemism for an entirely different activity. Though it did seem an odd thing to be going on in the football parking lot.
Perhaps NOT rare (or odd) AFTER the game? Though not to my personal knowledge, when yours truly was living in Tiger Stadium back in the day.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Thanks. It can get very extreme though: one of my wife's brother's friends self-immolated over it in Bulgaria, with what ultimately proved to be fatal injuries to himself.
Meanwhile, the 70,000 shortage of drivers is creating a stand-off between suppliers and supermarkets. Wage inflation (like £5k instant payrise) for the remaining drivers means there's still a shortage of delivery slots AND upward pressure on prices that can't be contained.
Someone will foot the bill. Unless the supermarkets have a radical change of heart it will be punters.
So the market is solving the issue and the drivers are getting a pay rise.
Funny that's again exactly what I said would happen weeks ago.
1. There still is a BIG shortage of drivers. There is no fantasy pool of redundant drivers waiting to be recommissioned nor time to train new drivers. So lack of transport shoves costs up 2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up 2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
But they aren't closing down then? I'm almost certain you said they'd all go bankrupt because supermarkets would refuse to raise prices.
Tangentialy related, we viewed a house late last year that still had a coal boiler - as in someone turns up with bags of coal and you periodically have to shovel it in. 1960s house in reasonable size village, so not some ancient pile in the sticks. Bit of a shocker that - my gran had one until it was replaced with gas in the early 90s, but I'd no idea they still existed.
Was it in a mining area? Many houses had coal boilers cos they got free coal by virtue of working for the NCB. Didn't make sense to put anything else in.
Good point. Selby coalfield area, but that finished completely in 2004 and the direction of travel was clear well before then - maybe coal boilers last a lot longer than gas, but it would have to have been 20+ years old for that to explain it?
One of the 'posh' bits of the area too, not really associated with the pits and quite a large house. Could have belonged to someone more senior, I guess.
A chunk of that part of the world isn't on mains gas and residential gas/oils tanks can both be quite ugly and difficult to site for easy refilling.
Meanwhile, the 70,000 shortage of drivers is creating a stand-off between suppliers and supermarkets. Wage inflation (like £5k instant payrise) for the remaining drivers means there's still a shortage of delivery slots AND upward pressure on prices that can't be contained.
Someone will foot the bill. Unless the supermarkets have a radical change of heart it will be punters.
So the market is solving the issue and the drivers are getting a pay rise.
Funny that's again exactly what I said would happen weeks ago.
1. There still is a BIG shortage of drivers. There is no fantasy pool of redundant drivers waiting to be recommissioned nor time to train new drivers. So lack of transport shoves costs up 2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up 2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
If permanent drivers are getting £5k instant pay rises that's going to be enough issue in a few months.
Now agency drivers are on PAYE once an agency driver has hit 12 weeks pay parity rules hit which means the agency driver needs to be receiving the same pay (and conditions) as equivalent permanent workers (i.e. drivers).
And the past 15 years has been spent trying to keep agency driver costs as low as possible. IR35 is very much a double hit, firstly drivers cost more to receive the same take home pay, secondly you need to pay them what permanent staff are paid (which is often way more)..
Oh and there are very few people looking at training drivers - even if you could find people willing to do the job, the insurance for a young inexperienced driver is such few companies will employ them.
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
Yep, there's a Museum/UCL Bloomsbury and a Holburny Bloomsbury, and at least one more if you count the slightly seamier bit around TCR. I personally don't think of that last zone as Bloomsbury because it doesn't feel to me like my idea of what Bloomsbury should feel like.
Also a heroiny Bloomsbury up by Gray's Inn Road towards Kings X
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Thanks. It can get very extreme though: one of my wife's brother's friends self-immolated over it in Bulgaria, with what ultimately proved to be fatal injuries to himself.
I'm worried about her.
That's really sad. The people who put them up to this kind of stuff should be charged.
I think you just have to hope that they will take a step back at some point and reassess exactly what they've turned into. It's like the scene from Bridge Over the River Kwai when Alec Guinness realises just what it is he's turned into, you have to hope they have the same moment.
We installed a new gas boiler last month. Oil consumption has dropped 40% and we're still working on going after the various cold spots in the house that demand heating going on.
The alternative is a biomass boiler. Either way, we're going to be burning *something* until someone buys me a new roof to put the solar panels on
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
It is in no way a misinterpretation. It is you who are ignoring facts.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
As I said to you, I have no qualms with our standards applying to imports as well as domestic standards. Though I don't buy the drive to organic etc and view it comparable to XR, but I know others opinions vary.
If we decide on domestic standards, whether blocking antibiotic usage, hormones or anything else then there's no reason in my eyes that should only apply to domestic production, it should apply to imports too. I am agreeing with you on that point, I never disagreed with you on that point. If others standards don't meet ours I am OK with it not being allowed to import at any price, let alone having tariffs.
Tariffs are a different matter, that should apply to those goods that are allowed to be imported and do meet our standards.
As for housing, your argument about ratios is not that important since as others said to you straight away, household profiles in that time have changed too. We have a lot of retired couples etc whose kids have moved out still owning the family homes their kids lived in, meaning that later generations are incapable of getting a good home as there's a shortage of good homes. This isn't helped then by those NIMBYs who want to only approve the building of shit "affordable" homes and not more good homes like their own.
Also housing ratios have changed, so you have more eg divorced or otherwise single people living in houses (again some of these now in large homes blocking them from those with families) etc etc - we don't live the same lives as we did fifty years ago and there is clearly a major shortage and if there wasn't then newly constructed homes wouldn't be getting bought straight from plan so rapidly.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Sounds like parts of XR are in danger of turning into a millenarian cult.
I've just started Niall Ferguson's new book 'Doom: the politics of catastrophe'. No doubt these kinds of cults will feature.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
That is quite sad. In an irony the XR types will probably never get, they have an almost exact mirror image in the American far-right Three Percenters, that 3% being their estimate of the proportion of the citizenry necessary to bring down their own government by force of arms...
Absolutely right.
On a professional (as opposed to personal) level what really yanked my chain - and it really did, although I didn't rise to it - was her claim that I'm doing "nothing" where it's literally my job to do deliver new strategic infrastructure. I'm looking at developing new business in blue hydrogen and nuclear fusion at the moment.
In 30 years time the self-indulgent narcissists in XR will try and take the credit for it whilst those who slaved away trying to fix it will be branded bystanders.
Meanwhile, the 70,000 shortage of drivers is creating a stand-off between suppliers and supermarkets. Wage inflation (like £5k instant payrise) for the remaining drivers means there's still a shortage of delivery slots AND upward pressure on prices that can't be contained.
Someone will foot the bill. Unless the supermarkets have a radical change of heart it will be punters.
So the market is solving the issue and the drivers are getting a pay rise.
Funny that's again exactly what I said would happen weeks ago.
1. There still is a BIG shortage of drivers. There is no fantasy pool of redundant drivers waiting to be recommissioned nor time to train new drivers. So lack of transport shoves costs up 2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up 2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
But they aren't closing down then? I'm almost certain you said they'd all go bankrupt because supermarkets would refuse to raise prices.
I have today heard of a number of depots who will be without any agency drivers as of Monday due to the agencies finding more profitable work for both their drivers and themselves.
Just heard my 11 year old daughter's end-of-school residential in Wales in July has been cancelled. Welsh covid regulations make it undoable apparently. Absolutely gutted for her. Meanwhile, deaths are now down to early March 2020 levels. Also meanwhile, Europe seems to be opening up. Fucking Drakeford. (Note I am only singling him out because it's in Wales; Boris and Nicola are no better).
Italy has the same supermarket problem. Try looking for a decent big supermarket in the centre of Milan or Naples. Impossible. It's just tiny stores selling massively overpriced tins of tomatoes, and three kinds of Chianti with a 200% mark up
It's bizarre in a country with such brilliant cuisine, generally
If you want to shop well you have to go the bakers, the butchers, the market, the wine store, which is all very picturesque and Italian but is also a bloody pain, and they are often shut for most of the day
I lived in zone 1 back in 1999. The only supermarket in walking distance was Safeway (now a Waitrose I think) at the Brunswick Centre and it was tiny. So for almost anything you ended up heading out of town. So I moved to zone 4.
This is complete crap, sorry
I know the area you're talking about very well. I lived there for decades.
There's the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick Centre, a Sainsbury in the Brunswick Centre, two Sainsbury's on Tottenham Court Road (one big) a Tesco on Goodge Street, a Tesco Express on Russell Square, another big Sainsbury's in Holborn....
I am 99% sure that the Goodge Street and at least one of the two Sainsburys on TCR were not open when I was at law school on Store Street in 97-98. The Brunswick Centre Safeways/whatever certainly was but I distinctly remember the dearth of supermarket shopping options round Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia in the late 90s.
I literally lived on Store Street for ten years, I lived in Fitzrovia for ten years before that, and Bloomsbury (again) before that
Goodge Street was always open, as was one of the TCR Sainsburys, the other was back then a big Asda. Ditto the others, mostly they existed
The supermarket choice has somewhat expanded and elevated (eg the huge Waitrose in the Brunswick, once a Safeways) but your memory is largely faulty
If you say so. I don't call a Tesco Express or Sainsburys local a "supermarket" - they are convenience stores. You sure it isn't your memory that was fuzzy? Plenty of small independent c-stores stores to buy food in, but not a full size supermarket.
I think the main thing I hated about Z1 living was the tourists. Having to try and squeeze / dodge past people everywhere when doing normal stuff. Sod off down the Mall or something.
Calling bullshit on this, sorry.
Do you know where Bloomsbury is? My office is about ten minutes away. There aren't many tourists there unless you are circumnavigating the grounds of the British Museum. I get that you don't like London and want to tell everyone that, but making stuff up is a bizarre way of doing it, given how many of us actually live here.
Yeah lol at tourists in Bloomsbury. I guess some people mistake foreign students for tourists sometimes.
Well I lived in Russell Sq and there were quite a few tourists round there. Lots of students too of course with UCL etc.
As soon as you step behind TCR on the Fitzrovia side it's one of the few places in central London that is mostly tourist free.
I lived there for four years, and it was like a quite village, with great shops and local restaurants, and no tourists at all (except on Charlotte Street).
We were outbid by the smallest of sums for a house on Fitzroy Square. Which still saddens me.
I lived in Fitzrovia for a few years too, it is a fantastic location
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere I wanted in London, a house on Fitzroy Square would be near the top of the list. Ian McEwan lives in a house on Fitzroy Sq. As does Griff Rhy Jones
Also, the official exorcist for the Diocese of London used to live there. I met him one morning when I was tripping on acid. In his house, when I was about 19. I think we freaked each other out
It's not the best person to meet, when you're on LSD. An actual exorcist
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The last war demolished that argument in relation to food supply. The possibility that eating depends on Russia, China, the next Trump and international finance collectively thinking it is in their interests for us to do so as studious readers of Ricardo, is not serious.
Which doesn't mean that Ricardo is not one of the great geniuses of modernity.
The other flaw is that implicit to Ricardo is that every country can have competitive advantage in some area. The reality is that some countries or parts of countries do not, or at least not to the point above starvation, poverty and emigration.
It is the same flaw as a meritocracy. If we reward the meritocratic, how are the mediocre or below-average to live? And in a civilised world we should not expect them to starve.
No, it's not the same thing.
And Ricardo was talking about comparative advantage with respect to other activities within the same country, and how that related to beneficial trade between countries - explicitly not competitive advantage between countries. Indeed he argued that trade was beneficial to both countries even in the case where one was more efficient than the other at production in every single sector.
Tangentialy related, we viewed a house late last year that still had a coal boiler - as in someone turns up with bags of coal and you periodically have to shovel it in. 1960s house in reasonable size village, so not some ancient pile in the sticks. Bit of a shocker that - my gran had one until it was replaced with gas in the early 90s, but I'd no idea they still existed.
Was it in a mining area? Many houses had coal boilers cos they got free coal by virtue of working for the NCB. Didn't make sense to put anything else in.
Good point. Selby coalfield area, but that finished completely in 2004 and the direction of travel was clear well before then - maybe coal boilers last a lot longer than gas, but it would have to have been 20+ years old for that to explain it?
One of the 'posh' bits of the area too, not really associated with the pits and quite a large house. Could have belonged to someone more senior, I guess.
A chunk of that part of the world isn't on mains gas and residential gas/oils tanks can both be quite ugly and difficult to site for easy refilling.
Yep, wouldn't have been so surprised if in one of those areas, but the house had a a mains gas connection (and, indeed, a gas hob). And had mains gas available for decades - relatives lived nearby and were there when gas was installed. Maybe it was just a truly ancient boiler - it looked pretty ropey, but I didn't pay that much attention as it would have been ripped out first thing if we'd bought it.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
That is quite sad. In an irony the XR types will probably never get, they have an almost exact mirror image in the American far-right Three Percenters, that 3% being their estimate of the proportion of the citizenry necessary to bring down their own government by force of arms...
Absolutely right.
On a professional (as opposed to personal) level what really yanked my chain - and it really did, although I didn't rise to it - was her claim that I'm doing "nothing" where it's literally my job to do deliver new strategic infrastructure. I'm looking at developing new business in blue hydrogen and nuclear fusion at the moment.
In 30 years time the self-indulgent narcissists in XR will try and take the credit for it whilst those who slaved away trying to fix it will be branded bystanders.
Piss. Boiled.
Tough about your friend. Losing a friend is not nice.
However these things sometimes heal. I lost a good friend for a few years, due to us both being dicks, but somehow we patched it up and now it's fine
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
It is in no way a misinterpretation. It is you who are ignoring facts.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
As I said to you, I have no qualms with our standards applying to imports as well as domestic standards. Though I don't buy the drive to organic etc and view it comparable to XR, but I know others opinions vary.
If we decide on domestic standards, whether blocking antibiotic usage, hormones or anything else then there's no reason in my eyes that should only apply to domestic production, it should apply to imports too. I am agreeing with you on that point, I never disagreed with you on that point. If others standards don't meet ours I am OK with it not being allowed to import at any price, let alone having tariffs.
Tariffs are a different matter, that should apply to those goods that are allowed to be imported and do meet our standards.
As for housing, your argument about ratios is not that important since as others said to you straight away, household profiles in that time have changed too. We have a lot of retired couples etc whose kids have moved out still owning the family homes their kids lived in, meaning that later generations are incapable of getting a good home as there's a shortage of good homes. This isn't helped then by those NIMBYs who want to only approve the building of shit "affordable" homes and not more good homes like their own.
Also housing ratios have changed, so you have more eg divorced or otherwise single people living in houses (again some of these now in large homes blocking them from those with families) etc etc - we don't live the same lives as we did fifty years ago and there is clearly a major shortage and if there wasn't then newly constructed homes wouldn't be getting bought straight from plan so rapidly.
I have to hand it to you, you get your uninformed ramblings shot down one by one and you pop up with relatively unrelated but similarly uninformed ones. Discussing/arguing anything with you is like trying to nail a jelly to the wall (that isn't a compliment), and very similar to the "argument sketch" in Monty Python, though not as amusing.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
It is in no way a misinterpretation. It is you who are ignoring facts.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
As I said to you, I have no qualms with our standards applying to imports as well as domestic standards. Though I don't buy the drive to organic etc and view it comparable to XR, but I know others opinions vary.
If we decide on domestic standards, whether blocking antibiotic usage, hormones or anything else then there's no reason in my eyes that should only apply to domestic production, it should apply to imports too. I am agreeing with you on that point, I never disagreed with you on that point. If others standards don't meet ours I am OK with it not being allowed to import at any price, let alone having tariffs.
Tariffs are a different matter, that should apply to those goods that are allowed to be imported and do meet our standards.
As for housing, your argument about ratios is not that important since as others said to you straight away, household profiles in that time have changed too. We have a lot of retired couples etc whose kids have moved out still owning the family homes their kids lived in, meaning that later generations are incapable of getting a good home as there's a shortage of good homes. This isn't helped then by those NIMBYs who want to only approve the building of shit "affordable" homes and not more good homes like their own.
Also housing ratios have changed, so you have more eg divorced or otherwise single people living in houses (again some of these now in large homes blocking them from those with families) etc etc - we don't live the same lives as we did fifty years ago and there is clearly a major shortage and if there wasn't then newly constructed homes wouldn't be getting bought straight from plan so rapidly.
So as I said, this is a debate about lifestyle choices. Your vision vs mine.
Seems to say heat pumps, or at least a minimum % of the things. But there must be more to it than that.
Heat pumps are currently very very expensive and will not heat your house in the way a gas boiler does. i.e. on a cold day your house will be cold.
The technology has to change for them to be a viable alternative.
This goes back to my comment yesterday about electric cars. The technology simply isn't there to meet the Government targets without a massive change in the way we live. Changing the law and hoping the technology will catch up is a dangerous game to play.
The public infrastructure for electric vehicles needs to be much better and cheaper for them to be viable. It must be impossible for people without their own driveways, and needs to involve a single app, even if 20 companies provide the charging stations.
I have had an electric Kia now for 7000 miles alongside my old fiat. I wouldn't be keen on having both cars electric, much as I like the e-niro. I will probably go hybrid when the fiat finally packs up.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
That is quite sad. In an irony the XR types will probably never get, they have an almost exact mirror image in the American far-right Three Percenters, that 3% being their estimate of the proportion of the citizenry necessary to bring down their own government by force of arms...
Absolutely right.
On a professional (as opposed to personal) level what really yanked my chain - and it really did, although I didn't rise to it - was her claim that I'm doing "nothing" where it's literally my job to do deliver new strategic infrastructure. I'm looking at developing new business in blue hydrogen and nuclear fusion at the moment.
In 30 years time the self-indulgent narcissists in XR will try and take the credit for it whilst those who slaved away trying to fix it will be branded bystanders.
Piss. Boiled.
Tough about your friend. Losing a friend is not nice.
However these things sometimes heal. I lost a good friend for a few years, due to us both being dicks, but somehow we patched it up and now it's fine
The Bloombury square I'm most familiar with is Mecklenburgh Square.
Used to cage a room at in foreign student dorm in the summer, very cheap (included meal ticket for cafeteria or whatever they call it) and convenient. Did get woken up EAR-LY in the morning by the rooster in residence at the Coram Fields children's zoo! Not that I minded. There's also a very interesting old graveyard nearby.
The Bloombury square I'm most familiar with is Mecklenburgh Square.
Used to cage a room at in foreign student dorm in the summer, very cheap (included meal ticket for cafeteria or whatever they call it) and convenient. Did get woken up EAR-LY in the morning by the rooster in residence at the Coram Fields children's zoo! Not that I minded. There's also a very interesting old graveyard nearby.
That's a very peculiar square. Often feels odd. It has a tremendously haunted atmosphere on wet, dark autumn evenings, when the Bloomsbury mists rise up and shroud the buildings in ghostly vapour
Little known fact: much of Bloomsbury is built on marshy land, and the marshes underneath still make it one of the foggiest parts of central London, as they exhale their ancient vapours
Also, I also used to score heroin from a famous surgeon's daughter on Mecklenburgh Square, but you probably already predicted that
Meanwhile, the 70,000 shortage of drivers is creating a stand-off between suppliers and supermarkets. Wage inflation (like £5k instant payrise) for the remaining drivers means there's still a shortage of delivery slots AND upward pressure on prices that can't be contained.
Someone will foot the bill. Unless the supermarkets have a radical change of heart it will be punters.
So the market is solving the issue and the drivers are getting a pay rise.
Funny that's again exactly what I said would happen weeks ago.
1. There still is a BIG shortage of drivers. There is no fantasy pool of redundant drivers waiting to be recommissioned nor time to train new drivers. So lack of transport shoves costs up 2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up 2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
Thats outrageous. Imagine - less well off people being able to charge more for their labour. Stuart Rose was right
What next, multinationals having to pay their taxes ? The worlds gone mad.
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The last war demolished that argument in relation to food supply. The possibility that eating depends on Russia, China, the next Trump and international finance collectively thinking it is in their interests for us to do so as studious readers of Ricardo, is not serious.
Which doesn't mean that Ricardo is not one of the great geniuses of modernity.
The other flaw is that implicit to Ricardo is that every country can have competitive advantage in some area. The reality is that some countries or parts of countries do not, or at least not to the point above starvation, poverty and emigration.
It is the same flaw as a meritocracy. If we reward the meritocratic, how are the mediocre or below-average to live? And in a civilised world we should not expect them to starve.
No, it's not the same thing.
And Ricardo was talking about comparative advantage with respect to other activities within the same country, and how that related to beneficial trade between countries - explicitly not competitive advantage between countries. Indeed he argued that trade was beneficial to both countries even in the case where one was more efficient than the other at production in every single sector.
But if one country has comparative advantage over another in every single sector, and both have competent governments and free trade, one country will lose even the little it has.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Sounds like parts of XR are in danger of turning into a millenarian cult.
I've just started Niall Ferguson's new book 'Doom: the politics of catastrophe'. No doubt these kinds of cults will feature.
I have often wondered whether some people have predisposition to blind loyalty to cults/philosophies. It has always existed throughout history; mainly manifesting itself in religion in earlier times, and then in the 20th century non-religious philosophies such as Nazism, fascism and communism. If you compare one type of a fanatic with another, they often have similar psychologies, and often exhibit gullibility in the extreme and a desire to be part of a movement that they can identify with and see a reflection of their own inflexible viewpoint .
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
That is quite sad. In an irony the XR types will probably never get, they have an almost exact mirror image in the American far-right Three Percenters, that 3% being their estimate of the proportion of the citizenry necessary to bring down their own government by force of arms...
Absolutely right.
On a professional (as opposed to personal) level what really yanked my chain - and it really did, although I didn't rise to it - was her claim that I'm doing "nothing" where it's literally my job to do deliver new strategic infrastructure. I'm looking at developing new business in blue hydrogen and nuclear fusion at the moment.
In 30 years time the self-indulgent narcissists in XR will try and take the credit for it whilst those who slaved away trying to fix it will be branded bystanders.
Piss. Boiled.
Good piece here by AEP on the transformation in the energy market:
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
It's actually one of the benefits of dealing with the EU from the outside: each country is competing to win the EU's share of [import/export trade, financial services, etc.].
Hugo Gye @HugoGye · 19m Another cheery stat - the pace of vaccinations, registered as a 7-day average, is now at its highest since that bumper fortnight in March. Happy Friday.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Sounds like parts of XR are in danger of turning into a millenarian cult.
I've just started Niall Ferguson's new book 'Doom: the politics of catastrophe'. No doubt these kinds of cults will feature.
I have often wondered whether some people have predisposition to blind loyalty to cults/philosophies. It has always existed throughout history; mainly manifesting itself in religion in earlier times, and then in the 20th century non-religious philosophies such as Nazism, fascism and communism. If you compare one type of a fanatic with another, they often have similar psychologies, and often exhibit gullibility in the extreme and a desire to be part of a movement that they can identify with and see a reflection of their own inflexible viewpoint .
I know a couple of folk in XR, and it does have an apocalyptic cult like feel to it. I have remained friends with them though. Not insulting them helps.
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
It's actually one of the benefits of dealing with the EU from the outside: each country is competing to win the EU's share of [import/export trade, financial services, etc.].
I often wondered at the time, and wonder still, why we didn't look at building a tunnel to Belgium instead of France. Slightly further away, but if you're going to have a border into mainland Europe and you can choose who to have that border with, Belgium look a more reliable option.
Seems to say heat pumps, or at least a minimum % of the things. But there must be more to it than that.
Heat pumps are currently very very expensive and will not heat your house in the way a gas boiler does. i.e. on a cold day your house will be cold.
The technology has to change for them to be a viable alternative.
This goes back to my comment yesterday about electric cars. The technology simply isn't there to meet the Government targets without a massive change in the way we live. Changing the law and hoping the technology will catch up is a dangerous game to play.
I missed your comment yesterday, but am intrigued. What's the missing technology?
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The last war demolished that argument in relation to food supply. The possibility that eating depends on Russia, China, the next Trump and international finance collectively thinking it is in their interests for us to do so as studious readers of Ricardo, is not serious.
Which doesn't mean that Ricardo is not one of the great geniuses of modernity.
The other flaw is that implicit to Ricardo is that every country can have competitive advantage in some area. The reality is that some countries or parts of countries do not, or at least not to the point above starvation, poverty and emigration.
It is the same flaw as a meritocracy. If we reward the meritocratic, how are the mediocre or below-average to live? And in a civilised world we should not expect them to starve.
Totally agree. A meritocracy is not the end of History.
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
It's actually one of the benefits of dealing with the EU from the outside: each country is competing to win the EU's share of [import/export trade, financial services, etc.].
I often wondered at the time, and wonder still, why we didn't look at building a tunnel to Belgium instead of France. Slightly further away, but if you're going to have a border into mainland Europe and you can choose who to have that border with, Belgium look a more reliable option.
Didn’t want to make it too easy for them the next time the Germans want to invade.
Meanwhile, the 70,000 shortage of drivers is creating a stand-off between suppliers and supermarkets. Wage inflation (like £5k instant payrise) for the remaining drivers means there's still a shortage of delivery slots AND upward pressure on prices that can't be contained.
Someone will foot the bill. Unless the supermarkets have a radical change of heart it will be punters.
So the market is solving the issue and the drivers are getting a pay rise.
Funny that's again exactly what I said would happen weeks ago.
1. There still is a BIG shortage of drivers. There is no fantasy pool of redundant drivers waiting to be recommissioned nor time to train new drivers. So lack of transport shoves costs up 2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up 2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
Thats outrageous. Imagine - less well off people being able to charge more for their labour. Stuart Rose was right
What next, multinationals having to pay their taxes ? The worlds gone mad.
I have no problem with people being paid more especially in relatively low-paid jobs. My point is that cost rises are very difficult in the food and drink sector - nobody will pay for them.
This one looks like the perfect storm as it hits the supermarkets with their own transport as much as it hits their suppliers into them.
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
It's the same thing as QAnon IMO, just a different cause. Some people become completely captured by it and are unable to distinguish between reality and their newfound beliefs so will trash friendships and even blood when people disagree with them or point out inconsistencies in their new belief system.
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
Sounds like parts of XR are in danger of turning into a millenarian cult.
I've just started Niall Ferguson's new book 'Doom: the politics of catastrophe'. No doubt these kinds of cults will feature.
I have often wondered whether some people have predisposition to blind loyalty to cults/philosophies. It has always existed throughout history; mainly manifesting itself in religion in earlier times, and then in the 20th century non-religious philosophies such as Nazism, fascism and communism. If you compare one type of a fanatic with another, they often have similar psychologies, and often exhibit gullibility in the extreme and a desire to be part of a movement that they can identify with and see a reflection of their own inflexible viewpoint .
I know a couple of folk in XR, and it does have an apocalyptic cult like feel to it. I have remained friends with them though. Not insulting them helps.
Good for you for doing so, hopefully they are not too dickish about forcing their views on others. I have a number of friends with different views to me, but I do find people who have "holier than thou" views somewhat difficult
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
It's actually one of the benefits of dealing with the EU from the outside: each country is competing to win the EU's share of [import/export trade, financial services, etc.].
I often wondered at the time, and wonder still, why we didn't look at building a tunnel to Belgium instead of France. Slightly further away, but if you're going to have a border into mainland Europe and you can choose who to have that border with, Belgium look a more reliable option.
Didn’t want to make it too easy for them the next time the Germans want to invade.
I know this is a flippant comment, but I have wondered in the past about the strategic vulnerability of the tunnel. Presumably, it would be pretty horrible to invade througha tunnel. As a defender, you can wait until there's 26 miles of troops in there, then block up one end and start shelling the other. However, once you have invaded, it does make supply line issues rather easier. Hopefully this will never be tested!
The Truss's leadership prospects are surely in tatters. The Tories would never risk her - an absolutely vilified character within Britain's rural communities. Truss the Farmer's Cuss she'll be known as.
Dunno about that. The Tory members in the SE couldn’t give a damn about the farmers.
Everyone knows that the "countryside" is to stop plebs building houses, not for things like "farming". Don't be ridiculous.
I'm beginning to think some people don't know what "food security" means.
How does banning perfectly safe, perfectly scientific, well tested hormone supplements aid our food security?
Especially considering that the hormone supplement ban was protectionist unscientific bullshit that the EU imposed on us, as UK farmers were using hormone supplements until the EU instituted its ban that the UK opposed at the time in the Council of Ministers?
Maybe the UK farmer should just go back to doing what they were before the EU started meddling, and thus improve our food security?
Not hormones, but actually having farming and fishing industries at all in the Isles of Great Britain and Ireland.
Yes we have an industry, it represents all of 0.61% of UK GDP while taking up 70% of UK land.
Being made to compete with the rest of the world would force the industry to improve and become more efficient and more productive, just as happened with New Zealand when they eliminated their trade barriers and subsidies.
An improved and more efficient agriculture industry would improve our security, wouldn't it?
You won’t be happy until we’re eating dog food
Why would we eat dog food?
Have you ever eaten Australian meat? Its excellent top quality.
Your xenophobia at imports is weird, especially while seeing 27 other nations getting free access to export their meat to us zero tariffs, zero quotas.
They have lower standards then we do. 'OLB' post on PT has examples. Or if you want an even better authority - the best let's be honest - there's Mark Drakeford. But it won't bother you and that's perfectly understandable. This whole thing is bespoke tailored to push all your buttons.
Free trade. Free free free. No quotas or tariffs. Deregulated mangy beef. Don't like it? So don't eat it then. Problem solved. Choice. The market pure and simple. And omg Australia. Red on the map. Trad Commonwealth. Five eyes. FAMILY.
7th Heaven in other words.
I rarely succeed in changing your view on anything but I sometimes like to try. Not here though. It'd be too close to the bone.
"Mangy beef"?
I used to live there you forget, I grew up downunder.
American food is shit, when you talk about shit food and you're talking about American deals you have a point. Australian meat is top nosh. Great quality.
Has anyone on this site ever gone to Australia, eaten beef there and thought "urgh this is mangy dog food shit"? Don't be ridiculous.
As someone who has lived in the US and eats American cooking (as provided by the Wife) every day I beg to differ.
I have a friend who - and you can know someone for 20 years and still be finding things out about them - it turns out is a massive fan of really top quality beef. He insists on American beef - reckons it far superior to British in almost all circumstances.
British meat is relatively shit.
I don't know why. But it is. Maybe its the lack of sunshine, maybe its in your head, but go to Australia, or America and the meat there just tastes better. My wife is from South Africa and she says the same thing, when she moved to the UK she stopped eating meat for a while, not because of any 'vegetarian' reason but because it was so disappointing compared to what she was used to in South Africa.
If British and Aussie meat was available at the same price next to each other in a supermarket, I'd be very tempted to go for the latter.
I haven't done a scientific study of this but I tend to agree. I think the UK meat tends to a higher fat content, possibly because our lousy climate encourages that in the animals and our smaller fields means they don't move around as much. Leaner, firmer beef is better in the same way that free range chicken tastes much better than factory farmed.
Absolutely, hence why beef with low far content such as Wagyu is so cheap.
Oh wait.
Ok, ok, I give up. But I still think it is important how the animal has lived.
In any case, getting rid of sheep, fish, etc. from Scotland is like getting rid of Scots lawyers. Neither may take up a huge part of GDP, but we are on the whole a lot better for having them available locally ...
The problem, as I said yesterday, is that asking UK and in particular Scottish farms to compete on a no tariff level playing field with Australia and NZ is the problem of Morgan Motor Co taking on Ford and GM. The scale of production in the Antipodes means that competition is simply impossible and what we are looking at is surviving in niche segments of the market. That creates real problems with what we are going to do with all the marginal land that is going to go out of production.
It's not an insuperable problem but it would be a nasty jolt to our rural communities (our urban communities would of course gain by cheaper food) and it would change what a lot of our country actually looks like. There are reasons why agriculture is usually one of the hardest areas to agree in FTAs.
Absolutely, but its worth bearing in mind the words of Ricardo and JS Mill and so on - if the farms can't compete on a level playing field then its not a competitive advantage and maybe something else should be considered?
If people want to go for locally produce organic etc etc and stick a flag on it then some will pay a premium for that. But you've got to find something you're competitive in and if you can't, then as a nation we should move on and not save every Luddite job under threat.
The problem being that policy only works if you are dealing with a level playing field around the world and all countries are producing food to a standard acceptable to the British. Otherwise you simply end up with companies importing huge amounts of food produced in conditions that are banned in the UK.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
That's a mispresentation.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
It is in no way a misinterpretation. It is you who are ignoring facts.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
As I said to you, I have no qualms with our standards applying to imports as well as domestic standards. Though I don't buy the drive to organic etc and view it comparable to XR, but I know others opinions vary.
If we decide on domestic standards, whether blocking antibiotic usage, hormones or anything else then there's no reason in my eyes that should only apply to domestic production, it should apply to imports too. I am agreeing with you on that point, I never disagreed with you on that point. If others standards don't meet ours I am OK with it not being allowed to import at any price, let alone having tariffs.
Tariffs are a different matter, that should apply to those goods that are allowed to be imported and do meet our standards.
As for housing, your argument about ratios is not that important since as others said to you straight away, household profiles in that time have changed too. We have a lot of retired couples etc whose kids have moved out still owning the family homes their kids lived in, meaning that later generations are incapable of getting a good home as there's a shortage of good homes. This isn't helped then by those NIMBYs who want to only approve the building of shit "affordable" homes and not more good homes like their own.
Also housing ratios have changed, so you have more eg divorced or otherwise single people living in houses (again some of these now in large homes blocking them from those with families) etc etc - we don't live the same lives as we did fifty years ago and there is clearly a major shortage and if there wasn't then newly constructed homes wouldn't be getting bought straight from plan so rapidly.
So as I said, this is a debate about lifestyle choices. Your vision vs mine.
It depends, if you mean about people being divorced etc then that's not a lifestyle choice. Nor is people living in big houses after their kids have flown the coop, while only building small houses for the younger generations starting families that's not really a "lifestyle choice".
If you mean about organic etc then I'm very liberal about lifestyle choices. I don't think its the government's job to impose lifestyle choices on people, it should be a free choice: you want to be vegan, or kosher, or organic or whatever else floats your boat then that's your choice. I don't want the law to stop your choices, and I just don't want you or the law to stop me from making my own choices.
You should make your choices, I should make my own, and its not the states job to pick your lifestyle over mine or vice-versa.
So if say Aussie imports operate on a level playing field and meet the same welfare etc requirements of UK laws as they aren't hormone treated, then why should they be subject to tariffs?
So, my university friend who joined XR rebellion has now got back to me after 6 weeks with (for her) a totally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive, and even nakedly angry, message. It has lots of CAPITALS and statements of "belief", asserting the imminence of "extinction" ends with her saying she's part of the 3.5% and it's ok because will save the world without me.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
That is quite sad. In an irony the XR types will probably never get, they have an almost exact mirror image in the American far-right Three Percenters, that 3% being their estimate of the proportion of the citizenry necessary to bring down their own government by force of arms...
Their rationale for bearing arms is that they need guns to stop the government taking their guns.
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
It's actually one of the benefits of dealing with the EU from the outside: each country is competing to win the EU's share of [import/export trade, financial services, etc.].
I often wondered at the time, and wonder still, why we didn't look at building a tunnel to Belgium instead of France. Slightly further away, but if you're going to have a border into mainland Europe and you can choose who to have that border with, Belgium look a more reliable option.
Didn’t want to make it too easy for them the next time the Germans want to invade.
I know this is a flippant comment, but I have wondered in the past about the strategic vulnerability of the tunnel. Presumably, it would be pretty horrible to invade througha tunnel. As a defender, you can wait until there's 26 miles of troops in there, then block up one end and start shelling the other. However, once you have invaded, it does make supply line issues rather easier. Hopefully this will never be tested!
During the 1970s, when the Channel Tunnel came up again, the MoD did a study on how to block the tunnel against invasion.
Tunnels are surprisingly hard to destroy. They ended up with a design where a nuke would be detonated in a specially constructed chamber that would collapse a section of tunnel to contain the radioactivity - as in nuclear testing. It would literally seal itself in.
Someone joked about setting it up so that it would seal on one side. Turing the tunnel towards France into a giant, nuclear powered cannon. Anything in the tunnel would pop out at the French end at a fair old rate....
Why does agriculture take up so much land? Perhaps you need land to grow soy to feed to cows to turn into burgers? Think about how much more efficient things would be if we concrete over the farms and turn them into nice office parks full of people mining Britcoin which we then use to buy food grown by foreign wasters happy to be inefficient.
Yes, a sure way to a secure and prosperous future.
Yep, the UK dedicates 71.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 0.61% of UK GDP.
In contrast Sweden uses 6.5% of its land for agriculture to generate 1.44% of GDP.
Norway uses 2.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 1.93% of GDP.
I think their definition of agricultural land may be different. In theory all of northern Scandinavia could be designated as 'farmland' because it is used for reindeer grazing.
In any case, all that tells us is that Scandinavia is not heavily populated.
Can you name any heavily populated nation on the planet that so inefficiently wastes 71% of its land to generate below 1% of GDP?
Japan would probably be more comparable to the UK. They dedicated 12% of land to agriculture and they get 1.14% of GDP from agriculture.
Why is ours so inefficient compared to everyone else?
You've got your hand on some nice stats there Philip.
Perhaps it's do with our brand. Brit food doesn't have the best rep.
Why does agriculture take up so much land? Perhaps you need land to grow soy to feed to cows to turn into burgers? Think about how much more efficient things would be if we concrete over the farms and turn them into nice office parks full of people mining Britcoin which we then use to buy food grown by foreign wasters happy to be inefficient.
Yes, a sure way to a secure and prosperous future.
Yep, the UK dedicates 71.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 0.61% of UK GDP.
In contrast Sweden uses 6.5% of its land for agriculture to generate 1.44% of GDP.
Norway uses 2.7% of land to agricultural use in order to generate 1.93% of GDP.
So we should waste less land growing food and import it? Perhaps some kind of open border free trade area with the places we'd then buy food from would be a good idea...
That's one suggestion.
Another suggestion would be that we use our land better and get more return from it and be more efficient.
Why is it that Sweden can use 1/10th of its land as we do for agriculture, but get a better GDP return than we do? ...
Probably as our GDP is five and a half times theirs, and our land area about half ?
That still leaves the UK as being inefficient, by more than half (without considering the fact our extra population should see more GDP anyway.
Let alone comparing with the likes of Italy and Japan with much more comparable population densities were the same thing is very much the case.
There's something with these stats, and I can't put a finger on it.
Sweden is a low productivity agricultural sector, due to climate and short season.
And UK has traditonally been a driver for productivity within the EU. What has changed to justify the numbers, oe what is variable in the numbers?
I can see that some things would throw it off - eg glasshouses in NL, or 15% of Italian agriculture being wine.
UK productivity may have been reduced by set-aside or organics, but I can't account for the apparent gaps of 50% or double.
Lol, that's incredible. France facing competition for UK import/export business. French/EU border pedantry won't last forever and once it's over we'll still be out of the EU.
It's actually one of the benefits of dealing with the EU from the outside: each country is competing to win the EU's share of [import/export trade, financial services, etc.].
I often wondered at the time, and wonder still, why we didn't look at building a tunnel to Belgium instead of France. Slightly further away, but if you're going to have a border into mainland Europe and you can choose who to have that border with, Belgium look a more reliable option.
Didn’t want to make it too easy for them the next time the Germans want to invade.
I know this is a flippant comment, but I have wondered in the past about the strategic vulnerability of the tunnel. Presumably, it would be pretty horrible to invade througha tunnel. As a defender, you can wait until there's 26 miles of troops in there, then block up one end and start shelling the other. However, once you have invaded, it does make supply line issues rather easier. Hopefully this will never be tested!
At first glance it might appear that a 26 mile tunnel might be a quite easy to defend, and ultimately could be collapsed as a defence of last resort. Strategically though I guess one could look to first secure both ends, perhaps with paratroopers and then bring through your back up, in which case it could be a pretty efficient way of bringing in an invasion force. I imagine someone at MoD has wargamed it
Comments
Sales of new fossil boilers will be banned at some point and that will be controversial if the replacements (electric boilers) are more expensive to run. As they will be (electric boilers already close to 100% efficient, but electricity is far more expensive per kWh than gas), unless gas gets much more expensive or electricity much cheaper. The latter is not impossible as more turbines/solar come on line, increasing supply, but there will also be more demand with electric cars and the like.
But rarely going to be a good retroft option outside of major works.
And as I said, you ignore the fact that this is not about the small percentage of GDP. The bottom line is not what matters. It is about feeding our country in a way we find acceptable and which is reliable. I have absolutely no problem with importing food if it is produced to the same standards as UK food (or hopefully even better). What is not acceptable is to destroy our farming on the basis we can import food from countries whose welfare, safety and environmental standards do not meet our own.
You are a classic case of someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
If that's the proposal its f***ing stupid!
So a perfectly fine, perfectly working boiler should be ditched just because somebody is moving home? Why? That's madness. What if someone listing their home doesn't have £10k to cover the costs until completion?
Most boilers need replacing in 10-15 years anyway, just ban the sale of new boilers and as they die let them naturally get replaced with alternatives. Stupid to force the sale of working equipment because of something so abitrary. Maybe set a deadline for them to be replaced by (eg 15 years after the ban on new ones) but forcing something to be replaced so abitrarily is just plain silly.
I can't support that if that's what happens. 👎
EDIT - And isn't THAT how they finally dispatched Cecil Rhodes in the end?
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
The technology has to change for them to be a viable alternative.
Not good for the balance of payments unless we have UK HP makers or plants. I am not aware of any currently.
Solar has never been a good idea for heating (except maybe solar water heating plus night rate boost, as winter insolation is only about 10% of peak.
I know people who are planting a couple of acres of coppice for their heating, but that requires dedication.
If there's a serious issue as to why something is not safe etc or doesn't meet our standards then it should be barred from being imported. I have no issue with that, apply the laws the same.
What I don't support is non-tariff barriers that have no scientific basis whatsoever. In which case, I think we should have a level playing field.
Australians don't abuse animals. The one objection raised earlier was that they use hormonal growth, which is used in almost the entire world excluding the EU and which the WTO found was unsupported by the science - and was used in this country prior to the EU banning them. If that's the objection then my solution is to have a level playing field and go back to our own laws before the EU changed them and allow the use of hormones in the UK just like we used to do and many other nations do.
If there's not a level playing field, then we should sort it out so that there is. Or if there's something insurmountable then sure have a ban, but it should be for good reasons and not just a non-tariff barrier.
Which doesn't mean that Ricardo is not one of the great geniuses of modernity.
Fitzrovia is, and has always been, an interesting area. No nice squares though - and lord knows what fool chose to make Cavendish (their only claim) into a car park.
http://countrywoodsmoke.com/
also a really good Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/CountryWoodSmoke
Cooking with Black South Africans is a different experience. Much less extravagant in terms of fuel.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/horror-as-moths-invade-northern-ireland-familys-new-dream-home-36096692.html
https://victorianhouseproject.blogspot.com/2019/11/moths-problem-in-sheep-wool-insulation.html
Though it did seem an odd thing to be going on in the football parking lot.
Didn't make sense to put anything else in.
It is the same flaw as a meritocracy. If we reward the meritocratic, how are the mediocre or below-average to live? And in a civilised world we should not expect them to starve.
She's also defriended me from Facebook.
I'm quite upset by it to be honest. We've been friends for over 20 years, but she's gone off the deep end.
I would not knowingly feed growth hormone meat to anyone I cared about if I had a choice in that decision. I would also say that having regularly eaten US meat, I suspect that it may account for a more bland flavour, but that is just a personal opinion and guess.
Sean Moore
@Seanjames344
·
4h
Replying to
@Peston
Think anyone pushing for extension of lockdown beyond 21st June given current data should be asked to state bank balance on 23rd March 2020 & what it is now on 21st May 2021!
https://twitter.com/Govgg/status/1395714742115700738?s=20
https://theloadstar.com/belgium-lures-uk-business-to-its-gateways-offering-vip-customs-status/
It's sad, but there's not really a lot you can do about it but wait it out and hope they can escape the cult.
One of the 'posh' bits of the area too, not really associated with the pits and quite a large house. Could have belonged to someone more senior, I guess.
One of the biggest issues facing us in food safety is the overuse of anti-biotics. There are moves now to reduce or prevent the use of anti-biotics in an prophylactic way because of the concerns about anti-biotic resistance. What is the point of us doing that in this country if we are hen importing he meet from other countries. Few countries have animal welfare standards as strict as ours - something both Nick Palmer and I have campaigned about in the past. Why should we accept food from countries with lower food standards? Same goes for the use of pesticides and herbicides. We are trying to move away from the Chemical Brothers form of farming which is pointless if we then import cheaper food from countries that still allow it. The same for soil degradation and nitrate pollution.
All these things matter far more than that 0.7% of GDP you are so hung up on.
So my accusation stands. When we already have a far higher home to population ratio than we had 50 years ago your arguments for ever increasing house building at the cost of our environment are simply not valid.
Rather than take over the Transvaal and Orange Free State the Boers simply used the Union to do a reverse takeover of the whole of SA.
We were outbid by the smallest of sums for a house on Fitzroy Square. Which still saddens me.
Dropping tariffs is not the same as dropping standards. They're two very different issues, which is what Richard was bothered by. If Aussie farms are farming non-hormone treated beef then that is legal to export to the EU as far as I understand so I see no reason why that should be subject to tariffs. If there's no welfare issues, if they're meeting our laws, then that's just plain competition not a difference in standards.
Fitzroy Square:
2. Pay rises - from the shortage and IR35 shoves costs more up
2. Extra transport costs - inbound ingredients, outbound products, internal supermarket deliveries - shoves costs up.
Transport companies, manufacturers and wholesalers are broke thanks to Covid. The supermarkets won't absorb the costs. Which means significant food price inflation coming unless something changes.
I'm worried about her.
Now agency drivers are on PAYE once an agency driver has hit 12 weeks pay parity rules hit which means the agency driver needs to be receiving the same pay (and conditions) as equivalent permanent workers (i.e. drivers).
And the past 15 years has been spent trying to keep agency driver costs as low as possible. IR35 is very much a double hit, firstly drivers cost more to receive the same take home pay, secondly you need to pay them what permanent staff are paid (which is often way more)..
Oh and there are very few people looking at training drivers - even if you could find people willing to do the job, the insurance for a young inexperienced driver is such few companies will employ them.
I think you just have to hope that they will take a step back at some point and reassess exactly what they've turned into. It's like the scene from Bridge Over the River Kwai when Alec Guinness realises just what it is he's turned into, you have to hope they have the same moment.
The alternative is a biomass boiler. Either way, we're going to be burning *something* until someone buys me a new roof to put the solar panels on
If we decide on domestic standards, whether blocking antibiotic usage, hormones or anything else then there's no reason in my eyes that should only apply to domestic production, it should apply to imports too. I am agreeing with you on that point, I never disagreed with you on that point. If others standards don't meet ours I am OK with it not being allowed to import at any price, let alone having tariffs.
Tariffs are a different matter, that should apply to those goods that are allowed to be imported and do meet our standards.
As for housing, your argument about ratios is not that important since as others said to you straight away, household profiles in that time have changed too. We have a lot of retired couples etc whose kids have moved out still owning the family homes their kids lived in, meaning that later generations are incapable of getting a good home as there's a shortage of good homes. This isn't helped then by those NIMBYs who want to only approve the building of shit "affordable" homes and not more good homes like their own.
Also housing ratios have changed, so you have more eg divorced or otherwise single people living in houses (again some of these now in large homes blocking them from those with families) etc etc - we don't live the same lives as we did fifty years ago and there is clearly a major shortage and if there wasn't then newly constructed homes wouldn't be getting bought straight from plan so rapidly.
I've just started Niall Ferguson's new book 'Doom: the politics of catastrophe'. No doubt these kinds of cults will feature.
On a professional (as opposed to personal) level what really yanked my chain - and it really did, although I didn't rise to it - was her claim that I'm doing "nothing" where it's literally my job to do deliver new strategic infrastructure. I'm looking at developing new business in blue hydrogen and nuclear fusion at the moment.
In 30 years time the self-indulgent narcissists in XR will try and take the credit for it whilst those who slaved away trying to fix it will be branded bystanders.
Piss. Boiled.
Meanwhile, deaths are now down to early March 2020 levels.
Also meanwhile, Europe seems to be opening up.
Fucking Drakeford. (Note I am only singling him out because it's in Wales; Boris and Nicola are no better).
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere I wanted in London, a house on Fitzroy Square would be near the top of the list. Ian McEwan lives in a house on Fitzroy Sq. As does Griff Rhy Jones
Also, the official exorcist for the Diocese of London used to live there. I met him one morning when I was tripping on acid. In his house, when I was about 19. I think we freaked each other out
It's not the best person to meet, when you're on LSD. An actual exorcist
And Ricardo was talking about comparative advantage with respect to other activities within the same country, and how that related to beneficial trade between countries - explicitly not competitive advantage between countries.
Indeed he argued that trade was beneficial to both countries even in the case where one was more efficient than the other at production in every single sector.
However these things sometimes heal. I lost a good friend for a few years, due to us both being dicks, but somehow we patched it up and now it's fine
I have had an electric Kia now for 7000 miles alongside my old fiat. I wouldn't be keen on having both cars electric, much as I like the e-niro. I will probably go hybrid when the fiat finally packs up.
I can definitely be a dick.
Used to cage a room at in foreign student dorm in the summer, very cheap (included meal ticket for cafeteria or whatever they call it) and convenient. Did get woken up EAR-LY in the morning by the rooster in residence at the Coram Fields children's zoo! Not that I minded. There's also a very interesting old graveyard nearby.
Little known fact: much of Bloomsbury is built on marshy land, and the marshes underneath still make it one of the foggiest parts of central London, as they exhale their ancient vapours
Also, I also used to score heroin from a famous surgeon's daughter on Mecklenburgh Square, but you probably already predicted that
What next, multinationals having to pay their taxes ? The worlds gone mad.
Good piece here by AEP on the transformation in the energy market:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/20/ieas-damascene-conversion-net-zero-makes-us-richer-cuts-energy/
Hugo Gye
@HugoGye
·
19m
Another cheery stat - the pace of vaccinations, registered as a 7-day average, is now at its highest since that bumper fortnight in March. Happy Friday.
This one looks like the perfect storm as it hits the supermarkets with their own transport as much as it hits their suppliers into them.
Presumably, it would be pretty horrible to invade througha tunnel. As a defender, you can wait until there's 26 miles of troops in there, then block up one end and start shelling the other. However, once you have invaded, it does make supply line issues rather easier.
Hopefully this will never be tested!
The BBC does love to talk about itself.
If you mean about organic etc then I'm very liberal about lifestyle choices. I don't think its the government's job to impose lifestyle choices on people, it should be a free choice: you want to be vegan, or kosher, or organic or whatever else floats your boat then that's your choice. I don't want the law to stop your choices, and I just don't want you or the law to stop me from making my own choices.
You should make your choices, I should make my own, and its not the states job to pick your lifestyle over mine or vice-versa.
So if say Aussie imports operate on a level playing field and meet the same welfare etc requirements of UK laws as they aren't hormone treated, then why should they be subject to tariffs?
Tunnels are surprisingly hard to destroy. They ended up with a design where a nuke would be detonated in a specially constructed chamber that would collapse a section of tunnel to contain the radioactivity - as in nuclear testing. It would literally seal itself in.
Someone joked about setting it up so that it would seal on one side. Turing the tunnel towards France into a giant, nuclear powered cannon. Anything in the tunnel would pop out at the French end at a fair old rate....
Anyway - thanks and things to do.