Ukranian Ambassador says he is now in talks with the UK government who are considering sending Royal Navy warships to the Black Sea to break the Russian blockade
Splashing more money around? I thought the idea was to reduce inflation, not increase it.
I remember noting last year that Biden chief advisor saying that splashing money around, even if not well targeted was fine because the west had solved inflation and any blip would be transitory.
Giving £20 to those on benefits and UC is not going to make any noticeable difference to inflation.
It is increasing the money supply, unless there are proposals to reduce spending/increase taxation to compensate.
Oh and a venue to add to @Leon's excellent list: Piedmont in northern Italy. Absolutely glorious largely forgotten region with the most stunning scenery, superb food, beautiful towns, glorious coastline with beaches. And SUN.
It's also easily drivable from southern Britain. Go down the east side of France through the Vosges and Jura, over the Alps. An incredible drive that is a million times better than the North Coast 500 without the traffic.
There are places on that route that will make you weep with pleasure.
A useful little piece of travel wisdom I have learned over the years.
Anywhere that is REALLY famous for its skiing probably has glorious landscapes that are wonderful in summer yet full of cheap (skiing) accommodation that they give away for peanuts in the summer
This is true of multiple places across Europe (but not Switzerland, which is demonically expensive always)
Ukranian Ambassador says he is now in talks with the UK government who are considering sending Royal Navy warships to the Black Sea to break the Russian blockade
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 53m Boris Johnson believed & believes his conduct at these events fell within the rules. The police only disagree with his assessment re his birthday. Given the police agree with what he said, it's silly to pretend Boris was "obviously lying".
So, basically, the argument is that he had not a fucking clue what the laws he was signing off on meant in detail or how they impacted on the most basic of human interactions - like having a drink after work with mates.
Literally, no idea what the rest of the country was doing thanks to his own legislation.
So - he's a liar or he's the biggest idiot to ever sit in the cabinet room.
I think that's a false dichotomy. I would go for 'the bastard's both.'
Ukranian Ambassador says he is now in talks with the UK government who are considering sending Royal Navy warships to the Black Sea to break the Russian blockade
Panorama — actors' voices were used but I hope for civil servants' sake that those were not genuine head shots. People are recognisable even from behind if you already know them.
Ukranian Ambassador says he is now in talks with the UK government who are considering sending Royal Navy warships to the Black Sea to break the Russian blockade
Georgia Primary - 7.00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) = 12.00 midnight UK
Alabama Primary - 7.00 pm Central Daylight Time (CDT) = 1.00 am UK
Arkansas Primary - 7.30 pm CDT = 1.30 am UK
Texas Runoff Primary - 7.00 PM CDT / 7.00 PM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) = 1.00 am / 2.00 am UK > note that MDT is only El Paso & few other far west TX counties
Oh and a venue to add to @Leon's excellent list: Piedmont in northern Italy. Absolutely glorious largely forgotten region with the most stunning scenery, superb food, beautiful towns, glorious coastline with beaches. And SUN.
It's also easily drivable from southern Britain. Go down the east side of France through the Vosges and Jura, over the Alps. An incredible drive that is a million times better than the North Coast 500 without the traffic.
There are places on that route that will make you weep with pleasure.
A useful little piece of travel wisdom I have learned over the years.
Anywhere that is REALLY famous for its skiing probably has glorious landscapes that are wonderful in summer yet full of cheap (skiing) accommodation that they give away for peanuts in the summer
This is true of multiple places across Europe (but not Switzerland, which is demonically expensive always)
Schladming is stunningly beautiful and very inexpensive in September/October. Just after the school holidays and just before the skiing.
Ukranian Ambassador says he is now in talks with the UK government who are considering sending Royal Navy warships to the Black Sea to break the Russian blockade
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Not cheap though.
Cancale is the place I'm most fond of for oysters. Sit on the harbour wall, in the sun, and soak up the French atmosphere. C'est magnifique la.
Cancale is great for buying a bucket of oysters and beasting through them chucking the shells over the harbour wall to join the pile.
Dinard is great in high summer with lots of pretty people and a lovely beach to eat and drink around. Dinan for more civilised olde worlde feel.
I remember many years ago stumbling upon Riquewihr and staying there the night before ambling across the Jura, through places like Besancon and Pontarlier, with the Alps growing on the horizon. Then tackling one of the Alpine passes: the Grand St Bernard I think before dropping into Italy.
Is it worth my watching the Panorama thing a little later?
I would say no. There is nothing we didn't know. Boris popped into some events, but the staffers were rat arsed ar every opportunity and now trying to say well he never said no.
As i said was the case from the start, Boris clearly nod nod wink wink make sure you destress chaps. Then half the program has been about Boris background and Ukraine.
But that’s the point in itself. Whilst Shapps and Daily Mail try to distract from the actual crime with how many minutes and seconds Boris was actually there, he made the law, looked at us eye to eye in the press conferences to observe it, but instigated or turned blind eye to downing street law breaking he should have stopped
That has been my point from the start.
It’s a great point. The whole world should believe you. It’s spot on. Not the seconds he was there, but the fact he didn’t say WOAH! What the riff are you doing. Not this week. I’ve locked the country down, we just have to wait like everyone else, especially this building, we need to lead by example - I, Boris, at least smart enough to know we are being watched, easily grassed up, and the utter disaster for me if we don’t lead by example at this time.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Maybe I have a different standard of rainy days. I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening. Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
So, I've watched first ten mins or so of Panorama doc and... hmm... it seems to me that this is partly an attempt by the BBC to make Laura K a 'personality'. The centre of the story and the key narrator. Lot of shots of her getting new info by email and asking questions on smartphones in the street.
I am a cynic. But this seems to me to be partly about lining up ducks for her take over of Andrew Marr show in autumn.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Maybe I have a different standard of rainy days. I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening. Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
I think SeanT would be very pleased that he gave such apparently good advice
Trouble is you write so eloquently you’ve made me quite homesick, even as i sit here on the starlit and beautiful Epirot coastline, i miss Blighty. I got nostalgic looking at the photos of the new Elizabeth Line, today
It is a bittersweet thing, extended travel. Have a great time in Falmouth
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Maybe I have a different standard of rainy days. I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening. Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
Climate has changed markedly in the last 10-15 years. Devon fields are divided by banks = stone walls covered with earth, with trees on top. Till 15 years ago you planted or gapped up the top with small seedling trees in winter, it rained all summer, job done. That no longer applies, there's a summer long drought and 60%+ of them fail to establish.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
It wasn't even a Panorama program, there was no investigate journalism. It was just loads of Laura K runnign around doing taking phone calls and a load of boring interviews with politicial types saying Boris nice guy, bad guy, flawed, etc, and a couple of civil servants saying well yes we got trashed regularly because stressful job and the boss didn't stop us.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Maybe I have a different standard of rainy days. I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening. Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
Exactly this. As someone who has had a majority of his lifetime's holidays in the UK, I cannot think of a single week that was miserable because it was washed entirely out (the odd day when you ventured at the wrong time, yes). The UKs changeability means you might have 1-2 days where you favour indoor things, but full on 8-8 rain in the summer is a relative rarity and you get at least a few dry hours most days.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
It wasn't even a Panorama program, there was no investigate journalism. It was just loads of Laura K runnign around doing taking phone calls and a load of boring interviews with politicial types saying Boris nice guy, bad guy, flawed, etc, and a couple of civil servants saying well yes we got trashed regularly because stressful job and the boss didn't stop us.
All those newspapers who have been promising heatwave as just around the corner, at very least nice weather for the Jubilee weekend, should be taken into a court room to face a Black Cap.
But two details stand out from the accompanying promos etc.
1. Coming into the office the next morning to find bottles strewn everywhere and bins overflowing with left-overs.
2. The fact that people who attempted to question whether it was at all wise to party during lockdown were mocked and ridiculed.
The staffers came off a lot worse in many respects than Boris. While he acted like a parent telling his kids its ok to a drink and a smoke underage with a couple of mates while they go out and have one for the road with them, the kids raided the offy and invited the whole school year around to have a massive party that got out of control and got into argument with the plod about the noise....then the of course Boris didn't bollox them, just said its ok the next weekend.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
BBC Tory Bias
Broadcasting Biased to the Conservatives
I don't think it was pro- Johnson and anti- Starmer. It was this ludicrous fear of partisanship that panics the BBC. The Tories have been very naughty and we have reported it. OMG we have to balance that out. Johnson was a little bit naughty on lots of occasions, but Starmer was very, very naughty at one event. Phew, balance!
She was very gooey eyed about the Great Boris at the start, as was IDS later on.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
BBC Tory Bias
Broadcasting Biased to the Conservatives
I don't think it was pro- Johnson and anti- Starmer. It was this ludicrous fear of partisanship that panics the BBC. The Tories have been very naughty and we have reported it. OMG we have to balance that out. Johnson was a little bit naughty on lots of occasions, but Starmer was very, very naughty at one event. Phew, balance!
She was very gooey eyed about the Great Boris at the start, as was IDS later on.
IDS was surprisingly imo the best political interviewee, giving pluses and minuses with unhurried gravitas.
@dw_politics JUST IN: Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been officially nominated for a seat on the supervisory board of the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom.
But two details stand out from the accompanying promos etc.
1. Coming into the office the next morning to find bottles strewn everywhere and bins overflowing with left-overs.
2. The fact that people who attempted to question whether it was at all wise to party during lockdown were mocked and ridiculed.
An hour of my life I won't get back. In the grand scheme of things I don't really think it forced home either of your two points. It was all rather meh. I learned nothing.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
BBC Tory Bias
Broadcasting Biased to the Conservatives
I don't think it was pro- Johnson and anti- Starmer. It was this ludicrous fear of partisanship that panics the BBC. The Tories have been very naughty and we have reported it. OMG we have to balance that out. Johnson was a little bit naughty on lots of occasions, but Starmer was very, very naughty at one event. Phew, balance!
She was very gooey eyed about the Great Boris at the start, as was IDS later on.
Trouble is that sequence matters, and 45 minutes of Boris and the Number 10 team was trumped at the end by Starmer in Durham. And that is what happened in real life as well.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
BBC Tory Bias
Broadcasting Biased to the Conservatives
I don't think it was pro- Johnson and anti- Starmer. It was this ludicrous fear of partisanship that panics the BBC. The Tories have been very naughty and we have reported it. OMG we have to balance that out. Johnson was a little bit naughty on lots of occasions, but Starmer was very, very naughty at one event. Phew, balance!
She was very gooey eyed about the Great Boris at the start, as was IDS later on.
IDS was surprisingly imo the best political interviewee, giving pluses and minuses with unhurried gravitas.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
It wasn't even a Panorama program, there was no investigate journalism. It was just loads of Laura K runnign around doing taking phone calls and a load of boring interviews with politicial types saying Boris nice guy, bad guy, flawed, etc, and a couple of civil servants saying well yes we got trashed regularly because stressful job and the boss didn't stop us.
it was a very enjoyable light catch up on a ridiculous history. I enjoyed best the anonymous contributor who emphasised, apparently without irony, the importance of 'transparency'.
The stuff about Labour felt like a slightly misplaced filler; but if anything managed to convey, I think with justification, that the No 10 stuff was a systematic effort at trashing the rules by absurd self regarding elites, and Beergate was something of no importance.
@dw_politics JUST IN: Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been officially nominated for a seat on the supervisory board of the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom.
Sir John Denham famously begged Charles I not to execute George Wither, 'for so long as Wither lived, Denham could not be accounted the worst poet in England.'
Johnson must be similarly praying for the continued health of Gerhard Schröder.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Maybe I have a different standard of rainy days. I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening. Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
Thanks for the evocative description, Cookie. I've got to know Cornwall a bit as my very elderly uncle is in a care home in Hayle, near St Ives, and as it's a trek to visit him I've taken the chance to look round a bit. I like St Ives. which mixes scenery with tourism with actually being a place where you can imagine living, which I feel central Penzance gets wrong - it's felt like a tourist trap on a vertiginous hill. He used to live on the outskirts, which was nice enough, and of course the coastline is amazing.
Hayle wins the prize for the most unwelcoming tea shop ever. I looked in and asked for a cuppa.
Assistant: "We don't have tea." Me: "But you're a tea shop!" Assistant eyes me with silent indifference, as you might look at a seagull dropping. Me: "How about coffee, perhaps?" Assistant: "We don't have coffee." Pause. "The hot water's broken." Me: "Will it be repaired soon? Assistant: "Dunno. But there's cans of drink in the cabinet over there."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Laura seems to think Starmer and Rayner are guiltier than Boris. Her analysis of Beergate was very damning.
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
BBC Tory Bias
Broadcasting Biased to the Conservatives
I don't think it was pro- Johnson and anti- Starmer. It was this ludicrous fear of partisanship that panics the BBC. The Tories have been very naughty and we have reported it. OMG we have to balance that out. Johnson was a little bit naughty on lots of occasions, but Starmer was very, very naughty at one event. Phew, balance!
She was very gooey eyed about the Great Boris at the start, as was IDS later on.
Trouble is that sequence matters, and 45 minutes of Boris and the Number 10 team was trumped at the end by Starmer in Durham. And that is what happened in real life as well.
Beergate could well be the bigger story as Johnson survives and Starmer falls.
How does it actually work? Do they cap fuel costs, standing charges, or both together?
Because I am being brutally hammered on the standing charge when I leave my fixed rate next month, and that's what's going to be painful for me.
Sadly the standing charges are exempt from any control, price cap or otherwise. The most recent rise was due to the government recouping the money lost when all the other small companies went belly up last year. I think it also includes money for rental of equipment etc.
I've just watched Panorama. As others have said, nothing new there, no surprises, and a vehicle for Laura K's ego.
However, I imagined for a minute that I hadn't heard it all before. That all this was absolutely new to me. What would I have thought then? I reckon I'd have been absolutely gobsmacked at the misbehaviour/law-breaking at No. 10 during the pandemic, and wondered how on earth these people, who made the rules in the first place, were still in power. The contrast between what went on at No. 10 and the daily press conferences from Johnson, Whitty and Vallance imploring us to do x, y and z to "save lives and protect the NHS" is, I reckon, fairly unforgiveable.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
Damp squib. The problem was setting expectations too high.
Also- what's the threshold to make Johnson go?
Bad stuff happened in No 10 on BoJo's watch. He... at the very least... hasn't been open and honest about what he knew.
Any other Premier would have gone already.
Given that, we (as a demos) have a problem. I think I sort of get why so many wanted him to stay... He is a rat, but doing necessary desirable things that needed rat-like cunning to achieve.
But having waved through so much bad JuJu since 2019, it's hard to say "thus far, but no further". And reporting more of the same is inevitably a bit of a damp squib.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
He loves Gullivers Land, but he's getting a bit old for some of it. But I fear he's a bit too young for most of AT, and it might be better next year.
He *really* loves staying in hotels, but thankfully he things Travellodge's are 'posh'. So it doesn't have to be too expensive...
Edit: and another advantage to York: he can go back to where he ran a marathon in his mum's tum!
(She did a marathon before she realised she was pregnant. In fact, the marathon made her wonder if she was, as she felt a little odd during it.)
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Maybe I have a different standard of rainy days. I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening. Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
Thanks for the evocative description, Cookie. I've got to know Cornwall a bit as my very elderly uncle is in a care home in Hayle, near St Ives, and as it's a trek to visit him I've taken the chance to look round a bit. I like St Ives. which mixes scenery with tourism with actually being a place where you can imagine living, which I feel central Penzance gets wrong - it's felt like a tourist trap on a vertiginous hill. He used to live on the outskirts, which was nice enough, and of course the coastline is amazing.
Hayle wins the prize for the most unwelcoming tea shop ever. I looked in and asked for a cuppa.
Assistant: "We don't have tea." Me: "But you're a tea shop!" Assistant eyes me with silent indifference, as you might look at a seagull dropping. Me: "How about coffee, perhaps?" Assistant: "We don't have coffee." Pause. "The hot water's broken." Me: "Will it be repaired soon? Assistant: "Dunno. But there's cans of drink in the cabinet over there."
A minister in the making if she had drinks in the cabinet...
I assume it is an envy thing. If I could afford a helicopter I would choose it over using the roads.
I get annoyed with rich people not knowing what to do with their wealth so waste it on diamond encrusted hub caps and the like rather than using their money for useful stuff, but I don't begrudge them buying a big house, boat, helicopter, etc or doing stuff that makes their life easier.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
He loves Gullivers Land, but he's getting a bit old for some of it. But I fear he's a bit too young for most of AT, and it might be better next year.
He *really* loves staying in hotels, but thankfully he things Travellodge's are 'posh'. So it doesn't have to be too expensive...
I haven't been to Alton Towers for years, but it always struck me the rides were more aimed at older kids.
I remember doing a ghost walk in York that was a lot of fun.
I agree. 89% for strike action, 11% against, on a turnout of 71%, is pretty overwhelming. Even Boris would die for that result. Makes the political views of the union's leaders fairly irrelevant.
I assume it is an envy thing. If I could afford a helicopter I would choose it over using the roads.
I get annoyed with rich people not knowing what to do with their wealth so waste it on diamond encrusted hub caps and the like rather than using their money for useful stuff, but I don't begrudge them buying a big house, boat, helicopter, etc or doing stuff that makes their life easier.
Isn't that just the Mirror chiselling away at their 'out of touch rich bastard Tories' narrative?
I assume it is an envy thing. If I could afford a helicopter I would choose it over using the roads.
I get annoyed with rich people not knowing what to do with their wealth so waste it on diamond encrusted hub caps and the like rather than using their money for useful stuff, but I don't begrudge them buying a big house, boat, helicopter, etc or doing stuff that makes their life easier.
I have made over 700 helicopter flights in my career including one emergency ditching in the Mediterranean and another emergency landing on a platform in Norway. They are noisy, cramped and very uncomfortable and I can safely say that if I never got on another chopper in my life it would not bother me at all.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
Or does he like ghost walks? There are some great ones in York.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
Or does he like ghost walks? There are some great ones in York.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
He loves Gullivers Land, but he's getting a bit old for some of it. But I fear he's a bit too young for most of AT, and it might be better next year.
He *really* loves staying in hotels, but thankfully he things Travellodge's are 'posh'. So it doesn't have to be too expensive...
I haven't been to Alton Towers for years, but it always struck me the rides were more aimed at older kids.
I remember doing a ghost walk in York that was a lot of fun.
A key thing to consider about Alton Towers is his height - how much would he actually be able to go on?
I assume it is an envy thing. If I could afford a helicopter I would choose it over using the roads.
I get annoyed with rich people not knowing what to do with their wealth so waste it on diamond encrusted hub caps and the like rather than using their money for useful stuff, but I don't begrudge them buying a big house, boat, helicopter, etc or doing stuff that makes their life easier.
I have made over 700 helicopter flights in my career including one emergency ditching in the Mediterranean and another emergency landing on a platform in Norway. They are noisy, cramped and very uncomfortable and I can safely say that if I never got on another chopper in my life it would not bother me at all.
I've flown on a helicopter twice, last time in 2005.
Pilot was wonderfully honest.
'These things aren't like planes, something goes wrong, and you're fucked.'
Edinburgh Labour's plans for a minority council administration have been approved by the party's executive committee, meaning it will go to vote at full council on Thursday
Tonight the Lib Dems have confirmed they'll vote for this.
LibDems confirm while supporting Labour - most likely in exchange for 'non political' committee posts - the group will "continue as a robust and constructive opposition party".
Cllr Louise Young: “Where we agree with Labour councillors, we will vote with them... 8:59 PM · May 24, 2022·Twitter Web App Tweet your reply Donald Turvill @donturvLDR · 17m Replying to @donturvLDR "Where we disagree and believe they are taking the wrong approach, we will say so and vote accordingly."
Says Lab are "open in recognising some of the mistakes of the past five years" and "have promised to reach out and find consensus with other groups". Donald Turvill @donturvLDR · 7m SNP furious at the prospect of Lab taking control with 13/63 councillors - leader Adam McVey said such an outcome would "undermine" the election result and force his group, who won most seats (19), into opposition.
I detest Corbyn and his acolytes with avengeance. Nonetheless, I am not quite on the same page with you on this point. SF are the biggest single democratically elected party in both the North and the South. If Ian Paisley Senior could work with genuine terrorist McGuinness, what's your problem?
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, go forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
You're from Cornwall, no? People often feel blasé about where they're from. But objectively, Cornwall is a special place. To cross the Tamar is to step into another country. Coves and tin mines. The bright, wet, prow of the country, cutting into the sea and covered in salt spray. The heathy, cider-soaked finis terræ. Wonderful.
The wife, daughters and I are off to Falmouth on Saturday. I cannot wait. We've done Cornwall the last six summers, in the Polzeath area. Always want to try somewhere new but cannot bring ourselves not to have the same holiday as we've just had. Especially now the kids know other kids who go the same week. So this year, we're going twice - once in August, once in June.
Maybe we've been lucky - but in six years we've had fewer than six rainy days. Maybe being from Manchester I have a different standard of what a rainy day is.
Cornwall is definitely better in the sun. But if it rains, you just have to embrace it.
And some years, we've tried France. And it's rained. And that really is shit.
Thankyou! You’re the first person to give me a real sense of why a British family might want to go to Cornwall, repeatedly, for a holiday, despite the weather (tho I suggest you have been a tad lucky with 6 rainy days in 6 years!)
I guess, being Cornish and visiting it all my life and having all my extended family there (and living there a few times for a few months each) I take it for granted, perhaps.
I will now defend Cornwall’s food. If anywhere has had a foodie revolution it is Cornwall. The oysters! Love them
Had a couple of holidays there as a kid and loved it - and remember it as an unusually warm and sunny place. First time we took the car down on the old Motorail service, which seemed an impossibly sophisticated idea - second time the traffic driving down those single carriageway roads was an ordeal.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
He loves Gullivers Land, but he's getting a bit old for some of it. But I fear he's a bit too young for most of AT, and it might be better next year.
He *really* loves staying in hotels, but thankfully he things Travellodge's are 'posh'. So it doesn't have to be too expensive...
Edit: and another advantage to York: he can go back to where he ran a marathon in his mum's tum!
(She did a marathon before she realised she was pregnant. In fact, the marathon made her wonder if she was, as she felt a little odd during it.)
Yorvik, National Rail Museum, Bettys Tea Rooms. Its a no brainer vs the synthetic fun of a theme park surely.
So: choice time. Should I take my son (8 years old) to Alton Towers for two days or York for three?
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Well I think the obvious question is does your son really like rollercoasters? And happy to stand in big long lines? Or not really that fussed and hating queuing?
He loves Gullivers Land, but he's getting a bit old for some of it. But I fear he's a bit too young for most of AT, and it might be better next year.
He *really* loves staying in hotels, but thankfully he things Travellodge's are 'posh'. So it doesn't have to be too expensive...
Edit: and another advantage to York: he can go back to where he ran a marathon in his mum's tum!
(She did a marathon before she realised she was pregnant. In fact, the marathon made her wonder if she was, as she felt a little odd during it.)
If you ever take him to Lunnon, stay in the Hilton where you cross the Thames in a private ferry.
I assume it is an envy thing. If I could afford a helicopter I would choose it over using the roads.
I get annoyed with rich people not knowing what to do with their wealth so waste it on diamond encrusted hub caps and the like rather than using their money for useful stuff, but I don't begrudge them buying a big house, boat, helicopter, etc or doing stuff that makes their life easier.
I have made over 700 helicopter flights in my career including one emergency ditching in the Mediterranean and another emergency landing on a platform in Norway. They are noisy, cramped and very uncomfortable and I can safely say that if I never got on another chopper in my life it would not bother me at all.
I guess you can have too much of a good thing!
I'm the same with hotels. Having spent so many years visiting 4* and 5* hotels for work that all look the same, when I go on holiday I want a nice pub or B&B and on my cycling trips we found some crackers. My wife on the other hand wants the posh city hotel because she hasn't spent a good part of her life in them.
Comments
Falmouth is fab.
Anywhere that is REALLY famous for its skiing probably has glorious landscapes that are wonderful in summer yet full of cheap (skiing) accommodation that they give away for peanuts in the summer
This is true of multiple places across Europe (but not Switzerland, which is demonically expensive always)
https://news.usni.org/2022/02/28/turkey-closes-bosphorus-dardanelles-straits-to-warships
I cannot see why they would change it.
Of course the BBC hater Dorries might find something to moan about but it was a very fair look at things and wasn’t some Johnson attack job .
Georgia Primary - 7.00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) = 12.00 midnight UK
Alabama Primary - 7.00 pm Central Daylight Time (CDT) = 1.00 am UK
Arkansas Primary - 7.30 pm CDT = 1.30 am UK
Texas Runoff Primary - 7.00 PM CDT / 7.00 PM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) = 1.00 am / 2.00 am UK
> note that MDT is only El Paso & few other far west TX counties
Dinard is great in high summer with lots of pretty people and a lovely beach to eat and drink around. Dinan for more civilised olde worlde feel.
La Baule for south of France in north of France.
https://www.francethisway.com/places/riquewihr.php
Oh my. Great times.
I don't count, for example, the day when, looking at the forecast, we decided to skip our morning amiable trudge around the farm and get to Holywell Bay sharpish, getting there for 10 and giving us three hours in the surf, the weather fresh, white clouds scudding furiously across a blue sky; not warm, but warm enough to play in the sea and dig channels and fly a kite, before deciding at one we'd got away with enough and going for a massive pub lunch - where it warmed up enough to bask in a beer garden for an hour - before heading onto a playground with a massive multi-person trampoline, which the kids got ten minutes out of before the heavens opened. Absolutely torrential. I have never been so wet while clothed. But by that time it was almost three and we'd had a brilliant day. It rained solidly for another four hours, but an hour of that was getting back to the farm, an hour getting changed and dried, an hour making tea ... before improbably we got a lovely, sparkly fresh evening.
Now there was probably two weeks worth of rain in that downpour. But I don't consider the day a washout, because we had an absolutely brilliant time outdoors, and the rain could be worked around. I'd happily take a week of days like that.
And the distance - well, I remember @Seant telling me before we went for the first time back in 2016 that the distance was part of the fun of the place; you leave urban behind at Bristol and then there is Somerset, Devon, with brooding, Saturnine Dartmoor, then you cross the Tamar into another world and celebrate with a pint and a pasty. You may still have an hour and a half to go but the journey is part of the excitement of the trip.
Properly excited for Saturday now. A 5am start, as is traditional...
This programme was more about Laura than Partygate. Typical Panorama rubbish.
I am a cynic. But this seems to me to be partly about lining up ducks for her take over of Andrew Marr show in autumn.
I think SeanT would be very pleased that he gave such apparently good advice
Trouble is you write so eloquently you’ve made me quite homesick, even as i sit here on the starlit and beautiful Epirot coastline, i miss Blighty. I got nostalgic looking at the photos of the new Elizabeth Line, today
It is a bittersweet thing, extended travel. Have a great time in Falmouth
I swear I saw a flicker of amusement on her face, too, when it was suggested that drinks started at 4pm.
Broadcasting Biased to the Conservatives
Really nice to be on here and discuss something other than politics. I should try it more often
A journalist expresses surprise that 'wine time' starts at 4pm on a Friday. That is genuine LOL.
The surprise is of course that it didn't start at 11am.
A Murdoch loss: Dissecting election media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANeqEi0xcxw
An awful lot of things suddenly made much more sense when I discovered our lords and masters were smashed during the pandemic.
There’s nothing quite like it outside the UK, I think,
But two details stand out from the accompanying promos etc.
1. Coming into the office the next morning to find bottles strewn everywhere and bins overflowing with left-overs.
2. The fact that people who attempted to question whether it was at all wise to party during lockdown were mocked and ridiculed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/61572750
She was very gooey eyed about the Great Boris at the start, as was IDS later on.
JUST IN: Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been officially nominated for a seat on the supervisory board of the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom.
https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1529127380173959168
Schröder claims he turned it down:
https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2022-05/gerhard-schroeder-verzichtet-auf-nominierung-fuer-gazprom-aufsichtsrat
The stuff about Labour felt like a slightly misplaced filler; but if anything managed to convey, I think with justification, that the No 10 stuff was a systematic effort at trashing the rules by absurd self regarding elites, and Beergate was something of no importance.
Johnson must be similarly praying for the continued health of Gerhard Schröder.
Hayle wins the prize for the most unwelcoming tea shop ever. I looked in and asked for a cuppa.
Assistant: "We don't have tea."
Me: "But you're a tea shop!"
Assistant eyes me with silent indifference, as you might look at a seagull dropping.
Me: "How about coffee, perhaps?"
Assistant: "We don't have coffee." Pause. "The hot water's broken."
Me: "Will it be repaired soon?
Assistant: "Dunno. But there's cans of drink in the cabinet over there."
It shouldn't, but it might.
However, I imagined for a minute that I hadn't heard it all before. That all this was absolutely new to me. What would I have thought then? I reckon I'd have been absolutely gobsmacked at the misbehaviour/law-breaking at No. 10 during the pandemic, and wondered how on earth these people, who made the rules in the first place, were still in power. The contrast between what went on at No. 10 and the daily press conferences from Johnson, Whitty and Vallance imploring us to do x, y and z to "save lives and protect the NHS" is, I reckon, fairly unforgiveable.
https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/1529155632284188674
Revealed: government did encourage Premier League to approve Newcastle takeover
Extensive efforts made to encourage Saudi-led buyout
Prime minister has said government had no role at any point
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/may/24/government-did-encourage-premier-league-to-approve-saudi-newcastle-takeover
He's never been to either, but I've been to both many times.
Oh and Jorvik.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61573206
Bad stuff happened in No 10 on BoJo's watch.
He... at the very least... hasn't been open and honest about what he knew.
Any other Premier would have gone already.
Given that, we (as a demos) have a problem. I think I sort of get why so many wanted him to stay... He is a rat, but doing necessary desirable things that needed rat-like cunning to achieve.
But having waved through so much bad JuJu since 2019, it's hard to say "thus far, but no further". And reporting more of the same is inevitably a bit of a damp squib.
He *really* loves staying in hotels, but thankfully he things Travellodge's are 'posh'. So it doesn't have to be too expensive...
Edit: and another advantage to York: he can go back to where he ran a marathon in his mum's tum!
(She did a marathon before she realised she was pregnant. In fact, the marathon made her wonder if she was, as she felt a little odd during it.)
If you ignore how terrible a person he is, you can see just how shit he is at his job.
I get annoyed with rich people not knowing what to do with their wealth so waste it on diamond encrusted hub caps and the like rather than using their money for useful stuff, but I don't begrudge them buying a big house, boat, helicopter, etc or doing stuff that makes their life easier.
I remember doing a ghost walk in York that was a lot of fun.
National Railway Museum? There are also things like day trips on a steam train form there.
Pilot was wonderfully honest.
'These things aren't like planes, something goes wrong, and you're fucked.'
Not been keen on using helicopters since.
Tonight the Lib Dems have confirmed they'll vote for this.
LibDems confirm while supporting Labour - most likely in exchange for 'non political' committee posts - the group will "continue as a robust and constructive opposition party".
Cllr Louise Young: “Where we agree with Labour councillors, we will vote with them...
8:59 PM · May 24, 2022·Twitter Web App
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"Where we disagree and believe they are taking the wrong approach, we will say so and vote accordingly."
Says Lab are "open in recognising some of the mistakes of the past five years" and "have promised to reach out and find consensus with other groups".
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SNP furious at the prospect of Lab taking control with 13/63 councillors - leader Adam McVey said such an outcome would "undermine" the election result and force his group, who won most seats (19), into opposition.
First time we took the car down on the old Motorail service, which seemed an impossibly sophisticated idea - second time the traffic driving down those single carriageway roads was an ordeal.
The suspect, a resident of Ohio, allegedly sought to have Iraqi operatives smuggled into the US from Mexico for the operation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61569650
(Or did last time I looked)
I'm the same with hotels. Having spent so many years visiting 4* and 5* hotels for work that all look the same, when I go on holiday I want a nice pub or B&B and on my cycling trips we found some crackers. My wife on the other hand wants the posh city hotel because she hasn't spent a good part of her life in them.