There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
Artistic director argues that ‘theatres do not deal with historical reality’
Nothing wrong with that. It depends on the type of film/play you are making - an attempt at gritty realism would benefit from versimilitude as much as possible, but that is not always the intent.
The thing is, and we all know this, that the history will be entirely incidental to the lecture they want to deliver on gender identity.
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Sean Thomas Knox has also had to delay a picnic.
sean thomas knox @thomasknox · 3m Just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
I find it a remarkable coincidence how often that sean thomas knox and Leon are doing the same things at the same time.
Sean seemed to follow Leon across the world for 3 months continually yet they claim to have never been seen in the same room together....
Maybe Knox is the friend that Leon was having his picnic with. Both singing from the same hymnsheet is the mark of a healthy and well organised friendship.
I actually think I saw him in the dreamy mountains of Gnishik, Armenia, about a month ago. I was quite shaken. Of all the places, there?
He claimed he was there on a spiritual journey to find himself
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
Until it wasn't genuinely shit. When you run the *only* profitable intercity railway in the world you are not shit.
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Have you forgotten the 40 degree heatwave? Pretty sure things were put off then too. I wrote a report on our cricket match last saturday, suggesting that the day was too nice to play cricket -24 deg, cloudless sky, glorious. Best enjoyed with a cool drink in the garden, not playing cricket.
Clearly you're not playing village cricket correctly if there's a lack of crossover between those two activities.
We were very happy to wrap up the win at least an hour early and head to the bar...
(No idea why this is upside down, the pic is fine on the PC)
Were you playing Australia?
Congratulations, you are the third person to crack that joke.
Whilst doing the hoovering earlier this morning, I ended up singing Adam Ant's "Prince Charming", but replacing all the lyrics with "Rishi Sunak" or "Rishi, Rishi Sunak".
I thought it reasonably on-topic to mention this
If only you'd sung it to him a few weeks ago. ...Don't you ever, don't you ever Lower yourself, forgetting all your standards...
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Have you forgotten the 40 degree heatwave? Pretty sure things were put off then too. I wrote a report on our cricket match last saturday, suggesting that the day was too nice to play cricket -24 deg, cloudless sky, glorious. Best enjoyed with a cool drink in the garden, not playing cricket.
Clearly you're not playing village cricket correctly if there's a lack of crossover between those two activities.
We were very happy to wrap up the win at least an hour early and head to the bar...
(No idea why this is upside down, the pic is fine on the PC)
Were you playing Australia?
Congratulations, you are the third person to crack that joke.
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
It’s like how the government still funds lots of research on smoking cessation, but we don’t need (much) more research,* we need policy action.
* Obviously, more research is always good and keeps my mates employed. There are issues that are newer, e.g. around vaping, that require research. But we know how to get people to quit smoking.
I'm yet to read a scientific paper that concludes: "So, we've sorted this. No further research is needed."
For clarity, I'm not a "nationalisation=good, privatisation=bad" person by default. Nor vice versa (although, to be fair, I tend to lean more towards the privatisation aspect due to the possibility of capital influx, competition raising standards, and making it more arms-length from the Government on a day-to-day basis).
But water, after an encouraging start, has stalled and looks like failing. Nationalise. Rail - I remain to be convinced. Some of the private companies are crap. BR was crap. Looks to me like we need to pinpoint where the source of crapness is first. Energy - to be honest, the fact I'm with Octopus makes me think it could work. Maybe more engagement needed, but the fact that Octopus do seem to lean over backwards to make sure I'm on the best tariff (and I looked at there "Join Octopus" page recently, where their entire landing page consists of:
YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS:
Energy prices are at record highs, and most homes will be better off staying with their current energy supplier right now.
If your fixed term is coming to an end, don't choose a new tariff or switch supplier.
Instead, let your supplier automatically move you to their default tariff, so your prices are protected by the Government's Energy Price Cap.
Would you like an email when prices fall?"
And then, at the bottom, in smaller text
"I've read and understood the above, and I would still like a quote to switch to Octopus"
To me, that's really good behaviour, and they've been brilliant at smart-meter rollout with real incentives for the consumer (I have an EV tariff where I get really cheap electricity for 5 hours overnight and set the car up to charge only then). That sort of thing is exactly what privatisation is for - it's just a shame most companies aren't like that.
Telecoms, road haulage, buses, travel agencies, aviation, parcel delivery services and car manufacturing have all been successful privatisations, IMHO. We wouldn't want to go back.
I'd argue energy and gas has, including distribution; they are more efficient & responsive than when nationalised and deliver many private pension holders a good return through their funds.
Railways are more ambiguous but I'd also argue is better quality now, with more investment.
Water has been no better than when nationalised. I'm not sure about sewerage and waste either. There are some barking ideas about privatising all roads and parks as well.
There are other, like the NHS, dentistry and social care, where there isn't enough non-state provision but it needs to be socially facilitated by the state.
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Have you forgotten the 40 degree heatwave? Pretty sure things were put off then too. I wrote a report on our cricket match last saturday, suggesting that the day was too nice to play cricket -24 deg, cloudless sky, glorious. Best enjoyed with a cool drink in the garden, not playing cricket.
Clearly you're not playing village cricket correctly if there's a lack of crossover between those two activities.
We were very happy to wrap up the win at least an hour early and head to the bar...
(No idea why this is upside down, the pic is fine on the PC)
Were you playing Australia?
Congratulations, you are the third person to crack that joke.
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Have you forgotten the 40 degree heatwave? Pretty sure things were put off then too. I wrote a report on our cricket match last saturday, suggesting that the day was too nice to play cricket -24 deg, cloudless sky, glorious. Best enjoyed with a cool drink in the garden, not playing cricket.
Clearly you're not playing village cricket correctly if there's a lack of crossover between those two activities.
We were very happy to wrap up the win at least an hour early and head to the bar...
(No idea why this is upside down, the pic is fine on the PC)
Were you playing Australia?
Congratulations, you are the third person to crack that joke.
Soon it will be unbeerable.
I have withdrawn my entry from the fray.
Good, because it was a less than Stella performance.
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
I don't get the dislike of wind turbines. Personally, I like them. Coming down the A420, rounding the corner and seeing the Watchfield Wind Farm come into view made me think, "nearly home."
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
I don't get the dislike of wind turbines. Personally, I like them. Coming down the A420, rounding the corner and seeing the Watchfield Wind Farm come into view made me think, "nearly home."
In fact: wind turbine? Big fan.
Wind farms aren't great if you see too many at once.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
58
I'm 60, soon to be 61, and my son has not long had his 19th birthday. Contrary to all the wailing and moaning on here I think having a young child in the house kept us young too. I really miss it and want my daughters to start producing grandkids for me to play with and watch cartoons with. Young kids are delightful. Teenagers are harder work but its just a phase and they turn human again in time.
No one is moaning about your situation. You had a child at 41, I had mine at 44-45, that's a fine age to be a parent, you're still young enough to physically interact, and yet old enough to have some wisdom (and provide security)
I started this chat by talking about a French friend of mine who has had a baby age 57. And bitterly regrets it. 57 is very old to start parenting again
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Have you forgotten the 40 degree heatwave? Pretty sure things were put off then too. I wrote a report on our cricket match last saturday, suggesting that the day was too nice to play cricket -24 deg, cloudless sky, glorious. Best enjoyed with a cool drink in the garden, not playing cricket.
Clearly you're not playing village cricket correctly if there's a lack of crossover between those two activities.
We were very happy to wrap up the win at least an hour early and head to the bar...
(No idea why this is upside down, the pic is fine on the PC)
For a spy message, that sure beats chalking a mark on the back of a roadsign!
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
lol. Are you actually ANGRY because I am criticising a Welsh railway station in the 1980s?
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
It’s like how the government still funds lots of research on smoking cessation, but we don’t need (much) more research,* we need policy action.
* Obviously, more research is always good and keeps my mates employed. There are issues that are newer, e.g. around vaping, that require research. But we know how to get people to quit smoking.
I'm yet to read a scientific paper that concludes: "So, we've sorted this. No further research is needed."
Then you must have missed the many many studies which have concluded: "Covid came from the market. That's it. Job done. Don't even think about the lab. Debate over"
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
For clarity, I'm not a "nationalisation=good, privatisation=bad" person by default. Nor vice versa (although, to be fair, I tend to lean more towards the privatisation aspect due to the possibility of capital influx, competition raising standards, and making it more arms-length from the Government on a day-to-day basis).
But water, after an encouraging start, has stalled and looks like failing. Nationalise. Rail - I remain to be convinced. Some of the private companies are crap. BR was crap. Looks to me like we need to pinpoint where the source of crapness is first. Energy - to be honest, the fact I'm with Octopus makes me think it could work. Maybe more engagement needed, but the fact that Octopus do seem to lean over backwards to make sure I'm on the best tariff (and I looked at there "Join Octopus" page recently, where their entire landing page consists of:
YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS:
Energy prices are at record highs, and most homes will be better off staying with their current energy supplier right now.
If your fixed term is coming to an end, don't choose a new tariff or switch supplier.
Instead, let your supplier automatically move you to their default tariff, so your prices are protected by the Government's Energy Price Cap.
Would you like an email when prices fall?"
And then, at the bottom, in smaller text
"I've read and understood the above, and I would still like a quote to switch to Octopus"
To me, that's really good behaviour, and they've been brilliant at smart-meter rollout with real incentives for the consumer (I have an EV tariff where I get really cheap electricity for 5 hours overnight and set the car up to charge only then). That sort of thing is exactly what privatisation is for - it's just a shame most companies aren't like that.
just think cooperatives (worker or consumer) are the best option for a lot of these services - do people complain about bad service much at building societies or the Co-op or John Lewis? No , do they with a lot of public sector services like the passport office or the NHS or the local bloody council? yes
Remind us what happened at the Co-Op bank. And Credit Unions sometimes go bust.
well they do but i doubt more often than private enterprises . Things go bust and are taken over , its an incentive knowing that to properly manage an organisation whether a cooperative or a private company. The difference is cooperatives are owned by their customers (or sometimes the workers) so when they do go bust its not generally outside forces that can be blamed - the main aim of organisations is to provide good services or goods -some will go bust , thats ok that provides the motivation to manage it well
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
58
I'm 60, soon to be 61, and my son has not long had his 19th birthday. Contrary to all the wailing and moaning on here I think having a young child in the house kept us young too. I really miss it and want my daughters to start producing grandkids for me to play with and watch cartoons with. Young kids are delightful. Teenagers are harder work but its just a phase and they turn human again in time.
No one is moaning about your situation. You had a child at 41, I had mine at 44-45, that's a fine age to be a parent, you're still young enough to physically interact, and yet old enough to have some wisdom (and provide security)
I started this chat by talking about a French friend of mine who has had a baby age 57. And bitterly regrets it. 57 is very old to start parenting again
Yes, at that age you really should be grandparenting, when you get to give them back at the end of the sugar high.
Bye, it's a subject you just can't handle - because you're smart, and you know there really might be something it it - so rather than deal with deep-seated prejudices that you've never really thought through, because you believe define your "values", you either aggressively dismiss it or run away from it.
And, no, this isn't me being condescending or patronising, it's just my fair analysis of what's going on.
It's not a bizarre accusation, really. It's a gratuitously offensive accusation. She needs, quickly, to come up with evidence of CS anti-semitism, or retract and apologise.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
Until it wasn't genuinely shit. When you run the *only* profitable intercity railway in the world you are not shit.
Some of what BR did was very good. Other bits... not so. There was a management mindset of managing decline; 'improvements' were often seen as things like singling lines or reducing the number of services.
If BR had continued past 1994/7, I do wonder if we would had ended up with a similar structure to the ones we are heading towards post-Hendry. Sectorisation was just the start...
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
It doesn't matter if it's a direct quotation. Truss has used this line in hustings wherever she's been, whether in London, etc.. She means - 'are made here (in the UK), in Derbyshire.' To my recollection she hasn't even visited Derbyshire during the campaign. It may be an inelegant way to say it, but it's not a mistake, and it's typically pathetic of Twitter to try to make something of it.
Not in Twitter, but the Independent. And it's a mistake if it is ambiguous - you can't read a comma aloud.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
Remember that as I spent many years as a postgrad it was some time before I started paying it off.
Bye, it's a subject you just can't handle - because you're smart, and you know there really might be something it it - so rather than deal with deep-seated prejudices that you've never really thought through, because you believe define your "values", you either aggressively dismiss it or run away from it.
And, no, this isn't me being condescending or patronising, it's just my fair analysis of what's going on.
Think about it.
You get agitated by people wearing rainbow lanyards
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
58
I'm 60, soon to be 61, and my son has not long had his 19th birthday. Contrary to all the wailing and moaning on here I think having a young child in the house kept us young too. I really miss it and want my daughters to start producing grandkids for me to play with and watch cartoons with. Young kids are delightful. Teenagers are harder work but its just a phase and they turn human again in time.
No one is moaning about your situation. You had a child at 41, I had mine at 44-45, that's a fine age to be a parent, you're still young enough to physically interact, and yet old enough to have some wisdom (and provide security)
I started this chat by talking about a French friend of mine who has had a baby age 57. And bitterly regrets it. 57 is very old to start parenting again
Yes, at that age you really should be grandparenting, when you get to give them back at the end of the sugar high.
Yes, his big gripe was the sheer exhaustion. He said "I just can't hack it, the lack of sleep, the endless picking up, I'm too old". He sounded a little desperate
I cannot imagine going through that again. I told him it will get better, as it does; but of course he knows this (he's been a dad before) and it didn't really help. It's quite hard to console someone who rationally believes they have made a terrible mistake
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
Remember that as I spent many years as a postgrad it was some time before I started paying it off.
Yep, they began quite a long time ago of course (but after my time). It hadn't quite dawned on me it's not just the twenty-somethings it affects. Which, of course, makes the political salience of the usury all the more important.
The Truss years (or weeks) are going to be spectacular.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
No other incoming PM will have had such an array of massive problrms....or maybe any suggestions from the past?
The Coaltion government faced at least as bad an intray, arguably worse.
You are joking aren't you ?
Absolutely not. I really don't think people appreciate how close to the edge we were in 2008-2010, not just in the UK but throughout the west. We had also kicked out a government that had failed to have a spending review, who had given open ended and unaffordable largesse to the populatiion by way of election bribes and we had to make a Coalition work, something that this country had very little experience of. The government really did need to both increase taxes and decrease spending year after year carefully running the line between modest growth and acutal recession as they tried to repair the mess.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
i think its been capped at about 6% ?
Depends on the loan.
Mine, for example, is whichever is lower of the RPI in March or the base rate +1%.
If rates rise rapidly, which I think they'll have to, that could be rather painful.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
anyone in authority would have to say they believe inflation has peaked or will soon go away because the alternative is to say it will not and then everyone will panic buy, empty bank accounts and go on strike or leave jobs - That is not to say that inflation will be a problem in 5 years but it is to say dont believe anyone in authority about it because they may be logicially lying.
Same with if an asteroid is to hit earth, if this is known by government it will almost certianly not say and try and keep secret. - That is not to say an asteroid will hit earth soon but donr think it will not because the government have not said it will
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Have you forgotten the 40 degree heatwave? Pretty sure things were put off then too. I wrote a report on our cricket match last saturday, suggesting that the day was too nice to play cricket -24 deg, cloudless sky, glorious. Best enjoyed with a cool drink in the garden, not playing cricket.
Clearly you're not playing village cricket correctly if there's a lack of crossover between those two activities.
We were very happy to wrap up the win at least an hour early and head to the bar...
(No idea why this is upside down, the pic is fine on the PC)
Were you playing Australia?
Congratulations, you are the third person to crack that joke.
Soon it will be unbeerable.
I hear you don't like cricket, oh no ...
Well, cricket doesn't like me right now. Every time I check the score, Gloucestershire lose another wicket.
As well I'm so busy from 2 till 7 I won't have time to!
Oh God. Oh God. Make it all go away. I fucking hate it
What was the name of the TV series about Elizabeth that you were recommending? I was trying to find it last nght with no success.
Edit, btw, when you look at her speech at Tilbury it really is nonsense
"I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."
It's not a bizarre accusation, really. It's a gratuitously offensive accusation. She needs, quickly, to come up with evidence of CS anti-semitism, or retract and apologise.
Feck, just read the tweet and the original accusation. Truss really is a smouldering bin fire waiting to spring into life.
Regardless of the performative wailing about dangerous Corbyn, he never actually was PM or close, she's odds on to be in No 10 shortly.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
Yes, people forget they go back to the days of new labour and Blair.
TBF there was some question of her assigned gender etc back in the 14-wotsits - male dress and all that at a time when they took male/female dress codes very seriously.
Doesn't really bear thinking about but. My eldest was born with a cleft palate. No roof to their mouth at all. Couldn't feed. Needed a specialist bottle to squirt it in. Couldn't take in a lot. Got dreadful wind from the amount of air. Often vomited. Needed feeding every 2-3 hours, then an hour's winding. Had to be propped on their side or front to sleep. Every time they rolled on their back the airway got blocked and they woke up crying. We were lucky if they got an hour's sleep at one go. Five operations under general anaesthetic in the first five years. Shedloads of hospital visits, tests, etc. Nearly killed us in our very early thirties. In my fifties? No.
Oh God. Oh God. Make it all go away. I fucking hate it
What was the name of the TV series about Elizabeth that you were recommending? I was trying to find it last nght with no success.
Edit, btw, when you look at her speech at Tilbury it really is nonsense
"I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."
Also, THAT speech at Tilbury. Quite magnificent. What a woman
It gives you tingles simply by reading it, almost 500 years later. Amazing
The Truss years (or weeks) are going to be spectacular.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
No other incoming PM will have had such an array of massive problrms....or maybe any suggestions from the past?
The Coaltion government faced at least as bad an intray, arguably worse.
You are joking aren't you ?
Absolutely not. I really don't think people appreciate how close to the edge we were in 2008-2010, not just in the UK but throughout the west. We had also kicked out a government that had failed to have a spending review, who had given open ended and unaffordable largesse to the populatiion by way of election bribes and we had to make a Coalition work, something that this country had very little experience of. The government really did need to both increase taxes and decrease spending year after year carefully running the line between modest growth and acutal recession as they tried to repair the mess.
With respect I think you're talking absolute mince. We're in a far worse position now than 2010.
The Truss years (or weeks) are going to be spectacular.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
No other incoming PM will have had such an array of massive problrms....or maybe any suggestions from the past?
The Coaltion government faced at least as bad an intray, arguably worse.
You are joking aren't you ?
Absolutely not. I really don't think people appreciate how close to the edge we were in 2008-2010, not just in the UK but throughout the west. We had also kicked out a government that had failed to have a spending review, who had given open ended and unaffordable largesse to the populatiion by way of election bribes and we had to make a Coalition work, something that this country had very little experience of. The government really did need to both increase taxes and decrease spending year after year carefully running the line between modest growth and acutal recession as they tried to repair the mess.
With respect I think you're talking absolute mince. We're in a far worse position now than 2010.
I am afraid I must agree
2008 was pretty grim for many people, but what we face now is that times twenty, or a hundred. We have similar recessions looming, plus much bigger debts, plus the tail end of a global plague, plus a horrible war in Europe, plus a brutal energy crisis, plus an apparent speeding of climate change, plus a number of countries in deep trouble around the world (Sri Lanka, etc) the list is dark and endless
It's difficult to believe as I stare out at a sunny, happy London, but the world is likely in the most perilous position since WW2
I can’t say this bothers me at all. Or that black woman playing Ann Boleyn (great stunt casting to get publicity for the show) or anything along these lines. These are dramas not documentaries and creatives should be able to interpret how they want.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
Yes, people forget they go back to the days of new labour and Blair.
They came in before 1997. Charging students for courses was granted a New Labour project capped at £3500 p a I believe.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
I thought you were giving up your employment this coming year? I vaguely recall you saying that now that the Gove reforms are fully bedded in the job just wasn't challenging anymore and you were going on to pastures new with gratitude to the DFE for all its efforts (of course I was reading between the lines a bit to get what you really meant)?
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
lol. Are you actually ANGRY because I am criticising a Welsh railway station in the 1980s?
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
No, I'm just wondering why you're criticising BR for having to change at Newport in the Winter.
The Truss years (or weeks) are going to be spectacular.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
No other incoming PM will have had such an array of massive problrms....or maybe any suggestions from the past?
The Coaltion government faced at least as bad an intray, arguably worse.
You are joking aren't you ?
Absolutely not. I really don't think people appreciate how close to the edge we were in 2008-2010, not just in the UK but throughout the west. We had also kicked out a government that had failed to have a spending review, who had given open ended and unaffordable largesse to the populatiion by way of election bribes and we had to make a Coalition work, something that this country had very little experience of. The government really did need to both increase taxes and decrease spending year after year carefully running the line between modest growth and acutal recession as they tried to repair the mess.
With respect I think you're talking absolute mince. We're in a far worse position now than 2010.
I am afraid I must agree
2008 was pretty grim for many people, but what we face now is that times twenty, or a hundred. We have similar recessions looming, plus much bigger debts, plus the tail end of a global plague, plus a horrible war in Europe, plus a brutal energy crisis, plus an apparent speeding of climate change, plus a number of countries in deep trouble around the world (Sri Lanka, etc) the list is dark and endless
It's difficult to believe as I stare out at a sunny, happy London, but the world is likely in the most perilous position since WW2
Leon, I enjoy your posts on the whole, especially the travelogues, but my word you’re a pessimist. I thought I was a pessimist but I’m an optimist in comparison.
Keep an eye on Pakistan, they’re the next Sri Lanka.
TBF there was some question of her assigned gender etc back in the 14-wotsits - male dress and all that at a time when they took male/female dress codes very seriously.
We did Shaw's St Joan at school (my Bishop of Beauvais was much commended by our drama teacher but left everyone else unmoved). It was a long time ago but istr her upsetting of gender norms was part of the case against her. There is truly nothing new under the sun.
It doesn't matter if it's a direct quotation. Truss has used this line in hustings wherever she's been, whether in London, etc.. She means - 'are made here (in the UK), in Derbyshire.' To my recollection she hasn't even visited Derbyshire during the campaign. It may be an inelegant way to say it, but it's not a mistake, and it's typically pathetic of Twitter to try to make something of it.
Sounds like your just making excuses to me.
OK, you can believe that wherever Truss goes, she believes she's in Derbyshire if you wish.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
anyone in authority would have to say they believe inflation has peaked or will soon go away because the alternative is to say it will not and then everyone will panic buy, empty bank accounts and go on strike or leave jobs - That is not to say that inflation will be a problem in 5 years but it is to say dont believe anyone in authority about it because they may be logicially lying.
Same with if an asteroid is to hit earth, if this is known by government it will almost certianly not say and try and keep secret. - That is not to say an asteroid will hit earth soon but donr think it will not because the government have not said it will
I did enjoy don't look up, even if they overdid the Trumpism a bit.
But the credibility of the BoE is based upon them producing credible models. When they are producing rubbish they do more damage than good. I thought the last forecast was some sort of an attempt to steer towards reality even if it was therefore a disconnect from the panglossian nonsense the Bank has fed us over the last 2 years. Arguably, they went too far, especially in relation to growth.
TBF there was some question of her assigned gender etc back in the 14-wotsits - male dress and all that at a time when they took male/female dress codes very seriously.
We did Shaw's St Joan at school (my Bishop of Beauvais was much commended by our drama teacher but left everyone else unmoved). It was a long time ago but istr her upsetting of gender norms was part of the case against her. There is truly nothing new under the sun.
Becoming commander of the entire French Army in her teens was slightly more an overturning of gender norms than her choice of clothing or hairstyles.
The Truss years (or weeks) are going to be spectacular.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
No other incoming PM will have had such an array of massive problrms....or maybe any suggestions from the past?
The Coaltion government faced at least as bad an intray, arguably worse.
You are joking aren't you ?
Absolutely not. I really don't think people appreciate how close to the edge we were in 2008-2010, not just in the UK but throughout the west. We had also kicked out a government that had failed to have a spending review, who had given open ended and unaffordable largesse to the populatiion by way of election bribes and we had to make a Coalition work, something that this country had very little experience of. The government really did need to both increase taxes and decrease spending year after year carefully running the line between modest growth and acutal recession as they tried to repair the mess.
With respect I think you're talking absolute mince. We're in a far worse position now than 2010.
I am afraid I must agree
2008 was pretty grim for many people, but what we face now is that times twenty, or a hundred. We have similar recessions looming, plus much bigger debts, plus the tail end of a global plague, plus a horrible war in Europe, plus a brutal energy crisis, plus an apparent speeding of climate change, plus a number of countries in deep trouble around the world (Sri Lanka, etc) the list is dark and endless
It's difficult to believe as I stare out at a sunny, happy London, but the world is likely in the most perilous position since WW2
Leon, I enjoy your posts on the whole, especially the travelogues, but my word you’re a pessimist. I thought I was a pessimist but I’m an optimist in comparison.
Keep an eye on Pakistan, they’re the next Sri Lanka.
Well, if it helps, personally I'm an optimist. I'm in a better place than I have been for several years. The knapping goes well, the kids are fine, I'm travelling again, the money flows - Ins'allah. I know I am lucky - and it could all change tomorrow - but for the moment I'm grateful to Fate for dealing me a hand I probably don't deserve
My pessimism is macro, it is hard to look at the world and think this is all fine. We are truly in a tough spot
However, my optimism returns when I look at the longer term. Technology is about to do amazing things that will make the world better. eg I recently discovered a remarkable idea called what3words, but I'll tell you about it later
So we just have to get through the next few years and then life could become seriously better for many, That's what I hope but also what I believe
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
lol. Are you actually ANGRY because I am criticising a Welsh railway station in the 1980s?
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
It’s like how the government still funds lots of research on smoking cessation, but we don’t need (much) more research,* we need policy action.
* Obviously, more research is always good and keeps my mates employed. There are issues that are newer, e.g. around vaping, that require research. But we know how to get people to quit smoking.
I'm yet to read a scientific paper that concludes: "So, we've sorted this. No further research is needed."
Then you must have missed the many many studies which have concluded: "Covid came from the market. That's it. Job done. Don't even think about the lab. Debate over"
Yep, I missed any studies that said that. Sure it wasn't "no evidence for a lab leak"?
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
lol. Are you actually ANGRY because I am criticising a Welsh railway station in the 1980s?
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
No, I'm just wondering why you're criticising BR for having to change at Newport in the Winter.
The privatisation was diabolical. The rolling stock was given away for practically nothing. A fraction of its value.
“Bit worrying for me then - wife expecting early Feb, the big 50 for me in October. I am slightly worried, but also hugely excited. This is our first (and almost certainly only).”
Good luck. You’re (just) under 50 (which was my cut-off point). I really believe it gets much more difficult, quite swiftly, after 50. It’s fairly insane after 55
And it really matters that it’s your first 🥂🥂
I have already had lots of thoughts about picking up from school ('is that your grandad'), touring Unis (is that your grandad) etc. Hugely excited but also terrified.
I had an older Dad. I have no memory of him without white hair and I got the "Is that your Grandad?" shtick too. But it never bothered me and he was a fantastic father. He was so curious and interested and funny that he seemed more alive and younger than men younger than him, if that makes sense. The only disadvantage was losing him too young.
So I would not worry. Love and happy memories. That's what will survive.
TBF there was some question of her assigned gender etc back in the 14-wotsits - male dress and all that at a time when they took male/female dress codes very seriously.
We did Shaw's St Joan at school (my Bishop of Beauvais was much commended by our drama teacher but left everyone else unmoved). It was a long time ago but istr her upsetting of gender norms was part of the case against her. There is truly nothing new under the sun.
Becoming commander of the entire French Army was slightly more an overturning of gender norms than her choice of clothing or hairstyles.
Well yes, with hindsight it was never going to end well.
The Truss years (or weeks) are going to be spectacular.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
No other incoming PM will have had such an array of massive problrms....or maybe any suggestions from the past?
The Coaltion government faced at least as bad an intray, arguably worse.
You are joking aren't you ?
Absolutely not. I really don't think people appreciate how close to the edge we were in 2008-2010, not just in the UK but throughout the west. We had also kicked out a government that had failed to have a spending review, who had given open ended and unaffordable largesse to the populatiion by way of election bribes and we had to make a Coalition work, something that this country had very little experience of. The government really did need to both increase taxes and decrease spending year after year carefully running the line between modest growth and acutal recession as they tried to repair the mess.
With respect I think you're talking absolute mince. We're in a far worse position now than 2010.
I am afraid I must agree
2008 was pretty grim for many people, but what we face now is that times twenty, or a hundred. We have similar recessions looming, plus much bigger debts, plus the tail end of a global plague, plus a horrible war in Europe, plus a brutal energy crisis, plus an apparent speeding of climate change, plus a number of countries in deep trouble around the world (Sri Lanka, etc) the list is dark and endless
It's difficult to believe as I stare out at a sunny, happy London, but the world is likely in the most perilous position since WW2
Leon, I enjoy your posts on the whole, especially the travelogues, but my word you’re a pessimist. I thought I was a pessimist but I’m an optimist in comparison.
Keep an eye on Pakistan, they’re the next Sri Lanka.
Well, if it helps, personally I'm an optimist. I'm in a better place than I have been for several years. The knapping goes well, the kids are fine, I'm travelling again, the money flows - Ins'allah. I know I am lucky - and it could all change tomorrow - but for the moment I'm grateful to Fate for dealing me a hand I probably don't deserve
My pessimism is macro, it is hard to look at the world and think this is all fine. We are truly in a tough spot
However, my optimism returns when I look at the longer term. Technology is about to do amazing things that will make the world better. eg I recently discovered a remarkable idea called what3words, but I'll tell you about it later
So we just have to get through the next few years and then life could become seriously better for many, That's what I hope but also what I believe
I first used what3words a few years back, prior to Covid, when we went to Tommy Banks’ restaurant the Black Swan. They said to use that instead of the postcode as it took you direct to them rather than the general area. Worked great.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
lol. Are you actually ANGRY because I am criticising a Welsh railway station in the 1980s?
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
It can't be long until Margaret Thatcher gets transed:
"Their use of the plural pronoun 'we' was an unambiguous nod to their gender-queer identity. French President Francois Mitterand remarked on their masculine eyes and anyone who came into contact with them was aware of the way they would use their handbag to wield the phallus."
Since there are unlikely to be any links to this document in the mainstream British media, here is yesterday's press release from the UN Security Council regarding the "Situation at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant":
It's not a bizarre accusation, really. It's a gratuitously offensive accusation. She needs, quickly, to come up with evidence of CS anti-semitism, or retract and apologise.
Feck, just read the tweet and the original accusation. Truss really is a smouldering bin fire waiting to spring into life.
Regardless of the performative wailing about dangerous Corbyn, he never actually was PM or close, she's odds on to be in No 10 shortly.
She's basically just chuntering things like some sort of crazy reactionary chatbot. Mouth opens, words come out, they're in English and in approximately the right order and that's the only evidence of any governing intelligence at all.
They used to call Johnson the Lucky Politician but I think it's time to revise this. Starmer is.
I have just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must literally be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
Sean Thomas Knox has also had to delay a picnic.
sean thomas knox @thomasknox · 3m Just had to delay a picnic with friends, by several hours, because it is TOO HOT AND SUNNY
This must be a first in the entire history of the United Kingdom
I find it a remarkable coincidence how often that sean thomas knox and Leon are doing the same things at the same time.
Sean seemed to follow Leon across the world for 3 months continually yet they claim to have never been seen in the same room together....
Maybe Knox is the friend that Leon was having his picnic with. Both singing from the same hymnsheet is the mark of a healthy and well organised friendship.
I think it is more than a friendship. They appear to have been staying in the same hotel room on more than one occasion.
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
It’s like how the government still funds lots of research on smoking cessation, but we don’t need (much) more research,* we need policy action.
* Obviously, more research is always good and keeps my mates employed. There are issues that are newer, e.g. around vaping, that require research. But we know how to get people to quit smoking.
I'm yet to read a scientific paper that concludes: "So, we've sorted this. No further research is needed."
Then you must have missed the many many studies which have concluded: "Covid came from the market. That's it. Job done. Don't even think about the lab. Debate over"
Yep, I missed any studies that said that. Sure it wasn't "no evidence for a lab leak"?
If they said there's no evidence for a lab leak, that's probably because literally no scientists have ever gone looking for evidence of a lab leak, yet thousands have spent millions trying, with a curious desperation, to prove it came from the market
Of course there was one inspection of the Wuhan labs, by WHO. They went into the labs for about an hour, and the inspection team was led by one Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth at, ermm, the Wuhan labs. Bet he was REALLY thorough
It doesn't matter if it's a direct quotation. Truss has used this line in hustings wherever she's been, whether in London, etc.. She means - 'are made here (in the UK), in Derbyshire.' To my recollection she hasn't even visited Derbyshire during the campaign. It may be an inelegant way to say it, but it's not a mistake, and it's typically pathetic of Twitter to try to make something of it.
Sounds like your just making excuses to me.
OK, you can believe that wherever Truss goes, she believes she's in Derbyshire if you wish.
I do believe she gets confused very easily, especially when challenged on her pronouncements, whether in Derbyshire or Gloucestershire.
It can't be long until Margaret Thatcher gets transed:
"Their use of the plural pronoun 'we' was an unambiguous nod to their gender-queer identity. French President Francois Mitterand remarked on their masculine eyes and anyone who came into contact with them was aware of the way they would use their handbag to wield the phallus."
The writer does not seem aware of the fact that "Prince" was a gender-neutral term in the 16th century. It meant Head of State/Government.
"The Prince", by Macchiavelli, included both male and female rulers.
“Bit worrying for me then - wife expecting early Feb, the big 50 for me in October. I am slightly worried, but also hugely excited. This is our first (and almost certainly only).”
Good luck. You’re (just) under 50 (which was my cut-off point). I really believe it gets much more difficult, quite swiftly, after 50. It’s fairly insane after 55
And it really matters that it’s your first 🥂🥂
I have already had lots of thoughts about picking up from school ('is that your grandad'), touring Unis (is that your grandad) etc. Hugely excited but also terrified.
I had an older Dad. I have no memory of him without white hair and I got the "Is that your Grandad?" shtick too. But it never bothered me and he was a fantastic father. He was so curious and interested and funny that he seemed more alive and younger than men younger than him, if that makes sense. The only disadvantage was losing him too young.
So I would not worry. Love and happy memories. That's what will survive.
I became a dad for the first time at 41. Not too old (but Mrs J was 38, and she was classed as an 'old mother', which amused her). Compared to when I was in my twenties, I am calmer and less fussed about things. I am much more financially secure. I have done a lot with my life, so don't begrudge the time spent with our son. I don't feel the need to go to the pub two or three times a week any more. I am wiser and more patient.
All in all, I think (and hope!) I'm a far better dad than I would have been in my late teens or twenties.
On the energy stuff, what I'd really like to see from Labour is some kind of "Challenge 2027" or something along those lines to 5x our current renewable energy generation by the end of 2027. 5 years for 5x. This problem needs the full weight of government, industry and science. Not just hoping that private companies with no interest in increasing energy supply will magically invest money to increase energy supply and reduce their arbitration profits.
Yes, this would be a way of building on one of the successes of the pandemic - the ventilator challenge. Have the same sort of thing, but for renewable energy supply.
A good end, but the problem isn't really technology is it? There's a lot we can do pretty cheaply now with solar and wind, keeping gas for backup when neither works. The problem is more about persuading people (including would-be Prime Ministers, ahem) to stop coming up with dumb objections.
We knew how to make medical ventilators before the ventilator challenge, but we didn't know how to make them quickly.
I expect there's lots that can be done to speed up the installation of new turbines, grid infrastructure, storage, etc, on both a technical and administrative level.
Yes, it's almost like a wartime effort. That's the situation I think we're in but no one's realised it yet. If we don't act today to start rapidly increasing renewable energy generation then the next 10 years we will be faced with economic ruin as industry simply shuts down every winter so homes can be heated.
Lots of people seem to be assuming (gambling) that this is just a blip because of the war in Ukraine, and that in a year or two we will be back to more normal prices. But what if we are not? I think you are right to suggest this grand challenge.
I just don't expect our political leaders to do it.
It’s a win-win. In the long term, we need to move to zero-carbon energy sources, so if this is just a Ukraine-related blip, we’ve still made valuable progress moving towards that goal. And if it’s more than a blip, thank heavens we’ve increased supply this way.
Someone (Anrew Cuomo?) punctuated his Covid briefings with "we know what to do, we just need to do it". The same thing is happinging with energy transitions. Most of the science/engineering problems are sufficiently solved; the systems are cheap enough, efficient enough, simple enough to install. Gains from here are incremental, not factors of ten.
The limiting steps are the political ones. Truss doesn't like solar farms, because reasons. Onshore wind farms stopped under Cameron, because the public was "fed up" with them. Our homes are largely still badly insulated because... well, I'm not sure why. (I'm just as bad. When we moved here a decade ago, all the windows were single-glazed; we are getting the last ones replaced next month but should have done it long before.)
It would be lovely to treat energy transition as a science problem, because they are relatively easy. Political mindset problems... oh dear.
It’s like how the government still funds lots of research on smoking cessation, but we don’t need (much) more research,* we need policy action.
* Obviously, more research is always good and keeps my mates employed. There are issues that are newer, e.g. around vaping, that require research. But we know how to get people to quit smoking.
I'm yet to read a scientific paper that concludes: "So, we've sorted this. No further research is needed."
Then you must have missed the many many studies which have concluded: "Covid came from the market. That's it. Job done. Don't even think about the lab. Debate over"
Yep, I missed any studies that said that. Sure it wasn't "no evidence for a lab leak"?
If they said there's no evidence for a lab leak, that's probably because literally no scientists have ever gone looking for evidence of a lab leak, yet thousands have spent millions trying, with a curious desperation, to prove it came from the market
Of course there was one inspection of the Wuhan labs, by WHO. They went into the labs for about an hour, and the inspection team was led by one Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth at, ermm, the Wuhan labs. Bet he was REALLY thorough
It reminds me of Jim Hacker's PMQs response to a question about whether the Department for Employment fiddle the figures...
27 degrees here in my bit of the Lakes. It is amazing. And yet the countryside is still green hereabouts.
We have been having siestas all week and had to close the curtains in the dining area as the slate floor was getting so warm it was too hot to walk on!
It's not a bizarre accusation, really. It's a gratuitously offensive accusation. She needs, quickly, to come up with evidence of CS anti-semitism, or retract and apologise.
Feck, just read the tweet and the original accusation. Truss really is a smouldering bin fire waiting to spring into life.
Regardless of the performative wailing about dangerous Corbyn, he never actually was PM or close, she's odds on to be in No 10 shortly.
She's basically just chuntering things like some sort of crazy reactionary chatbot. Mouth opens, words come out, they're in English and in approximately the right order and that's the only evidence of any governing intelligence at all.
They used to call Johnson the Lucky Politician but I think it's time to revise this. Starmer is.
Her first cabinet will tell us a lot about the tenor of the Truss pmship, very likely none of it good.
I can’t say this bothers me at all. Or that black woman playing Ann Boleyn (great stunt casting to get publicity for the show) or anything along these lines. These are dramas not documentaries and creatives should be able to interpret how they want.
It seems to me like the worst kind of fanfiction, where the lead character just becomes the author's self-insert. Joan of Arc becomes a 21st century non-binary individual wearing medieval costume.
I'd like to see the world through the eyes of Joan of Arc; not through the eyes of the author or lead actor.
A 15th Frenchwoman, would take the existence of Christ and His saints for granted, and her principal concerns would be surviving the English army and ensuring she had enough to eat. She would not be remotely concerned with 21st century first world problems.
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
I can’t say this bothers me at all. Or that black woman playing Ann Boleyn (great stunt casting to get publicity for the show) or anything along these lines. These are dramas not documentaries and creatives should be able to interpret how they want.
Agreed. I'd be more concerned about whether or not it's any good.
There's arguably been a tendency for wokeish production to get unduly favourable reviews in the past (though I'm suspicious of any favourable review at all, having often been disappointed).
Anyway on the whole retirement issue, I have taken the opposite track and acquired 600 sq metres of land on rocks and a hill to turn into a garden. This will take years as I intend doing as much of it myself as possible. It will be physically demanding work but is the main way I intend staying fit and flexible and healthy. I think that if I ended up in a place where everything was to hand and there were no stairs or hills or physical stuff to do I'd turn into a puddle inside a few weeks.
I may revisit this in my 90's of course but as that is decades hence ....
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Isn't loads of the memories of "Bad old BR" because boomers remember train travel in the 70s, and everything was a bit shit, beige and dull (Bar the music) in the 70s ?
One of the quickest boomer identifiers "bad old days of BR"
I'm not a boomer and I remember the 'bad old days of BR'.
It is staff salaries and fare costs that get prioritised in a nationalised system, which give the unions a single point of leverage, and so service quality, infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance and renewal gets deprioritised.
That's why the train service at my local station was shit up until the mid-1990s, with only one train every hour - and those dating back to the 1960s, and not infrequently they broke down - whilst the station itself was regularly unheated, flaking and falling to pieces. Surly staff too.
Transport (outside major capital projects) tends to be near bottom of the list for central gov funding after health, education, pensions and the like, so I'd need some convincing that a nationalised system would be "better".
TfL is fairly good because it gets a shed-ton of funding and passenger revenue, because it's in London.
BR was really and genuinely shit. I can remember standing as a student on the forlorn platforms of Newport Station on a winter's day, waiting to change for the train to Hereford
Newport in winter is never great, but being in a BR station in Newport in the 1980s was dystopian
So BR was shit because you were waiting for a train connection in Newport in the Winter? What do you want, taxi ride? Maybe you should have paid for one then.
lol. Are you actually ANGRY because I am criticising a Welsh railway station in the 1980s?
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
Since there are unlikely to be any links to this document in the mainstream British media, here is yesterday's press release from the UN Security Council regarding the "Situation at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant":
Around here the combine harvesters are currently going around the clock. If you are out at night you see them lit up with multiple lights working away. What is really noticeable this year is that much of the wheat, oats and barley is extremely stunted, quite often not more than 1ft high whilst it would normally be at least 2ft, sometimes more. The rape was less affected in the early summer but it is intense now and we have had far more rain than most of England.
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
Another place that will have a nasty knock-on effect is student loans, where some of them have interest charged at the rate of inflation.
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
You have a student loan at your age?!
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
Yes, people forget they go back to the days of new labour and Blair.
They came in before 1997. Charging students for courses was granted a New Labour project capped at £3500 p a I believe.
I was the first year in 1998 which had to pay it . £1,000 pa.. seems such small fry now.
"In May 2022, a physician-scientist lost her NIH funding for a drug trial because the trial population did not contain enough blacks. The drug under review was for a type of cancer that blacks rarely get. There were almost no black patients with that disease to enroll in the trial, therefore. Better, however, to foreclose development of a therapy that might help predominantly white cancer patients than to conduct a drug trial without black participants."
"The proponents of the systemic racism hypotheses are making a large bet with potentially lethal consequences. In accordance with the idea that racism causes racial health disparities, they are changing the direction of medical research, the composition of medical faculty, the curriculum of medical schools, the criteria for hiring researchers and for publishing research, and the standards for assessing professional excellence. They are substituting training in political advocacy for training in basic science. They are taking doctors out of the classroom, clinic, and lab and parking them in front of antiracism lecturers. Their preferential policies discourage individuals from pariah groups from going into medicine, regardless of their scientific potential. They have shifted billions of dollars from the investigation of pathophysiology to the production of tracts on microaggressions."
Comments
Well I'll go to the foot of our Brexit stairs, I've never had one of those here before.
BoZo will seem like a sure hand on the tiller by comparison
Soon it will be unbeerable.
...Don't you ever, don't you ever
Lower yourself, forgetting all your standards...
Byeeeee
I'd argue energy and gas has, including distribution; they are more efficient & responsive than when nationalised and deliver many private pension holders a good return through their funds.
Railways are more ambiguous but I'd also argue is better quality now, with more investment.
Water has been no better than when nationalised. I'm not sure about sewerage and waste either. There are some barking ideas about privatising all roads and parks as well.
There are other, like the NHS, dentistry and social care, where there isn't enough non-state provision but it needs to be socially facilitated by the state.
In fact: wind turbine? Big fan.
They're fine if they take it in turns.
I started this chat by talking about a French friend of mine who has had a baby age 57. And bitterly regrets it. 57 is very old to start parenting again
Yields are going to be pretty bad and there is likely to be a serious shortage of fodder for livestock by the spring. Our already substantial volume of food imports is going to increase sharply and we will be paying world prices for it which are going to be significantly higher. Lost production and exports from both Ukraine and Russia won't help much either.
The idea that this current burst of inflation is soon going to go away (as the BoE was claiming only weeks ago) is wildly optimistic. Sunak has been rather all over the place of late but he is right that inflation is probably our biggest single problem.
I know PB can get angry about anything, but this might be a new peak
I might look to clear the remainder of mine if I can earn enough this year.
And, no, this isn't me being condescending or patronising, it's just my fair analysis of what's going on.
Think about it.
It's a gratuitously offensive accusation.
She needs, quickly, to come up with evidence of CS anti-semitism, or retract and apologise.
Sorry - just startled: that really drives it home.
If BR had continued past 1994/7, I do wonder if we would had ended up with a similar structure to the ones we are heading towards post-Hendry. Sectorisation was just the start...
But the nukes thing is what worries me more.
Betfair next prime minister
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
9.8 Rishi Sunak 10%
Next Conservative leader
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
10 Rishi Sunak 10%
Think about it.
I cannot imagine going through that again. I told him it will get better, as it does; but of course he knows this (he's been a dad before) and it didn't really help. It's quite hard to console someone who rationally believes they have made a terrible mistake
The Globe is calling Queen Elizabeth "they/them"
WTF?
Mine, for example, is whichever is lower of the RPI in March or the base rate +1%.
If rates rise rapidly, which I think they'll have to, that could be rather painful.
Same with if an asteroid is to hit earth, if this is known by government it will almost certianly not say and try and keep secret. - That is not to say an asteroid will hit earth soon but donr think it will not because the government have not said it will
As well I'm so busy from 2 till 7 I won't have time to!
Edit, btw, when you look at her speech at Tilbury it really is nonsense
"I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."
Regardless of the performative wailing about dangerous Corbyn, he never actually was PM or close, she's odds on to be in No 10 shortly.
Really good. Definitely not Woke. Erotic and dark
it is superbly cast, as well. The young woman who plays the young Elizabeth is brilliant
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11105319/Backlash-grows-against-Shakespeares-Globe-Theatre-new-play-depicting-Joan-Arc-non-binary.html
I've just had a drink at a pub overlooking what we have to call Richmond Brown.
My eldest was born with a cleft palate. No roof to their mouth at all. Couldn't feed. Needed a specialist bottle to squirt it in. Couldn't take in a lot. Got dreadful wind from the amount of air. Often vomited. Needed feeding every 2-3 hours, then an hour's winding.
Had to be propped on their side or front to sleep. Every time they rolled on their back the airway got blocked and they woke up crying.
We were lucky if they got an hour's sleep at one go.
Five operations under general anaesthetic in the first five years. Shedloads of hospital visits, tests, etc.
Nearly killed us in our very early thirties.
In my fifties? No.
It gives you tingles simply by reading it, almost 500 years later. Amazing
2008 was pretty grim for many people, but what we face now is that times twenty, or a hundred. We have similar recessions looming, plus much bigger debts, plus the tail end of a global plague, plus a horrible war in Europe, plus a brutal energy crisis, plus an apparent speeding of climate change, plus a number of countries in deep trouble around the world (Sri Lanka, etc) the list is dark and endless
It's difficult to believe as I stare out at a sunny, happy London, but the world is likely in the most perilous position since WW2
Queen Elizabeth I had hundreds of women judicially murdered for "witchcraft".
On a lighter note, I wonder what Michael Fawcett will think if Loony Boy ascends the throne and then adopts a similar approach?
Keep an eye on Pakistan, they’re the next Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately I know a lot of Woke people and I know they REALLY mean it
https://tinyurl.com/muka7n4f
But the credibility of the BoE is based upon them producing credible models. When they are producing rubbish they do more damage than good. I thought the last forecast was some sort of an attempt to steer towards reality even if it was therefore a disconnect from the panglossian nonsense the Bank has fed us over the last 2 years. Arguably, they went too far, especially in relation to growth.
My pessimism is macro, it is hard to look at the world and think this is all fine. We are truly in a tough spot
However, my optimism returns when I look at the longer term. Technology is about to do amazing things that will make the world better. eg I recently discovered a remarkable idea called what3words, but I'll tell you about it later
So we just have to get through the next few years and then life could become seriously better for many, That's what I hope but also what I believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eijc2tGe-zM
So I would not worry. Love and happy memories. That's what will survive.
That's excellent
"Twinned with Guanxi province in China, there's no province finer"
"Their use of the plural pronoun 'we' was an unambiguous nod to their gender-queer identity. French President Francois Mitterand remarked on their masculine eyes and anyone who came into contact with them was aware of the way they would use their handbag to wield the phallus."
https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14996.doc.htm
They used to call Johnson the Lucky Politician but I think it's time to revise this. Starmer is.
Of course there was one inspection of the Wuhan labs, by WHO. They went into the labs for about an hour, and the inspection team was led by one Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth at, ermm, the Wuhan labs. Bet he was REALLY thorough
"The Prince", by Macchiavelli, included both male and female rulers.
All in all, I think (and hope!) I'm a far better dad than I would have been in my late teens or twenties.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/12/liz-truss-protect-british-jews-antisemitism-woke-culture
We have been having siestas all week and had to close the curtains in the dining area as the slate floor was getting so warm it was too hot to walk on!
I'd like to see the world through the eyes of Joan of Arc; not through the eyes of the author or lead actor.
A 15th Frenchwoman, would take the existence of Christ and His saints for granted, and her principal concerns would be surviving the English army and ensuring she had enough to eat. She would not be remotely concerned with 21st century first world problems.
I'd be more concerned about whether or not it's any good.
There's arguably been a tendency for wokeish production to get unduly favourable reviews in the past (though I'm suspicious of any favourable review at all, having often been disappointed).
On those lines, I happily booked to see this production, as I saw Hughes in the Henry VI cycle, and he was far and away the best thing in it.
https://amp.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jul/01/richard-iii-review-rsc-stratford-arthur-hughes
I may revisit this in my 90's of course but as that is decades hence ....
A truly extraordinary analysis of how Wokeness is invading STEM and especially medicine, in America
This shit really matters. It is going to cripple the USA and the wider West
https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine
But as a Russian Troll you know that - and just wish to spread false information.
At the same time I'm utterly unimpressed with the UN reporting here but that's a different matter....
https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine
It gets worse and worse as you read on
"In May 2022, a physician-scientist lost her NIH funding for a drug trial because the trial population did not contain enough blacks. The drug under review was for a type of cancer that blacks rarely get. There were almost no black patients with that disease to enroll in the trial, therefore. Better, however, to foreclose development of a therapy that might help predominantly white cancer patients than to conduct a drug trial without black participants."
"The proponents of the systemic racism hypotheses are making a large bet with potentially lethal consequences. In accordance with the idea that racism causes racial health disparities, they are changing the direction of medical research, the composition of medical faculty, the curriculum of medical schools, the criteria for hiring researchers and for publishing research, and the standards for assessing professional excellence. They are substituting training in political advocacy for training in basic science. They are taking doctors out of the classroom, clinic, and lab and parking them in front of antiracism lecturers. Their preferential policies discourage individuals from pariah groups from going into medicine, regardless of their scientific potential. They have shifted billions of dollars from the investigation of pathophysiology to the production of tracts on microaggressions."