And so the Queen’s coffin arrives in Westminster – politicalbetting.com

Foxy said:

The Wagner group recruiting in a Penal Settlement. Serve six months in Ukraine and then can be free.

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1570123353331011586?t=KObw59JiJ9c3SNoZ2XBVGg&s=19

We have heard of this before, but I think this is the first time iv seen a video of somebody making the pitch, IF you are looking at another 30 years behind bars, it might sound attractive?

Leon said:

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Edwardian Mock Tudor and Victorian Gothic Revival were both heavily criticised in their day.

Poundbury does look like an English version of Disney World's Celebration township, but each to their own.

https://www.florida-backroads-travel.com/celebration-florida.html

Show us where you live @Foxy

Not exactly: but the style

I guarantee it will be derivative and laughable in some way

It is a fairly modern 4 bed detached, nothing very remarkable architecturally, great location, big garden with fruit trees, neighbouring houses vary from 1960s terraced social housing to Georgian farmhouses. This suburb of Leicester is a terrible jumble of styles, but a good place to live, and bring up a family. Hard to get very strong feelings about.

Eabhal said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

The live stream of people passing the coffin is utterly compelling, for no obvious reasons

Yes. It is.

Inspired by the BBC to put it up. I was getting a little irritated by the coverage but it's actually the constant filler from the newsreaders that is annoying.

I just want to watch London do it's thing. The last great fanfare from the former Imperial Capital.

You might not have to go too far to join the queue yourself. This afternoon the end of the queue was between Leeds and Huddersfield according to what3words.

https://twitter.com/jonty/status/1570059714616086528/photo/1

I’m still managing to avoid all the royal queueing coverage and 24 hour news, remarkably easily. People barely mention it at work (twice all week), shops are entirely normal and in the evenings I just stick on the Champions League. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised. May she rest in peace.

Leon said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

This is what I said two days ago, on PB, about the live feed of the Scottish lying in state:

“This is brilliant. A Sky News feed of the lying-in-state from Edinburgh (looking nobly beautiful in the autumn sun)


It’s FIVE HOURS of ordinary people filing past the Queen’s coffin. That’s it. And yet it is utterly compelling. The different reactions. Why has the guy with his lunchbox showed up with a scowl? What’s the point? Why is that very young woman crying? Who is the dude in the green tee who apparently doesn’t care, but then suddenly bows, deeply?


My favourite is the middle aged daughter wheeling in her very elderly mother in a chair. They stop in front of the dead queen. The mother shuts her eyes. The daughter brushes away a single tear. Then the daughter quietly kisses her mother. And off they go


It is inexplicably moving. Something of the intense human power of monarchy is detailed here. I just can’t quite work out what”

We're not the Protestant country some people like to think we are.

Nah bollocks. Protestantism is full of reverence and worship

This is religious but it’s fuck all to do with Christian denominations. That’s laughably wrong

You reckon?
The iconography. The ritual? The ceremony? The expense and formality?
We never stopped being Catholic. We just replaced the Pope with someone else. That's all.

The mid term election prospects for the Dems could implode if a freight strike goes ahead and isn’t resolved quickly .

The impact on supply chains would be huge , it would also send gas prices up and add another drag on the US economy and further feed into inflationary pressures.

The deadline to reach a deal between the freight operators and the unions is tomorrow night .

Thursday’s Daily MIRROR: “Pride and the pain” #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1570159079732944898/photo/1

Just seen huge meteor shoot across sky in north west

Simon_Peach said:

Just seen huge meteor shoot across sky in north west

Scotland too (I didn't see it myself)

Leon said:

Foxy said:

Leon said:

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Edwardian Mock Tudor and Victorian Gothic Revival were both heavily criticised in their day.

Poundbury does look like an English version of Disney World's Celebration township, but each to their own.

https://www.florida-backroads-travel.com/celebration-florida.html

Show us where you live @Foxy

Not exactly: but the style

I guarantee it will be derivative and laughable in some way

It is a fairly modern 4 bed detached, nothing very remarkable architecturally, great location, big garden with fruit trees, neighbouring houses vary from 1960s terraced social housing to Georgian farmhouses. This suburb of Leicester is a terrible jumble of styles, but a good place to live, and bring up a family. Hard to get very strong feelings about.

I meant: the architecture. Describe it

Brick, bay windows opening onto the garden. Tiled roof, garage. Slightly fussy 1990s architectural details inside. Unusually large sized rooms and garden for a modern house, and open fireplace too. Lots of built in cupboards and as many toilets as bedrooms.

It was built by a well known local builder as a development of 2 houses, the newest on the street, but in a fairly nondescript turn of the millennium style. Call it a New Labour era garden development if you like.

ThomasNashe said:

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Edwardian Mock Tudor and Victorian Gothic Revival were both heavily criticised in their day.

Poundbury does look like an English version of Disney World's Celebration township, but each to their own.

https://www.florida-backroads-travel.com/celebration-florida.html

Has a Truman Show vibe, I think.

Edward Mock Tudor and Victoria Gothic Revival would be excellent stage names/and or Monster Raving Looney candidates

dixiedean said:

Simon_Peach said:

Just seen huge meteor shoot across sky in north west

That's the Sunday thread sorted. Arrival of aliens in Oswaldtwistle.
How that affects LD prospects.

Eabhal said:

Simon_Peach said:

Just seen huge meteor shoot across sky in north west

Scotland too (I didn't see it myself)

https://twitter.com/UKMeteorNetwork/status/1570159044043898880?cxt=HHwWgIDU0ZvVqcorAAAA

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Edwardian Mock Tudor and Victorian Gothic Revival were both heavily criticised in their day.

Poundbury does look like an English version of Disney World's Celebration township, but each to their own.

https://www.florida-backroads-travel.com/celebration-florida.html

The Victorians loathed Georgian architecture - flung up cheaply by rapacious speculators with ramshackle construction hidden behind a layer of stucco, and pastiche classicism symbolising the frivolity and unseriousness of the Regency Period in particular. No, they preferred honest solidly Christian muscular red brick. That’s why Regency architecture was left to rot unloved and how the Bloomsbury set came into being - rents were cheap as only the hard up would live in these draughty leaking rooms - difficult to heat with their soaring ceilings. In the 1930s Brighton came close to razing Brunswick Town and replacing it with a wall of Art Deco flats. Fortunately only the first one was built - then WWII intervened and some of the finest Grade I listed Georgian architecture on the planet survived.

biggles said:

A hard worked, 24/7, Ops team has made the odd fat finger error

You dare mock the new King ?

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

This is what I said two days ago, on PB, about the live feed of the Scottish lying in state:

“This is brilliant. A Sky News feed of the lying-in-state from Edinburgh (looking nobly beautiful in the autumn sun)


It’s FIVE HOURS of ordinary people filing past the Queen’s coffin. That’s it. And yet it is utterly compelling. The different reactions. Why has the guy with his lunchbox showed up with a scowl? What’s the point? Why is that very young woman crying? Who is the dude in the green tee who apparently doesn’t care, but then suddenly bows, deeply?


My favourite is the middle aged daughter wheeling in her very elderly mother in a chair. They stop in front of the dead queen. The mother shuts her eyes. The daughter brushes away a single tear. Then the daughter quietly kisses her mother. And off they go


It is inexplicably moving. Something of the intense human power of monarchy is detailed here. I just can’t quite work out what”

We're not the Protestant country some people like to think we are.

Of course we are, the Queen was Supreme Governor of our established Protestant Church

6 hours in a queue for 6 seconds in front of a box

Malmesbury said:

Anabobazina said:

I’m still managing to avoid all the royal queueing coverage and 24 hour news, remarkably easily. People barely mention it at work (twice all week), shops are entirely normal and in the evenings I just stick on the Champions League. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised. May she rest in peace.

It's almost like you are allowed to chose or something.

Are you sure that you haven't been chained down and forced to watch the events non-stop?

I had that feeling on the Day Of, when every BBC channel and station was playing the same stream, along with ITV. But since then, it’s not been bad at all. Life seems relatively normal (at least now Sky Sports News is functioning properly again).

P.S. Chaz was hilarious with that fountain pen

NickPalmer said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

turbotubbs said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

I have huge conflicts in my head about old vs new in architecture. I abhor hanging on the old stuff just got the sake of it. I always ask, if the Romans had had double glazing, they would have used it.

I believe that there are some things, just like our perception of beauty in humans, that we perceive to be beautiful in buildings. The really ugly buildings are those where the architects have ignored all that.

With humans, it's surely a good thing that we don't all agree - those of us not blessed with classical beauty nonetheless come across eccentrics who think we're good-looking. If we all had to look like Robert Redford it'd be a bit sad.

And surely the same applies to buildings? The willing buyer/willing seller principle seems hard to argue with. Why should third parties intervene and tel lthem they're wrong?

I think you're doing yourself a disservice.

And we don't need to look like Robert Redford or Sharon Stone, but there are features that are naturally pleasing in humans, essentially for evolutionary reasons - because they indicate good breeding stock. Buildings, I believe, are the same - beautiful buildings are those that connect with primeval feelings of security and well-being. A deeper-set window always looks better than a shallow set one - look at council houses that suddenly look better when they've got that external cladding on them. It must be because they look like thicker walls, therefore a stronger, warmer building. Natural materials - probably because they connote plentiful resources. Buttresses, arches, pillars - all indicate strength of structure. Ornament - indicative of wealth and leisure time. If we connect with these sorts of ideas, we won't make ugly buildings, and it's quite freeing, because I think there's a tendency of some people to affect to like modern, ugly buildings, because they don't like the people who are against them, and identify them with reversing social progress. But if we develop a consensus for just what makes a building that pleases the eye, it can be as modern as anyone could wish, and it will still be beautiful.

...

MoonRabbit said:

Carnyx said:

dixiedean said:

Simon_Peach said:

Just seen huge meteor shoot across sky in north west

That's the Sunday thread sorted. Arrival of aliens in Oswaldtwistle.
How that affects LD prospects.

Eabhal said:

Simon_Peach said:

Just seen huge meteor shoot across sky in north west

Scotland too (I didn't see it myself)

https://twitter.com/UKMeteorNetwork/status/1570159044043898880?cxt=HHwWgIDU0ZvVqcorAAAA

It’s an Omen.

Anyone checked Horsell Common?

rottenborough said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

rottenborough said:

That live stream is something else. Weirdly powerful. Moving.

If I was editor of a Sunday newspaper I would be commissioning articles on what that queue and the live stream tells us about modern Britain and the deep ancestral roots that still stir.

I think it shows sod all personally

Really? Perhaps 1/2 million will queue this weekend. And that shows 'sod all'?

Less than 1 per cent of the population? Doesn't show anything much either way.

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Well, in which case developers will see that the best way to make money is Poundbury-type developments.

(What's your source, btw? Has the Crown Estates made a higher return on Poundbury than a Redroof does on one if its developments?)

Carnyx said:

rottenborough said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

rottenborough said:

That live stream is something else. Weirdly powerful. Moving.

If I was editor of a Sunday newspaper I would be commissioning articles on what that queue and the live stream tells us about modern Britain and the deep ancestral roots that still stir.

I think it shows sod all personally

Really? Perhaps 1/2 million will queue this weekend. And that shows 'sod all'?

Less than 1 per cent of the population? Doesn't show anything much either way.

People were mocking the 33,000 in Edinburgh, but I don't see how they could've got more than that past in the time.

It's not a stadium with hundreds of gates/stewards. I'd guess around half the population would do it if there was no travel or queue involved.

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

This is what I said two days ago, on PB, about the live feed of the Scottish lying in state:

“This is brilliant. A Sky News feed of the lying-in-state from Edinburgh (looking nobly beautiful in the autumn sun)


It’s FIVE HOURS of ordinary people filing past the Queen’s coffin. That’s it. And yet it is utterly compelling. The different reactions. Why has the guy with his lunchbox showed up with a scowl? What’s the point? Why is that very young woman crying? Who is the dude in the green tee who apparently doesn’t care, but then suddenly bows, deeply?


My favourite is the middle aged daughter wheeling in her very elderly mother in a chair. They stop in front of the dead queen. The mother shuts her eyes. The daughter brushes away a single tear. Then the daughter quietly kisses her mother. And off they go


It is inexplicably moving. Something of the intense human power of monarchy is detailed here. I just can’t quite work out what”

We're not the Protestant country some people like to think we are.

Of course we are, the Queen was Supreme Governor of our established Protestant Church

"Our".

"Our" = England's, Scoland's Church being Prebysterian, and the Anglican churches in Wales and Northern Ireland being no longer established..

Carnyx said:

rottenborough said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

rottenborough said:

That live stream is something else. Weirdly powerful. Moving.

If I was editor of a Sunday newspaper I would be commissioning articles on what that queue and the live stream tells us about modern Britain and the deep ancestral roots that still stir.

I think it shows sod all personally

Really? Perhaps 1/2 million will queue this weekend. And that shows 'sod all'?

Less than 1 per cent of the population? Doesn't show anything much either way.

How stupid can a Scot Nat be?


Narrator: this stupid

Foxy said:

kinabalu said:

kle4 said:

Scott_xP said:

The live stream of people passing the coffin is utterly compelling, for no obvious reasons

Didn't one of the Scandanavian nations broadcast a live stream of a log fire for hours, with big views? Odd things can compel.

The original Big Brother - before it got inevitably corrupted - was a great example of this. I used to watch the livestream of people clipping their toenails or sometimes just snoozing. Andy Warhol did something similar 20 years prior to that. Long films of nothing happening. It's life in the raw really. Most of the time very little happens. Extremely authentic.

In the first two series the residents almost forgot they were there, and would sit and chat and drink tea. They would feed the chickens, and cook dinner. It was surprisingly good people watching.

With each successive series though the residents became more argumentative and attention seeking, until it became unwatchable. The innocence of the first season became impossible to replicate.

I seem to remember in the second series although it was still mostly normal people the producers had realised that basically pissed people did more TV-notable things and so there was no shortage of alcohol being pumped into the housemates to keep things interesting.

But you're right, the very early series were weirdly compelling, whereas after that they were just plain weird.

In other news...

Interestingly Truss govt seems to be working its way down a list of things previous Tory govts wanted to do at some point, but were talked out of. Kind of politics with the safety catch off
https://twitter.com/gabyhinsliff/status/1570163997256863744

Someone caught meteor on film…

https://twitter.com/official_beanie/status/1570159789547601920?s=21&t=ig_oZASCOKTC4k3rFeVDuw

CarlottaVance said:

Scott_xP said:

Thursday’s Daily MIRROR: “Pride and the pain” #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1570159079732944898/photo/1

“The Pain(s)” are behind you.

I thought those in most obvious sorrow were the Princess Royal & Sophie Wessex.

Seems a bit weird and mawkish to pontificate about who has “most sorrow”. One of the reasons why all this stuff is quite unbearable.

RIP

Videos of the shooting star:

https://twitter.com/rupertmyers/status/1570163176976846848

It is indeed too bad that the late Queen's last ride to London town was NOT by rail.

Two major examples in US of famous final rail journeys"

> Abraham Lincoln 1865 from Washington DC back home to Springfield, Illinois. THE most historically significant, culturally evocative single railroad journey in American history. Model for subsequent final presidential journeys.

as per wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_and_burial_of_Abraham_Lincoln

Funeral services, a procession, and a lying in state were first held in Washington, D.C., then a funeral train transported Lincoln's remains 1,654 miles (2,662 km) through seven states for burial in Springfield, Illinois. Never exceeding 20 mph, the train made several stops in principal cities and state capitals for processions, orations, and additional lyings in state. Millions of Americans viewed the train along the route and participated in associated ceremonies.

The train left Washington, on April 21 at 12:30 pm. It bore Lincoln's eldest son Robert Todd and the remains of Lincoln's younger son, William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862)[a], but not Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln, who was too distraught to make the trip.[2] The train largely retraced the route Lincoln had traveled to Washington as the president-elect on his way to his first inauguration, more than four years earlier. The train arrived at Springfield on May 3. Lincoln was interred on May 4, at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.

> Franklin Roosevelt 1945 from Warms Springs, Georgia to Hyde Park, New York. Sudden demise of FDR on eve of VE Day was a terrible shock to a nation at war, and reminiscent of the lost of Lincoln in similar circumstances (but without assassination). His journey from Georgia up the eastern seaboard to Washington and finally Hyde Park is still legendary, on account of news reel footage that captured the shock and grief of the crowds lining the tracks.

1945 FDR Funeral Train and Funeral
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU9WjJLD2dU

FDR's Final Journey Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jB7QL8o36s

Four striking images from the above
> looks on the faces of Harry Truman, his wife Bess and daughter Margaret as he takes the oath of office upon assuming the Presidency hours after FDR's death;

> Black soldier playing a hymn on his accordian at Warm Springs train depot, tears streaming down his face as the funeral train prepares to pull out;

> People standing along the tracks, sometimes with local honor guards of soldiers and veterans, mostly just folks in city train stations, small town depots and two-bit country crossroads, many visibly sad and crying, most memorably a Black lady crying and waving her handkerchief in farewell;

> FDR's famous little black dog Fala, standing about, no doubt wondering when his master was gonna show - something he did for the rest of his life at Hyde Park.

solarflare said:

Surely the risk with the live stream is that it's only going to take one nutter to cause a fairly major incident. I guess the risk of that is there regardless if you've got thousands of people filing past, but if you know it's going out live...

Either it's on a delay, or we find out if they keep those swords sharp.

Luckyguy1983 said:

And we don't need to look like Robert Redford or Sharon Stone, but there are features that are naturally pleasing in humans, essentially for evolutionary reasons - because they indicate good breeding stock. Buildings, I believe, are the same - beautiful buildings are those that connect with primeval feelings of security and well-being. A deeper-set window always looks better than a shallow set one - look at council houses that suddenly look better when they've got that external cladding on them. It must be because they look like thicker walls, therefore a stronger, warmer building. Natural materials - probably because they connote plentiful resources. Buttresses, arches, pillars - all indicate strength of structure. Ornament - indicative of wealth and leisure time. If we connect with these sorts of ideas, we won't make ugly buildings, and it's quite freeing, because I think there's a tendency of some people to affect to like modern, ugly buildings, because they don't like the people who are against them, and identify them with reversing social progress. But if we develop a consensus for just what makes a building that pleases the eye, it can be as modern as anyone could wish, and it will still be beautiful.

That's very well-argued, and I'm at least partly persuaded. Thanks for putting that view.

Foxy said:

kinabalu said:

kle4 said:

Scott_xP said:

The live stream of people passing the coffin is utterly compelling, for no obvious reasons

Didn't one of the Scandanavian nations broadcast a live stream of a log fire for hours, with big views? Odd things can compel.

The original Big Brother - before it got inevitably corrupted - was a great example of this. I used to watch the livestream of people clipping their toenails or sometimes just snoozing. Andy Warhol did something similar 20 years prior to that. Long films of nothing happening. It's life in the raw really. Most of the time very little happens. Extremely authentic.

In the first two series the residents almost forgot they were there, and would sit and chat and drink tea. They would feed the chickens, and cook dinner. It was surprisingly good people watching.

With each successive series though the residents became more argumentative and attention seeking, until it became unwatchable. The innocence of the first season became impossible to replicate.

Yes, people easily forget that Series 1 was a masterpiece. It rapidly became forgettable bilge in subsequent editions.

rcs1000 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I AM SHOCKED BY THESE SURVEY RESULTS! SHOCKED TO THE CORE!

The Hundred is English cricket's least enjoyable competition, fans survey finds

GEORGE DOBELL: The tournament, introduced by the ECB to attract new supporters to the sport, was rated the least popular of all formats of the game by respondents to a Cricket Supporters' Association survey completed 3,704 times

Almost two-thirds of cricket supporters do not enjoy The Hundred, according to the interim results of a survey conducted by the Cricket Supporters' Association.

The tournament, introduced by the ECB to attract new supporters to the sport, was rated the least popular of all formats of the game by respondents to the survey.

Sixty-two per cent of respondents said they found it "not enjoyable", with 11 per cent more saying it was neither enjoyable nor not enjoyable. Only 27 per cent said they found it enjoyable.

By comparison, 98 per cent of respondents said they found Test cricket enjoyable. Only 1 per cent said it was "not enjoyable".

The survey, which was partly funded by the ECB, took around 25 minutes to complete and was done so 3,704 times.

https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/countycricket/the_hundred_english_cricket_least_enjoyable_competition_fans_survey.html

A survey that takes 25 minutes to complete is not exactly going to be representative of average attention spans.

Average attention spans of cricket fans being quizzed about . . . wait for it . . . cricket?

MoonRabbit said:

Simon_Peach said:

Someone caught meteor on film…

https://twitter.com/official_beanie/status/1570159789547601920?s=21&t=ig_oZASCOKTC4k3rFeVDuw

That ain’t no meteor.

It’s clearly a dragon

It's the opening shot of Rings of Power, not House of the Dragon though

Simon_Peach said:

Someone caught meteor on film…

https://twitter.com/official_beanie/status/1570159789547601920?s=21&t=ig_oZASCOKTC4k3rFeVDuw

It's OK. It's just Leon popping back from Seville!

biggles said:

Leon said:

https://gizmodo.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-westminster-queue-line-what3words-uk-1849536290

Some minor typos and homophones have led to mourners being directed to somewhere in the suburbs of London (it’s a long line, but not that long), or Yorkshire, or North Carolina, or California.

++++


They could always hazard a guess that the queue “does not begin in Leeds or California”

Yup. Anyone seizing on this (I imagine there is a lot of immature mocking of it on Twitter) is a twat. It’s that simple.

A hard worked, 24/7, Ops team has made the odd fat finger error which has confused precisely no one in the real world.

That's not quite true.

Knowing that it's not grit.slate.pack is great, but it doesn't help you know that the right three words are grate.snake.platt.

rcs1000 said:

biggles said:

Leon said:

https://gizmodo.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-westminster-queue-line-what3words-uk-1849536290

Some minor typos and homophones have led to mourners being directed to somewhere in the suburbs of London (it’s a long line, but not that long), or Yorkshire, or North Carolina, or California.

++++


They could always hazard a guess that the queue “does not begin in Leeds or California”

Yup. Anyone seizing on this (I imagine there is a lot of immature mocking of it on Twitter) is a twat. It’s that simple.

A hard worked, 24/7, Ops team has made the odd fat finger error which has confused precisely no one in the real world.

That's not quite true.

Knowing that it's not grit.slate.pack is great, but it doesn't help you know that the right three words are grate.snake.platt.

They do also state the nearest landmark (e.g. Southwark Bridge) so no one can be far off.

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Well, in which case developers will see that the best way to make money is Poundbury-type developments.

(What's your source, btw? Has the Crown Estates made a higher return on Poundbury than a Redroof does on one if its developments?)

Just that house prices there are higher than nearby towns - Googled for a source, here's one:

'Meanwhile in the on-going Poundbury scheme, residential development values per hectare are 43% higher than those in Dorchester.

The research also shows homes hold their value at Poundbury in particular. Buyers are prepared to continue paying premium prices when homes are resold with house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market.'
https://www.savills.com/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/289633/significant-premiums-for-developers-and-homeowners-in-sustainable-mixed-use-communities

"house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market"

That sounds like it's performing pretty much in-line with the local market?

And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?

The question is: are the returns that a developer gets for building a Poundbury type development better or worse than a traditional one? Otherwise, all you are doing is measuring the amount of money put into it.

"And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

Just for you, some very reasonably priced bridges over the Thames, one careful owner, low mileage.

Cookie said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Feck, 2 penalties and a red card against Rangers at Ibrox, easy seen it wasn’t a Scottish ref.

Are they the King’s 11 now?

Quite a few posters talk about football, in most cases primarily about their chosen teams. I have no idea whether you have a team Divvie - you never seem to extol one that I've seen - all I know is that you really, really don't like Rangers.

Few do. They riddled hundreds of suppliers and HMRC out of millions when they went bust. Their next administration event can’t be far away, thankfully.

Malmesbury said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Well, in which case developers will see that the best way to make money is Poundbury-type developments.

(What's your source, btw? Has the Crown Estates made a higher return on Poundbury than a Redroof does on one if its developments?)

Just that house prices there are higher than nearby towns - Googled for a source, here's one:

'Meanwhile in the on-going Poundbury scheme, residential development values per hectare are 43% higher than those in Dorchester.

The research also shows homes hold their value at Poundbury in particular. Buyers are prepared to continue paying premium prices when homes are resold with house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market.'
https://www.savills.com/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/289633/significant-premiums-for-developers-and-homeowners-in-sustainable-mixed-use-communities

"house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market"

That sounds like it's performing pretty much in-line with the local market?

And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?

The question is: are the returns that a developer gets for building a Poundbury type development better or worse than a traditional one? Otherwise, all you are doing is measuring the amount of money put into it.

"And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

Just for you, some very reasonably priced bridges over the Thames, one careful owner, low mileage.

The new build premium is about 10% in normal economic times.

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/education/2022/09/13/are-housebuilders-cheap-or-a-value-trap/?xnpe_tifc=hkop4.xD4IoXOIB.xIxZ4jpsafeWaeiWhFW_hfechfhLafs3qMUgnkPlRf8lhMPchMncbdiArkYpxuQLhfbDhfojxDnJbfHT&utm_source=exponea&utm_campaign=Investment Daily Email 13 Sept 2022&utm_medium=email

HYUFD said:

alednam said:

Carnyx said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

Leon said:

This is what I said two days ago, on PB, about the live feed of the Scottish lying in state:

“This is brilliant. A Sky News feed of the lying-in-state from Edinburgh (looking nobly beautiful in the autumn sun)


It’s FIVE HOURS of ordinary people filing past the Queen’s coffin. That’s it. And yet it is utterly compelling. The different reactions. Why has the guy with his lunchbox showed up with a scowl? What’s the point? Why is that very young woman crying? Who is the dude in the green tee who apparently doesn’t care, but then suddenly bows, deeply?


My favourite is the middle aged daughter wheeling in her very elderly mother in a chair. They stop in front of the dead queen. The mother shuts her eyes. The daughter brushes away a single tear. Then the daughter quietly kisses her mother. And off they go


It is inexplicably moving. Something of the intense human power of monarchy is detailed here. I just can’t quite work out what”

We're not the Protestant country some people like to think we are.

Of course we are, the Queen was Supreme Governor of our established Protestant Church

"Our".

"Our" = England's, Scoland's Church being Prebysterian, and the Anglican churches in Wales and Northern Ireland being no longer established..

Even in Scotland the Queen was represented at meetings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland by a Lord High Commissioner. Presbyterians in Northern Ireland are of course diehard monarchists too.

In any case, 80% of the UK population lives in England and had the Church of England as their established church

It's not my established church.

The C of E is Poundshop Catholicism anyway. Neither full-on ritualistic nor on the other hand fire and brimstone proddies. Christianity organised by a committee.

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

NickPalmer said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

turbotubbs said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

I have huge conflicts in my head about old vs new in architecture. I abhor hanging on the old stuff just got the sake of it. I always ask, if the Romans had had double glazing, they would have used it.

I believe that there are some things, just like our perception of beauty in humans, that we perceive to be beautiful in buildings. The really ugly buildings are those where the architects have ignored all that.

With humans, it's surely a good thing that we don't all agree - those of us not blessed with classical beauty nonetheless come across eccentrics who think we're good-looking. If we all had to look like Robert Redford it'd be a bit sad.

And surely the same applies to buildings? The willing buyer/willing seller principle seems hard to argue with. Why should third parties intervene and tel lthem they're wrong?

I think you're doing yourself a disservice.

And we don't need to look like Robert Redford or Sharon Stone, but there are features that are naturally pleasing in humans, essentially for evolutionary reasons - because they indicate good breeding stock. Buildings, I believe, are the same - beautiful buildings are those that connect with primeval feelings of security and well-being. A deeper-set window always looks better than a shallow set one - look at council houses that suddenly look better when they've got that external cladding on them. It must be because they look like thicker walls, therefore a stronger, warmer building. Natural materials - probably because they connote plentiful resources. Buttresses, arches, pillars - all indicate strength of structure. Ornament - indicative of wealth and leisure time. If we connect with these sorts of ideas, we won't make ugly buildings, and it's quite freeing, because I think there's a tendency of some people to affect to like modern, ugly buildings, because they don't like the people who are against them, and identify them with reversing social progress. But if we develop a consensus for just what makes a building that pleases the eye, it can be as modern as anyone could wish, and it will still be beautiful.

I went to an interesting lecture recently by a professor of neurology who was studying brain activity to localise the area of brain that is stimulated by beauty*. Natural things like plants, animals, landscapes and human faces were rated similarly by all cultures he studied, but for architecture, music and pure maths equations there was no agreement between cultures. There was a difference between lay and expert subjects too. He concluded that ppreciation of man-made beauty is culturally and educationally determined, but appreciation of natural things is cross cultural.

The lecture was similar to this one:

https://youtu.be/6G9uHGSOt0s

* beauty is appreciated by a small area in the medio-inferior part of the left frontal lobe it seems.

It sounds like a fascinating lecture. Yes, to some extent it must be culturally determined, but not necessarily in the sense of being taught - it can still be a memory from way back, in the blood. It's easy to see why different cultures might see different things as beautiful in architecture, because making yourself a safe haven in a desert is different to making one on a mountain or in a jungle, etc.

Theuniondivvie said:

Cookie said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Feck, 2 penalties and a red card against Rangers at Ibrox, easy seen it wasn’t a Scottish ref.

Are they the King’s 11 now?

Quite a few posters talk about football, in most cases primarily about their chosen teams. I have no idea whether you have a team Divvie - you never seem to extol one that I've seen - all I know is that you really, really don't like Rangers.

They’re complicit in sectarian bigotry and their supporters have twice shat (sometimes literally) all over my city in the last couple of years, why should I like them?

Rangers or the Monarchy?

darkage said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Well, in which case developers will see that the best way to make money is Poundbury-type developments.

(What's your source, btw? Has the Crown Estates made a higher return on Poundbury than a Redroof does on one if its developments?)

I think, if you look in to it, most of the time the demand for newbuild just doesn't favour Poundbury style developments. Housebuilders like to roll out value engineered standard house types with a parking space to the front and a bit of garden to the rear. Cheap to build and not quirky. Because, that is what the people want. Developers need to maximise profits, so this is the machine that cranks in to action to make that happen.

Considering the planners, if there is no 'up to date' local plan, as is now frequently the case; they have little or no basis to require anything else. It is difficult to 'demand better' because developers then employ expert witnesses to provide 'evidence' that what I have described above is good design.

Most interesting developments like Poundbury occur either because there is a developer who is perhaps not driven entirely by commercial considerations (ie a sovereign wealth fund, or a charity, or a philanthropist, the church of england, a community land trust) or the Council themselves have a hand in the development.

The other thing that changes is time. Mock Tudor and rows of Edwardian bay fronted villas have aged well, most postwar building less so, but our perspective changes as that becomes the familiar vernacular.

darkage said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Theuniondivvie said:

The racists are having a right old time to themselves.

168 people have retweeted a very silly and nasty remark. Twitter is not making a great case for itself there.

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Well, in which case developers will see that the best way to make money is Poundbury-type developments.

(What's your source, btw? Has the Crown Estates made a higher return on Poundbury than a Redroof does on one if its developments?)

Just that house prices there are higher than nearby towns - Googled for a source, here's one:

'Meanwhile in the on-going Poundbury scheme, residential development values per hectare are 43% higher than those in Dorchester.

The research also shows homes hold their value at Poundbury in particular. Buyers are prepared to continue paying premium prices when homes are resold with house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market.'
https://www.savills.com/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/289633/significant-premiums-for-developers-and-homeowners-in-sustainable-mixed-use-communities

"house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market"

That sounds like it's performing pretty much in-line with the local market?

And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?

The question is: are the returns that a developer gets for building a Poundbury type development better or worse than a traditional one? Otherwise, all you are doing is measuring the amount of money put into it.

The beginning sentence about residential development values per hectare seems fairly unequivocal to me. The lady from Savills says:

“New build properties typically command premium prices compared to the local market because of minimal maintenance costs in the first ten years. And that premium is usually eroded to some degree when resold.

“However, Poundbury bucks that trend and retains its value particularly well. Over the life of the development, resales have achieved a 25 per cent average premium over the local market. What’s more, there is no erosion of the new build premium and house prices between the first and second sale have increased by 0.6 per cent more per year compared to growth locally.. It has also proved more resilient than Dorchester, maintaining activity throughout the housing market cycle in contrast to the rest of the country where transaction levels are currently 29 per cent below their pre-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) average.”

Convinces me that people like it and want to live there.

Perhaps the problem here is that the developer does not benefit from high resale values. It is also difficult for the developer to recover the higher build cost for a development like Poundbury through the sale price. The initial sale price has a ceiling set by what banks will lend.

I have seen nothing to suggest that they didn't do very nicely.

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

Malmesbury said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

Leon said:

FrankBooth said:

Leon said:

The trouble is there is no great British city waiting to be opened up and pedestrianised and revealed in its spleandour like Seville

The Luftwaffe and the Marxist town planners destroyed most of our great cities and many of our small cities - london Glasgow and Edinburgh apart.

Newcastle is probably the only big UK city that has some truly magnificent surviving architecture and a noble setting and therefore hope. It appears Liverpool has recently destroyed itself if UNESCO are right

Why are we so shamefully bad at urbanisation? How come the Spanish can do it and we can’t?

Perhaps you should write a letter to his majesty the King. He is known for being interested in such matters.

He’s bang on, in this case

There was some sneering about Poundbury on this site a couple of days ago. Yet Poundbury is massively popular, is oversubscribed, people want to live there A LOT, and does well on all metrics - crime etc

Is it toytown? What does that even mean? Venice is Toytown. It is designed to be pretty in a slightly frivolous way. What the fuck is wrong with that? Do we actually want our towns to be ugly? Sometimes it feels that way. Soulless dreary cheapo redbrick suburbs with no sense of urbanity

Build a thousand Poundburys. Our descendants will thank us

The problem with Poundbry is that, as with the late Queen’s taste in art, it disappoints he experts.

The proles should love Brutalist tower blocks. Poundbry is a public slap in the face to Those Who Know Better.

A friend who teaches the history of art at a university told me that the problem the Queen had with some in the art works was that they thought her taste in pictures somehow belonged to art appreciation world. That she should like what they liked as a sort of public duty.

Artistic taste is individual. It can be guided and informed. But dictated, no.

Anyone who says that “You must love X” is wrong at an utterly fundamental level.

There's nothing wrong with Poundbry. Indeed, it looks (for a new development) rather an attractive place to be. I also love the system they have for first time buyers, where you get to buy at a discount... but then you have to sell to another first time buyer with the same embedded discount.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of 'willing buyer, willing seller': if people want to live in Poundbry's, then fantastic! Let the developers build them. If they want to live in high rise buildings, also fantastic! Let the developers build them.

Willing buyer. Willing seller.

And different people want different things.

I wonder if that writer Sean Knox is thinking it might be a good idea to, instead of jumping on the next flight to Seville now he’s seen that Leon is there, go down to Poundbury and write an in depth opinion piece for the Spectator?

Personally I think Poundbry is a C- in the old style. Nice idea but needs better execution.

A recreation of the past is never perfect - it is of its time. But it shouldn't be compared to real old buildings - that's daft. Compare it to a similar development of buildings done between the early 90's and now.

What's wrong with Willing Buyer, Willing Seller?

Nothing, but unless I'm missing your point, more people are willing to buy in Poundbury, for all that it's a pastiche, and looks daft from a fair few angles, than in most contemporaneous developments.

Well, in which case developers will see that the best way to make money is Poundbury-type developments.

(What's your source, btw? Has the Crown Estates made a higher return on Poundbury than a Redroof does on one if its developments?)

Just that house prices there are higher than nearby towns - Googled for a source, here's one:

'Meanwhile in the on-going Poundbury scheme, residential development values per hectare are 43% higher than those in Dorchester.

The research also shows homes hold their value at Poundbury in particular. Buyers are prepared to continue paying premium prices when homes are resold with house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market.'
https://www.savills.com/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/289633/significant-premiums-for-developers-and-homeowners-in-sustainable-mixed-use-communities

"house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market"

That sounds like it's performing pretty much in-line with the local market?

And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?

The question is: are the returns that a developer gets for building a Poundbury type development better or worse than a traditional one? Otherwise, all you are doing is measuring the amount of money put into it.

"And wouldn't a new build - which is well insulated, with modern heating, electrics, as well as a builders' guarantee etc. - trade at a premium anyway?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

Just for you, some very reasonably priced bridges over the Thames, one careful owner, low mileage.

The new build premium is about 10% in normal economic times.

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/education/2022/09/13/are-housebuilders-cheap-or-a-value-trap/?xnpe_tifc=hkop4.xD4IoXOIB.xIxZ4jpsafeWaeiWhFW_hfechfhLafs3qMUgnkPlRf8lhMPchMncbdiArkYpxuQLhfbDhfojxDnJbfHT&utm_source=exponea&utm_campaign=Investment Daily Email 13 Sept 2022&utm_medium=email

Just the implication of quality....

Just for fun - a friend is on the board of a building that has the cladding issue. The engineers told them they can't replace the cladding. Because the building is already structurally weak.... 20 years old.....

Luckily Big Name builder who contracted with a smaller company to actually build the block has stepped in. To massively reinforce the structure. To give an idea of how bad it was - it is being done totally on the Big Names dime. Because they are terrified of a court case....

This situation is not unusual at all.
In my experience flats have a newbuild premium of up to 100%. I've seen situations where a new build flat is being sold for 250 k right next to a 1970s block, where the flats change hands for 120k.

THIS THREAD HAS BURNT UP ENTERING THE ATMOSPHERE