A suggested betting market for Mid-Bedfordshire – politicalbetting.com
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Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.3 -
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.1 -
Poland's ultra-conservative government have had a couple of strokes of luck I think. First, they chose the right side of the Russia Ukraine conflict unlike Hungary (from the point of view of EU brownie points, not that it was ever in doubt given Poland's been probably the most hawkish on Russia for years). Second, the economy is doing pretty well so they get the benefit of the doubt from the voters.NickPalmer said:
Yes, that's a fair description. Poland has always has a strain of nationalist and authoritarian politics (and there were plenty of examples of anti-semitism before and during the war), partly at least because they've always had aggressive neighbours in Germany and Russia. (Having an aggressive neighbour doesn't necessarily mean you're nice yourself.)SeaShantyIrish2 said:Interesting article in NYT this morning, on how the present Polish government is stoking fears of an apparently non-existent threat of imminent invasion by Belarus via the "Suwałki Gap" in leadup to October parliamentary election.
Polish regime may be IHMO characterized as anti-Putin Putinists, who aside from Mad Vlad's invasion of Ukraine, are aligned with the rest of his program, including:
> hyper-populism
> mega-nationalism
> aggressive anti-Wokeism
> crony capitalism writ large
> fake news as instrument of power
> disrespect (to put it mildly) for rule of law
Any of this sound familiar to UKers?
Cosmopolitan Warsaw is very different, with lots of liberal and open-minded people who view their government with as little enthusiasm as most Londoners view Nigel Farage, but parts of the countryside are another matter.
My Polish colleagues here in London despair of them, but then they are of course Liberals from the capital and West of the country.0 -
Mr Johnson made a big thing of that when he came out of hospital after his run in with covid, but it sort of disappeared like the waters of the Amu Darya into the sands of the desert. Or if it did eventuate, it was in some less obviously connected form.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.1 -
The Poles I've encountered are from Krakow. They view their own government as bleeding hearted liberals.TimS said:
Poland's ultra-conservative government have had a couple of strokes of luck I think. First, they chose the right side of the Russia Ukraine conflict unlike Hungary (from the point of view of EU brownie points, not that it was ever in doubt given Poland's been probably the most hawkish on Russia for years). Second, the economy is doing pretty well so they get the benefit of the doubt from the voters.NickPalmer said:
Yes, that's a fair description. Poland has always has a strain of nationalist and authoritarian politics (and there were plenty of examples of anti-semitism before and during the war), partly at least because they've always had aggressive neighbours in Germany and Russia. (Having an aggressive neighbour doesn't necessarily mean you're nice yourself.)SeaShantyIrish2 said:Interesting article in NYT this morning, on how the present Polish government is stoking fears of an apparently non-existent threat of imminent invasion by Belarus via the "Suwałki Gap" in leadup to October parliamentary election.
Polish regime may be IHMO characterized as anti-Putin Putinists, who aside from Mad Vlad's invasion of Ukraine, are aligned with the rest of his program, including:
> hyper-populism
> mega-nationalism
> aggressive anti-Wokeism
> crony capitalism writ large
> fake news as instrument of power
> disrespect (to put it mildly) for rule of law
Any of this sound familiar to UKers?
Cosmopolitan Warsaw is very different, with lots of liberal and open-minded people who view their government with as little enthusiasm as most Londoners view Nigel Farage, but parts of the countryside are another matter.
My Polish colleagues here in London despair of them, but then they are of course Liberals from the capital and West of the country.0 -
Just such a shame they didn't use the Blue Streak (now basically two old boosters in Leicester and near Edinburgh, a test stand in Spadeadam, and the launch site near Woomera, and that's it I think).Chris said:
Well, at least it means the British Empire has a space programme.HYUFD said:Lots of Daily Mail readers wondering in the Comments while the UK is still sending foreign aid to India if it can afford to land on the Moon
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12436887/Indias-Chandrayaan-3-makes-history-landing-moons-South-Pole-time-beating-Russia-China-USA.html?openWebLoggedIn=true&login0 -
I think it unlikely, although the truth about the prevalence of child sex abuse, and the willingness of people in authority to turn a blind eye to it, is already sufficiently disturbing.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.2 -
I said upthread that Warrior is very fine, and I agree about the nautical architecture in the Dockyard.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
Don’t think there is much to Gosport, though.
A place which I know quite well.0 -
How exactly were they meant to use covid lockdowns to reduce obesity and get people exercising more? Short of passing a law that makes exercise compulory and calories rationed there is nothing a government can do except put out adverts, they already do this via posters in hospitals and everytime you actually get to talk to a gp they give you advice to eat less, drink less etc.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
People already know exercise is good for you and obesity is bad. If they haven't done something about it all the advertising in the world isn't going to change that.1 -
I blame islamophobia!TimS said:
Which is one of those great mysteries because they all use the greek suffix -naut even though taiko and vyomano (new to me) aren't greek.Gardenwalker said:The West has astronauts.
The Russians have cosmonauts.
The Chinese have taikonauts.
Apparently the Indians have vyomanauts.0 -
I thought I would comment ad nauseam about the current polls but their credibility is as broken as a 10-piece tea set which was been thrown around by a trio of DPD drivers.
The 25-point Deltapoll just defies reason - the sub samples are just beyond belief.
YouGov on the other hand looks and feels much more sensible - the England sub sample has Labour leading 46-27 with the LDs on 10, Greens 8 and Reform 7. That's a 16% swing from Conservative to Labour in England and an 8% swing from Conservative to LD so closer to the R&W numbers.
Plenty of DKs - 20% - with 15% among men and 24% among women. 26% of 2016 LEAVE voters also in the Don't Know camp.0 -
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.2 -
And do you see the connection between QAnon-inspired tales of organised child sex abuse and the blood libel canard?Sean_F said:
I think it unlikely, although the truth about the prevalence of child sex abuse, and the willingness of people in authority to turn a blind eye to it, is already sufficiently disturbing.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.0 -
Ah, missed that - I had been thinking you were more of a man of discertnment than to diss them.Gardenwalker said:
I said upthread that Warrior is very fine, and I agree about the nautical architecture in the Dockyard.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
Don’t think there is much to Gosport, though.
A place which I know quite well.
Gosport? Haslar Hospital (just to see the outside), the bridge over the original shit creek (up variety), the preserrved submarines at the submarine base, álong the seafront past the old victualling yard to the naval ordnance museum [edit] aka Explosion which is worth it just to sit outside on the loading quay at sea level and have coffee and a chunk of bread and butter pudding and the view actoss the water. (Well, I liked the ordnance too, but I would - very much a family thing as well). There used to be the Palmerstonian Fort Brockhurst with its flooded moat but it's been closed most of the time for decades now I think. Althougfh its sister Fort Nelson with the cowslips and oxlips on the glacis is up on Portsdown, with qutie the view over the world.2 -
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...
0 -
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...1 -
The new walk along the front from Spice Island down to Clarence Pier is excellent, it still amzes me how close the big ships are to the shore as they exit the harbourMexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.3 -
If anyone wants a brilliant visit, I can suggest that they go to Fort Monckton in Gosport and ask to be let in. They're very friendly folks, and will always give you a guided tour...Carnyx said:
Ah, missed that - I had been thinking you were more of a man of discertnment than to diss them.Gardenwalker said:
I said upthread that Warrior is very fine, and I agree about the nautical architecture in the Dockyard.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
Don’t think there is much to Gosport, though.
A place which I know quite well.
Gosport? Haslar Hospital (just to see the outside), the bridge over the original shit creek (up variety), the preserrved submarines at the submarine base, álong the seafront past the old victualling yard to the naval ordnance museum which is worth it just to sit outside on the loading quay at sea level and have coffee and a chunk of bread and butter pudding and the view actoss the water. (Well, I liked the ordnance too, but I would - very much a family thing as well). There used to be the Palmerstonian Fort Brockhurst with its flooded moat but it's been closed most of the time for decades now I think. Althougfh its sister Fort Nelson with the cowslips and oxlips on the glacis is up on Portsdown, with qutie the view over the world. 2 -
Did someone just mention Prince Andrew?Carnyx said:
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...0 -
Mus\t be some confusion. The only famous chap connected with Portchester Castle is Dr Lind of lime juice fame (I think - or else I have got another one, buried in the church there in the middle).Mexicanpete said:
Did someone just mention Prince Andrew?Carnyx said:
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...0 -
Spain edges toward the decisive vote in the Cortes which is now due for September 27th.
Feijoo of the PP will be put up as Prime Minister - the rules in Spain are basically an absolute majority is required in the first ballot and if there needs to be a second ballot, a simple majority.
As we know, Feijoo's PP amd VOX, having looked as though they would be able to govern with a majority, ended up short on 170 seats in the 350 seat Cortes. They've got a couple of the regional MPs to back them so that's 172.
In the debate to choose the speaker, current Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (PSOE) got all the 178 other MPs to back his candidate.
It woulde seem unlikely Feijoo will get there on the first ballot and get 176 or more but he may be able to become Prime Minister on the second ballot if not all the MPs vote against him as he simply needs more to support him then vote against him.2 -
A significant part of the population looks like they would fit right in on a pirate ship. But the city does have some character. Britain’s only island city, and one with less open space than any other.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
The tower is one of the better Millennium projects, for sure.
And, given its size and demographic, the city has been notably un-socialist (compare Southampton), due to the naval connections. And was ahead of the curve in having the census classes CD leaning more Tory than the ABs.3 -
That harbour, and the channels out to sea from it, are dredged seriously deep. And regularly re-done. And made deeper for the two new super aircraft carriers, slicing through the island’s old telephone cables and delivering us superfast broadband by replacement cable, courtesy of HMG’s defence budget.NerysHughes said:
The new walk along the front from Spice Island down to Clarence Pier is excellent, it still amzes me how close the big ships are to the shore as they exit the harbourMexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.0 -
Today's things you ought not to have to be told.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/23/raf-officers-must-stop-exposing-themselves-to-women-says-military-judge
"A military judge has said RAF officers must stop exposing themselves to female colleagues, describing such behaviour as arrogant, juvenile, immature and not funny."
0 -
My son's MP was Stephen Morgan, although they also have that attractiveIanB2 said:
A significant part of the population looks like they would fit right in on a pirate ship. But the city does have some character. Britain’s only island city, and one with less open space than any other.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
The tower is one of the better Millennium projects, for sure.
And, given its size and demographic, the city has been notably un-socialist (compare Southampton), due to the naval connections. And was ahead of the curve in having the census classes CD leaning more Tory than the ABs.
looking lady who likes opening foodbanks as the other MP.0 -
Deleteddixiedean said:Today's things you ought not to have to be told.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/23/raf-officers-must-stop-exposing-themselves-to-women-says-military-judge
"A military judge has said RAF officers must stop exposing themselves to female colleagues, describing such behaviour as arrogant, juvenile, immature and not funny."2 -
I was being impish. Prince Andrew and Porchester; there is a connection.Carnyx said:
Mus\t be some confusion. The only famous chap connected with Portchester Castle is Dr Lind of lime juice fame (I think - or else I have got another one, buried in the church there in the middle).Mexicanpete said:
Did someone just mention Prince Andrew?Carnyx said:
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...0 -
Im from Southampton but have always loved Portsmouth. Sitting in the beer garden of the Still and West on a summers evening watching the ships go in and out as the sun sets over Gosport is wonderful. I would love to live in one of the tower blocks in Gosport if I had a sea view.IanB2 said:
A significant part of the population looks like they would fit right in on a pirate ship. But the city does have some character. Britain’s only island city, and one with less open space than any other.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
The tower is one of the better Millennium projects, for sure.
And, given its size and demographic, the city has been notably un-socialist (compare Southampton), due to the naval connections. And was ahead of the curve in having the census classes CD leaning more Tory than the ABs.0 -
"Lose 5 pounds to save the NHS".Pagan2 said:
How exactly were they meant to use covid lockdowns to reduce obesity and get people exercising more? Short of passing a law that makes exercise compulory and calories rationed there is nothing a government can do except put out adverts, they already do this via posters in hospitals and everytime you actually get to talk to a gp they give you advice to eat less, drink less etc.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
People already know exercise is good for you and obesity is bad. If they haven't done something about it all the advertising in the world isn't going to change that.
"Beat COVID with 10,000 steps".
They had an unrivalled opportunity to link taking personal responsibility to reducing pressure on the health service.1 -
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.1 -
Why do you feel the need to reduce all politics to a linear axis of "Putinism"? Was the pre-woke West Putinist?SeaShantyIrish2 said:Interesting article in NYT this morning, on how the present Polish government is stoking fears of an apparently non-existent threat of imminent invasion by Belarus via the "Suwałki Gap" in leadup to October parliamentary election.
Polish regime may be IHMO characterized as anti-Putin Putinists, who aside from Mad Vlad's invasion of Ukraine, are aligned with the rest of his program, including:
> hyper-populism
> mega-nationalism
> aggressive anti-Wokeism
> crony capitalism writ large
> fake news as instrument of power
> disrespect (to put it mildly) for rule of law
Any of this sound familiar to UKers?0 -
Which as I said would be just advertising telling people what they already know, they should shed weight and take more exercise. They already know it what makes you think yet another advert is going to change the into svelte adonisesEabhal said:
"Lose 5 pounds to save the NHS".Pagan2 said:
How exactly were they meant to use covid lockdowns to reduce obesity and get people exercising more? Short of passing a law that makes exercise compulory and calories rationed there is nothing a government can do except put out adverts, they already do this via posters in hospitals and everytime you actually get to talk to a gp they give you advice to eat less, drink less etc.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
People already know exercise is good for you and obesity is bad. If they haven't done something about it all the advertising in the world isn't going to change that.
"Beat COVID with 10,000 steps".
They had an unrivalled opportunity to link taking personal responsibility to reducing pressure on the health service.0 -
Krakow's actually a small island of liberality in the otherwise pretty conservative South East of the countrySean_F said:
The Poles I've encountered are from Krakow. They view their own government as bleeding hearted liberals.TimS said:
Poland's ultra-conservative government have had a couple of strokes of luck I think. First, they chose the right side of the Russia Ukraine conflict unlike Hungary (from the point of view of EU brownie points, not that it was ever in doubt given Poland's been probably the most hawkish on Russia for years). Second, the economy is doing pretty well so they get the benefit of the doubt from the voters.NickPalmer said:
Yes, that's a fair description. Poland has always has a strain of nationalist and authoritarian politics (and there were plenty of examples of anti-semitism before and during the war), partly at least because they've always had aggressive neighbours in Germany and Russia. (Having an aggressive neighbour doesn't necessarily mean you're nice yourself.)SeaShantyIrish2 said:Interesting article in NYT this morning, on how the present Polish government is stoking fears of an apparently non-existent threat of imminent invasion by Belarus via the "Suwałki Gap" in leadup to October parliamentary election.
Polish regime may be IHMO characterized as anti-Putin Putinists, who aside from Mad Vlad's invasion of Ukraine, are aligned with the rest of his program, including:
> hyper-populism
> mega-nationalism
> aggressive anti-Wokeism
> crony capitalism writ large
> fake news as instrument of power
> disrespect (to put it mildly) for rule of law
Any of this sound familiar to UKers?
Cosmopolitan Warsaw is very different, with lots of liberal and open-minded people who view their government with as little enthusiasm as most Londoners view Nigel Farage, but parts of the countryside are another matter.
My Polish colleagues here in London despair of them, but then they are of course Liberals from the capital and West of the country.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/2020_Polish_presidential_election_map.png/1280px-2020_Polish_presidential_election_map.png
But it's Poznan and Gdansk you want if you're looking for truly woke metropolitan types.0 -
If anyone asks, you could just say you're looking for a lost golf ball.JosiasJessop said:
If anyone wants a brilliant visit, I can suggest that they go to Fort Monckton in Gosport and ask to be let in. They're very friendly folks, and will always give you a guided tour...Carnyx said:
Ah, missed that - I had been thinking you were more of a man of discertnment than to diss them.Gardenwalker said:
I said upthread that Warrior is very fine, and I agree about the nautical architecture in the Dockyard.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
Don’t think there is much to Gosport, though.
A place which I know quite well.
Gosport? Haslar Hospital (just to see the outside), the bridge over the original shit creek (up variety), the preserrved submarines at the submarine base, álong the seafront past the old victualling yard to the naval ordnance museum which is worth it just to sit outside on the loading quay at sea level and have coffee and a chunk of bread and butter pudding and the view actoss the water. (Well, I liked the ordnance too, but I would - very much a family thing as well). There used to be the Palmerstonian Fort Brockhurst with its flooded moat but it's been closed most of the time for decades now I think. Althougfh its sister Fort Nelson with the cowslips and oxlips on the glacis is up on Portsdown, with qutie the view over the world.
But Gosport is left-behind Red Wall in microscosm and on the south coast. It's home for me in a way that Romford can never be. And it has a lot of things going for it; some nice heritage, a highly agreeable climate, a substantial (and well-used) cycle network based on the removed railways.
But the withdrawl of the MoD has left it stuck without a purpose and it will always be doomed by being a ferry ride away from a journey to anything interesting. So the young and interesting leave. And for all the nice archetecture (like the historic bit of Priddy's Hard), there's plenty of meh as well (the modern infill around Priddy's Hard).
Sorry, ancestors.1 -
I don’t think looking out at Portsmouth Harbour counts as a “sea view”, unless you are an estate agent?NerysHughes said:
Im from Southampton but have always loved Portsmouth. Sitting in the beer garden of the Still and West on a summers evening watching the ships go in and out as the sun sets over Gosport is wonderful. I would love to live in one of the tower blocks in Gosport if I had a sea view.IanB2 said:
A significant part of the population looks like they would fit right in on a pirate ship. But the city does have some character. Britain’s only island city, and one with less open space than any other.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
The tower is one of the better Millennium projects, for sure.
And, given its size and demographic, the city has been notably un-socialist (compare Southampton), due to the naval connections. And was ahead of the curve in having the census classes CD leaning more Tory than the ABs.0 -
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.0 -
And once a top LibDem target seat, until it all fell apart.Stuartinromford said:
If anyone asks, you could just say you're looking for a lost golf ball.JosiasJessop said:
If anyone wants a brilliant visit, I can suggest that they go to Fort Monckton in Gosport and ask to be let in. They're very friendly folks, and will always give you a guided tour...Carnyx said:
Ah, missed that - I had been thinking you were more of a man of discertnment than to diss them.Gardenwalker said:
I said upthread that Warrior is very fine, and I agree about the nautical architecture in the Dockyard.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
Don’t think there is much to Gosport, though.
A place which I know quite well.
Gosport? Haslar Hospital (just to see the outside), the bridge over the original shit creek (up variety), the preserrved submarines at the submarine base, álong the seafront past the old victualling yard to the naval ordnance museum which is worth it just to sit outside on the loading quay at sea level and have coffee and a chunk of bread and butter pudding and the view actoss the water. (Well, I liked the ordnance too, but I would - very much a family thing as well). There used to be the Palmerstonian Fort Brockhurst with its flooded moat but it's been closed most of the time for decades now I think. Althougfh its sister Fort Nelson with the cowslips and oxlips on the glacis is up on Portsdown, with qutie the view over the world.
But Gosport is left-behind Red Wall in microscosm and on the south coast. It's home for me in a way that Romford can never be. And it has a lot of things going for it; some nice heritage, a highly agreeable climate, a substantial (and well-used) cycle network based on the removed railways.
But the withdrawl of the MoD has left it stuck without a purpose and it will always be doomed by being a ferry ride away from a journey to anything interesting. So the young and interesting leave. And for all the nice archetecture (like the historic bit of Priddy's Hard), there's plenty of meh as well (the modern infill around Priddy's Hard).
Sorry, ancestors.0 -
I think an overweight Boris telling that home truth to 60 million people in March '20 would have had an impact.Pagan2 said:
Which as I said would be just advertising telling people what they already know, they should shed weight and take more exercise. They already know it what makes you think yet another advert is going to change the into svelte adoniiEabhal said:
"Lose 5 pounds to save the NHS".Pagan2 said:
How exactly were they meant to use covid lockdowns to reduce obesity and get people exercising more? Short of passing a law that makes exercise compulory and calories rationed there is nothing a government can do except put out adverts, they already do this via posters in hospitals and everytime you actually get to talk to a gp they give you advice to eat less, drink less etc.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
People already know exercise is good for you and obesity is bad. If they haven't done something about it all the advertising in the world isn't going to change that.
"Beat COVID with 10,000 steps".
They had an unrivalled opportunity to link taking personal responsibility to reducing pressure on the health service.
It's the one major gripe I have against Drakeford. Banning Parkrun during COVID was appalling short-sightedness. He should've had the whole of Wales doing 5k walks/runs.0 -
There has always been woke and anti-woke, it just went by different names.williamglenn said:
Why do you feel the need to reduce all politics to a linear axis of "Putinism"? Was the pre-woke West Putinist?SeaShantyIrish2 said:Interesting article in NYT this morning, on how the present Polish government is stoking fears of an apparently non-existent threat of imminent invasion by Belarus via the "Suwałki Gap" in leadup to October parliamentary election.
Polish regime may be IHMO characterized as anti-Putin Putinists, who aside from Mad Vlad's invasion of Ukraine, are aligned with the rest of his program, including:
> hyper-populism
> mega-nationalism
> aggressive anti-Wokeism
> crony capitalism writ large
> fake news as instrument of power
> disrespect (to put it mildly) for rule of law
Any of this sound familiar to UKers?
Political correctness gone mad, for example.
There have also always been programmes akin to Putinism, but they also go by different names over time.1 -
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.0 -
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.0 -
Oh that Porchester sans a first t - I don't keep up with the royalist news.Mexicanpete said:
I was being impish. Prince Andrew and Porchester; there is a connection.Carnyx said:
Mus\t be some confusion. The only famous chap connected with Portchester Castle is Dr Lind of lime juice fame (I think - or else I have got another one, buried in the church there in the middle).Mexicanpete said:
Did someone just mention Prince Andrew?Carnyx said:
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...
(Bloody odd business being a royalist, I can't help thinking, if that is what they spend their lives on. And even the PB royalists sometimes imitate The Male Online when they start salivating over the younger and prettier royal family members. Poor things (the latter I mean).1 -
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough1 -
I’m off to Krakow tomorrow! 🇺🇦 > 🇵🇱TimS said:
Krakow's actually a small island of liberality in the otherwise pretty conservative South East of the countrySean_F said:
The Poles I've encountered are from Krakow. They view their own government as bleeding hearted liberals.TimS said:
Poland's ultra-conservative government have had a couple of strokes of luck I think. First, they chose the right side of the Russia Ukraine conflict unlike Hungary (from the point of view of EU brownie points, not that it was ever in doubt given Poland's been probably the most hawkish on Russia for years). Second, the economy is doing pretty well so they get the benefit of the doubt from the voters.NickPalmer said:
Yes, that's a fair description. Poland has always has a strain of nationalist and authoritarian politics (and there were plenty of examples of anti-semitism before and during the war), partly at least because they've always had aggressive neighbours in Germany and Russia. (Having an aggressive neighbour doesn't necessarily mean you're nice yourself.)SeaShantyIrish2 said:Interesting article in NYT this morning, on how the present Polish government is stoking fears of an apparently non-existent threat of imminent invasion by Belarus via the "Suwałki Gap" in leadup to October parliamentary election.
Polish regime may be IHMO characterized as anti-Putin Putinists, who aside from Mad Vlad's invasion of Ukraine, are aligned with the rest of his program, including:
> hyper-populism
> mega-nationalism
> aggressive anti-Wokeism
> crony capitalism writ large
> fake news as instrument of power
> disrespect (to put it mildly) for rule of law
Any of this sound familiar to UKers?
Cosmopolitan Warsaw is very different, with lots of liberal and open-minded people who view their government with as little enthusiasm as most Londoners view Nigel Farage, but parts of the countryside are another matter.
My Polish colleagues here in London despair of them, but then they are of course Liberals from the capital and West of the country.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/2020_Polish_presidential_election_map.png/1280px-2020_Polish_presidential_election_map.png
But it's Poznan and Gdansk you want if you're looking for truly woke metropolitan types.
Last night in Ukraine tonight, and six or seven hours on the bus to Poland in the morning.2 -
I quite like Southampton. Also has a fantastic hospital.1
-
Glad I saw Priddy's before the area got redeveloped (though as I recall the actual explosives huts had had to go - too conteminated with explosive or propellant to risk any work on them).Stuartinromford said:
If anyone asks, you could just say you're looking for a lost golf ball.JosiasJessop said:
If anyone wants a brilliant visit, I can suggest that they go to Fort Monckton in Gosport and ask to be let in. They're very friendly folks, and will always give you a guided tour...Carnyx said:
Ah, missed that - I had been thinking you were more of a man of discertnment than to diss them.Gardenwalker said:
I said upthread that Warrior is very fine, and I agree about the nautical architecture in the Dockyard.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
Don’t think there is much to Gosport, though.
A place which I know quite well.
Gosport? Haslar Hospital (just to see the outside), the bridge over the original shit creek (up variety), the preserrved submarines at the submarine base, álong the seafront past the old victualling yard to the naval ordnance museum which is worth it just to sit outside on the loading quay at sea level and have coffee and a chunk of bread and butter pudding and the view actoss the water. (Well, I liked the ordnance too, but I would - very much a family thing as well). There used to be the Palmerstonian Fort Brockhurst with its flooded moat but it's been closed most of the time for decades now I think. Althougfh its sister Fort Nelson with the cowslips and oxlips on the glacis is up on Portsdown, with qutie the view over the world.
But Gosport is left-behind Red Wall in microscosm and on the south coast. It's home for me in a way that Romford can never be. And it has a lot of things going for it; some nice heritage, a highly agreeable climate, a substantial (and well-used) cycle network based on the removed railways.
But the withdrawl of the MoD has left it stuck without a purpose and it will always be doomed by being a ferry ride away from a journey to anything interesting. So the young and interesting leave. And for all the nice archetecture (like the historic bit of Priddy's Hard), there's plenty of meh as well (the modern infill around Priddy's Hard).
Sorry, ancestors.0 -
One of the great quotes:Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
"He has either never been to Umm Qasr or he's never been to Southampton. There's no beer, no prostitutes and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth.'
A British soldiers reaction to a claim by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon that the port of Umm Qasr is 'like the city of Southampton.'7 -
Well there is definitely a lot of water to look atIanB2 said:
I don’t think looking out at Portsmouth Harbour counts as a “sea view”, unless you are an estate agent?NerysHughes said:
Im from Southampton but have always loved Portsmouth. Sitting in the beer garden of the Still and West on a summers evening watching the ships go in and out as the sun sets over Gosport is wonderful. I would love to live in one of the tower blocks in Gosport if I had a sea view.IanB2 said:
A significant part of the population looks like they would fit right in on a pirate ship. But the city does have some character. Britain’s only island city, and one with less open space than any other.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
The tower is one of the better Millennium projects, for sure.
And, given its size and demographic, the city has been notably un-socialist (compare Southampton), due to the naval connections. And was ahead of the curve in having the census classes CD leaning more Tory than the ABs.0 -
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough0 -
So you reckon the reason that British people are among the fattest in Europe is because we like being fat? Or do we just have less willpower than other nations?BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.1 -
It's interesting to see the right already disavow this guy online for saying that diversity is a strength in the US.Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
On the "organised sex traffickers who control the media" conspiracy and whether it is "completely true" - the way the right view child abuse is obviously conspiratorial. Child abuse primarily happens in the family or a familial community (many denominations of churches or boy scouts of America). The Epstein example (and the examples in the UK of high power / rich men who abuse children such as Saville or MPs) show the rarer side of child abuse that still shows the nature of abuse - typically men, typically rich or in a position of powerful and typically above scrutiny. That could describe Epstein OR your local catholic priest. In the boy scouts of America the issue was the organisation itself didn't want oversight, that much of the labour is done by volunteers and (like the church) the desire for "male role models" in a world where some men consider that "under fire" meant a desire to move people around who were credibly accused of child abuse, rather than actually dealing with the problem.
The right wing need to put more emphasis of the Epstein's of the world because much of the right depends on the importance of the family (and the patriarch specifically) as well as the importance of the church, or organisations like the boy scouts. It is also why those people point at LGBTQ+ and gender non conforming / trans people specifically as groomers despite evidence against that; because those are external threats to right wing notions of family and masculinity and the things they actually uphold as good examples of those are the more evidenced threat to children.1 -
I take your point, but given that PB has several people earning over 100K, about five over a million, about three over 10 million, and possibly one over 50 million, I can't help thinking that this might not be the best place to point that out...Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
0 -
LOL - car dealers in London are reporting a surge in demand for ‘classic’ cars, as cars over 40 years aold are exempt from ULEZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/londoners-buy-classic-cars-dodge-sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion/1 -
You don't learn that sort of royalism from one of HY's PB royalism Ted Talks.Carnyx said:
Oh that Porchester sans a first t - I don't keep up with the royalist news.Mexicanpete said:
I was being impish. Prince Andrew and Porchester; there is a connection.Carnyx said:
Mus\t be some confusion. The only famous chap connected with Portchester Castle is Dr Lind of lime juice fame (I think - or else I have got another one, buried in the church there in the middle).Mexicanpete said:
Did someone just mention Prince Andrew?Carnyx said:
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...
(Bloody odd business being a royalist, I can't help thinking, if that is what they spend their lives on. And even the PB royalists sometimes imitate The Male Online when they start salivating over the younger and prettier royal family members. Poor things (the latter I mean).0 -
I see Coventry cathedral rather differently. Architecture has always changed, and it is good to see people try new stuff with new materials and new techniques. The Victorians ****ed up hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly good parish churches with 'modernisations' that harked back to a gilded age that never really existed.Mexicanpete said:
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.
As two examples, take Liverpool's cathedrals. The Anglican cathedral looks like Bankside on acid (for the obvious reason), and I quite like its exterior as a late-Victorian-onwards take on a cathedral. It is also better than his initial design. The Catholic cathedral took my breath away when I first saw it as a teenager,and I still quite like it as an indication of the forward-looking times it was designed in, however flawed the implementation.1 -
I'm not sure that they were the right messages though. Allowing people a single outdoor exercise session a day is hardly the key to getting people fit, is it? It seemed that those who preferred to keep the populace cowering in their homes won the day.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
I agree that Covid was a massive missed public health opportunity.0 -
I *love* Southampton. Part of me wishes that I still lived in that area.CorrectHorseBat said:I quite like Southampton. Also has a fantastic hospital.
0 -
Do you believe Epstein controlled the media?Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
Do you believe there're large numbers of children being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?
Do you think anything QAnon claim is true?0 -
Angela Rayner 'proud' of 12 hour vodka fuelled rave sessions on holiday in Spain
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1803890/angela-rayner-raves-vaping
Rayner sounds like an absolute lad.1 -
Just because there’s lots of stepfathers, scoutmasters, and priests, that turn out to be abusers, doesn’t also mean that there isn’t Epstein and his group of wealthly friends.148grss said:
It's interesting to see the right already disavow this guy online for saying that diversity is a strength in the US.Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
On the "organised sex traffickers who control the media" conspiracy and whether it is "completely true" - the way the right view child abuse is obviously conspiratorial. Child abuse primarily happens in the family or a familial community (many denominations of churches or boy scouts of America). The Epstein example (and the examples in the UK of high power / rich men who abuse children such as Saville or MPs) show the rarer side of child abuse that still shows the nature of abuse - typically men, typically rich or in a position of powerful and typically above scrutiny. That could describe Epstein OR your local catholic priest. In the boy scouts of America the issue was the organisation itself didn't want oversight, that much of the labour is done by volunteers and (like the church) the desire for "male role models" in a world where some men consider that "under fire" meant a desire to move people around who were credibly accused of child abuse, rather than actually dealing with the problem.
The right wing need to put more emphasis of the Epstein's of the world because much of the right depends on the importance of the family (and the patriarch specifically) as well as the importance of the church, or organisations like the boy scouts. It is also why those people point at LGBTQ+ and gender non conforming / trans people specifically as groomers despite evidence against that; because those are external threats to right wing notions of family and masculinity and the things they actually uphold as good examples of those are the more evidenced threat to children.1 -
Britain's answer to Sanna MarinCorrectHorseBat said:Angela Rayner 'proud' of 12 hour vodka fuelled rave sessions on holiday in Spain
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1803890/angela-rayner-raves-vaping
Rayner sounds like an absolute lad.0 -
Do I believe that there were media people on Epstein’s island. Yes, absolutely.bondegezou said:
Do you believe Epstein controlled the media?Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
Do you believe there're large numbers of children being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?
Do you think anything QAnon claim is true?0 -
I suspect child sex abuse is much less common than it was when I was young.Sean_F said:
I think it unlikely, although the truth about the prevalence of child sex abuse, and the willingness of people in authority to turn a blind eye to it, is already sufficiently disturbing.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
There was a woodwork teacher at my old school, who had had to leave the local girls school for bringing girls back to his home and taking nude photos of them. This wasn't considered a problem at the local mixed comprehensive.0 -
Prescott for 2023.TimS said:
Britain's answer to Sanna MarinCorrectHorseBat said:Angela Rayner 'proud' of 12 hour vodka fuelled rave sessions on holiday in Spain
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1803890/angela-rayner-raves-vaping
Rayner sounds like an absolute lad.0 -
This is the sort of story that needs putting through the lens of politics. Take the name out of the story, then turn it to be someone you dislike. Would you still view it so favourably?CorrectHorseBat said:Angela Rayner 'proud' of 12 hour vodka fuelled rave sessions on holiday in Spain
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1803890/angela-rayner-raves-vaping
Rayner sounds like an absolute lad.
(This is a general comment.)1 -
Do you believe in presenting ridiculous straw men to distract from the fact that your argument isn't very good?bondegezou said:
Do you believe Epstein controlled the media?Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
Do you believe there're large numbers of children being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?
Do you think anything QAnon claim is true?0 -
Now, I like the wigwam, but I feel Coventry was of its time. Give Litchfield cathedral it's brick back, tear the new building down and rebuild the original, Cologne-like. That'll show those Germans.JosiasJessop said:
I see Coventry cathedral rather differently. Architecture has always changed, and it is good to see people try new stuff with new materials and new techniques. The Victorians ****ed up hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly good parish churches with 'modernisations' that harked back to a gilded age that never really existed.Mexicanpete said:
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.
As two examples, take Liverpool's cathedrals. The Anglican cathedral looks like Bankside on acid (for the obvious reason), and I quite like its exterior as a late-Victorian-onwards take on a cathedral. It is also better than his initial design. The Catholic cathedral took my breath away when I first saw it as a teenager,and I still quite like it as an indication of the forward-looking times it was designed in, however flawed the implementation.
1 -
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it would be an economic black hole. Nor will in my opinion most people in britain get on a bike. I am fairly typical of most people I know that way....we hated riding a bike when we were a kid and we aren't going to get on one now.Eabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Take away peoples cars and most will end up doing what I do which is not bother going out unless I absolutely have to. All those clubs will end up shutting down due to lack of members therefore and all the country pubs and restaurants. The country will end up a bunch of virtual hermits because going anywhere you want to go if its not the town centre is just to damn hard.
About 10% of the population cycle and it has remained stationary pretty much over the last 5 years. A lot of those 6.5 million will no doubt be kids
https://www.statista.com/statistics/899206/cycling-participation-uk/#:~:text=In 2021, approximately 6.5 million,leisure or travel, in England.
Most people just dont want to cycle no matter how many cycle lanes you put in. We just don't bloody enjoy it0 -
As long as we agree that it's not drag queens.Sandpit said:
Just because there’s lots of stepfathers, scoutmasters, and priests, that turn out to be abusers, doesn’t also mean that there isn’t Epstein and his group of wealthly friends.148grss said:
It's interesting to see the right already disavow this guy online for saying that diversity is a strength in the US.Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
On the "organised sex traffickers who control the media" conspiracy and whether it is "completely true" - the way the right view child abuse is obviously conspiratorial. Child abuse primarily happens in the family or a familial community (many denominations of churches or boy scouts of America). The Epstein example (and the examples in the UK of high power / rich men who abuse children such as Saville or MPs) show the rarer side of child abuse that still shows the nature of abuse - typically men, typically rich or in a position of powerful and typically above scrutiny. That could describe Epstein OR your local catholic priest. In the boy scouts of America the issue was the organisation itself didn't want oversight, that much of the labour is done by volunteers and (like the church) the desire for "male role models" in a world where some men consider that "under fire" meant a desire to move people around who were credibly accused of child abuse, rather than actually dealing with the problem.
The right wing need to put more emphasis of the Epstein's of the world because much of the right depends on the importance of the family (and the patriarch specifically) as well as the importance of the church, or organisations like the boy scouts. It is also why those people point at LGBTQ+ and gender non conforming / trans people specifically as groomers despite evidence against that; because those are external threats to right wing notions of family and masculinity and the things they actually uphold as good examples of those are the more evidenced threat to children.0 -
I don't doubt Johnson was an absolute lad. He was just a complete liar and bellend too.JosiasJessop said:
This is the sort of story that needs putting through the lens of politics. Take the name out of the story, then turn it to be someone you dislike. Would you still view it so favourably?CorrectHorseBat said:Angela Rayner 'proud' of 12 hour vodka fuelled rave sessions on holiday in Spain
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1803890/angela-rayner-raves-vaping
Rayner sounds like an absolute lad.
(This is a general comment.)1 -
You are free to answer your own questions rather than mine, but it makes for a somewhat pointless conversation.Sandpit said:
Do I believe that there were media people on Epstein’s island. Yes, absolutely.bondegezou said:
Do you believe Epstein controlled the media?Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
Do you believe there're large numbers of children being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?
Do you think anything QAnon claim is true?0 -
Why is it always the woodwork teachers?rcs1000 said:
I suspect child sex abuse is much less common than it was when I was young.Sean_F said:
I think it unlikely, although the truth about the prevalence of child sex abuse, and the willingness of people in authority to turn a blind eye to it, is already sufficiently disturbing.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
There was a woodwork teacher at my old school, who had had to leave the local girls school for bringing girls back to his home and taking nude photos of them. This wasn't considered a problem at the local mixed comprehensive.0 -
Actually I think in most cases yes, people would do. The reaction to Gove's disco dancing capers and coke allegations was mild amusement, along similar lines. I'd say it probably slightly endeared people on the other side of politics to him.JosiasJessop said:
This is the sort of story that needs putting through the lens of politics. Take the name out of the story, then turn it to be someone you dislike. Would you still view it so favourably?CorrectHorseBat said:Angela Rayner 'proud' of 12 hour vodka fuelled rave sessions on holiday in Spain
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1803890/angela-rayner-raves-vaping
Rayner sounds like an absolute lad.
(This is a general comment.)1 -
Cologne cathedral was started in 1248. When it was completed to the original plans in 1880 it was briefly the tallest building in the world. I think repairs to war damage were completed in the 50s - the cathedral was the only building left standing in a city that had had a prewar population of 770000Mexicanpete said:
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.1 -
Is there a British anti-cycling gene? Or a Dutch cycling one?Pagan2 said:
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it would be an economic black hole. Nor will in my opinion most people in britain get on a bike. I am fairly typical of most people I know that way....we hated riding a bike when we were a kid and we aren't going to get on one now.Eabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Take away peoples cars and most will end up doing what I do which is not bother going out unless I absolutely have to. All those clubs will end up shutting down due to lack of members therefore and all the country pubs and restaurants. The country will end up a bunch of virtual hermits because going anywhere you want to go if its not the town centre is just to damn hard.
About 10% of the population cycle and it has remained stationary pretty much over the last 5 years. A lot of those 6.5 million will no doubt be kids
https://www.statista.com/statistics/899206/cycling-participation-uk/#:~:text=In 2021, approximately 6.5 million,leisure or travel, in England.
Most people just dont want to cycle no matter how many cycle lanes you put in. We just don't bloody enjoy it0 -
QAnon, with its stories of Democrats and adrenochrome, is repeating centuries-old stories of Jews murdering Christian children for their blood. People buying into these canards, people promoting them with their "art", are horrendous.148grss said:
It's interesting to see the right already disavow this guy online for saying that diversity is a strength in the US.Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
On the "organised sex traffickers who control the media" conspiracy and whether it is "completely true" - the way the right view child abuse is obviously conspiratorial. Child abuse primarily happens in the family or a familial community (many denominations of churches or boy scouts of America). The Epstein example (and the examples in the UK of high power / rich men who abuse children such as Saville or MPs) show the rarer side of child abuse that still shows the nature of abuse - typically men, typically rich or in a position of powerful and typically above scrutiny. That could describe Epstein OR your local catholic priest. In the boy scouts of America the issue was the organisation itself didn't want oversight, that much of the labour is done by volunteers and (like the church) the desire for "male role models" in a world where some men consider that "under fire" meant a desire to move people around who were credibly accused of child abuse, rather than actually dealing with the problem.
The right wing need to put more emphasis of the Epstein's of the world because much of the right depends on the importance of the family (and the patriarch specifically) as well as the importance of the church, or organisations like the boy scouts. It is also why those people point at LGBTQ+ and gender non conforming / trans people specifically as groomers despite evidence against that; because those are external threats to right wing notions of family and masculinity and the things they actually uphold as good examples of those are the more evidenced threat to children.3 -
I think it's because people enjoy burgers with chips, fish and chips pizzas, pastas and other processed carbs and can afford takeaways which are stuffed full of them.FeersumEnjineeya said:
So you reckon the reason that British people are among the fattest in Europe is because we like being fat? Or do we just have less willpower than other nations?BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Eating more meat and less carbs is something we should all aim to do to improve our lives, but people enjoy the carbs so what can you do?
Change4Life have been hectoring us for six years now. Maybe people don't want to listen?0 -
Public health information is difficult to get right - too much and the accusations of the "nanny state" start up, too little and people aren't informed about life choices.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
You aren't wrong inas much as the information and facts about eating well and living well are all out there in the public domain but people still smoke, people still drink to excess and people still eat badly.
If I've only learnt two things in this life it's that a) the only constant is change and b) change is very difficult and the deeper and more personal the change the harder it is. I believe that's why so many find life so difficult because they may want to change but find the process of change difficult.
Change is often forced upon you - redundancy and bereavement are known high stress events and it's not hard to see why but changing yourself, who you are and how you live, is as hard as it gets. Yes, you can crash diet to lose weight for example but that's a dead end if old behaviours re-assert. It's how you change your behaviour to make the diet the permanent lifestyle - I've no experience of this but I can only imagine changing your diet is analogous to throwing yourself off any other addiction.0 -
Our Head of the Rural Science department served 15 months in Winson Green for his trouble. The old physics teacher would also ask for a "nice big girl" to climb onto the workbenches to retrieve the balloons after a static electricity demonstration. Sixth form girls often dated the younger teachers (1970s).rcs1000 said:
I suspect child sex abuse is much less common than it was when I was young.Sean_F said:
I think it unlikely, although the truth about the prevalence of child sex abuse, and the willingness of people in authority to turn a blind eye to it, is already sufficiently disturbing.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
There was a woodwork teacher at my old school, who had had to leave the local girls school for bringing girls back to his home and taking nude photos of them. This wasn't considered a problem at the local mixed comprehensive.
The good old days, innocent times.0 -
Interesting debate.JosiasJessop said:
I see Coventry cathedral rather differently. Architecture has always changed, and it is good to see people try new stuff with new materials and new techniques. The Victorians ****ed up hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly good parish churches with 'modernisations' that harked back to a gilded age that never really existed.Mexicanpete said:
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.
As two examples, take Liverpool's cathedrals. The Anglican cathedral looks like Bankside on acid (for the obvious reason), and I quite like its exterior as a late-Victorian-onwards take on a cathedral. It is also better than his initial design. The Catholic cathedral took my breath away when I first saw it as a teenager,and I still quite like it as an indication of the forward-looking times it was designed in, however flawed the implementation.
For me - and I've visited all the English Anglican Cathedrals except I think two, and a number of the modern RC ones, Coventry stands comparison with almost anything medieval, and imo is at least as good as, or better than, Salisbury - for example.
I think that Victorian conversions, which I'm not *that* fond of, are part of the history and story of the building, which is always treated as part of a listing.
On LIverpool it is of interest that it started out as one thing and went through several versions.
Bury St Edmunds is more controversial imo from a "history" point of view. They have only just finished building their Central Tower in 2005, in "Medieval Style". Is that pastiche?2 -
I didn't know that expression, Ted Talk, till now, either!Mexicanpete said:
You don't learn that sort of royalism from one of HY's PB royalism Ted Talks.Carnyx said:
Oh that Porchester sans a first t - I don't keep up with the royalist news.Mexicanpete said:
I was being impish. Prince Andrew and Porchester; there is a connection.Carnyx said:
Mus\t be some confusion. The only famous chap connected with Portchester Castle is Dr Lind of lime juice fame (I think - or else I have got another one, buried in the church there in the middle).Mexicanpete said:
Did someone just mention Prince Andrew?Carnyx said:
Apols - I forgot Portchester. Thanks. Criminal, utterly criminal of me.JosiasJessop said:
I lived down there for a few years, have walked the coast and lots of that area, and you are *really* wrong. Old Portsmouth can be delightful, as can the walk around the walls. A little further out, Portchester Castle is an absolute gem, and the Portsdown forts are amazing. There are also more museums than you can shake a stick at - a favourite of mine was Explosion! , which I fear must be a favourite of @Malmesbury ...Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/explosion-museum-naval-firepower
The coast can also be delightful, even as near as fort Cumberland and Eastney.
Then again, we got marries on HMS Warrior, so I'm a little biased...
(Bloody odd business being a royalist, I can't help thinking, if that is what they spend their lives on. And even the PB royalists sometimes imitate The Male Online when they start salivating over the younger and prettier royal family members. Poor things (the latter I mean).1 -
And there was me thinking people could not afford to replace their cars. If we believe that article, they are rushing out to pay £10,000+ for classic models. Maybe I'm more cynical than the Telegraph reporter.Sandpit said:LOL - car dealers in London are reporting a surge in demand for ‘classic’ cars, as cars over 40 years aold are exempt from ULEZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/londoners-buy-classic-cars-dodge-sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion/3 -
"I think that Victorian conversions, which I'm not *that* fond of, are part of the history and story of the building, which is always treated as part of a listing."MattW said:
Interesting debate.JosiasJessop said:
I see Coventry cathedral rather differently. Architecture has always changed, and it is good to see people try new stuff with new materials and new techniques. The Victorians ****ed up hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly good parish churches with 'modernisations' that harked back to a gilded age that never really existed.Mexicanpete said:
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.
As two examples, take Liverpool's cathedrals. The Anglican cathedral looks like Bankside on acid (for the obvious reason), and I quite like its exterior as a late-Victorian-onwards take on a cathedral. It is also better than his initial design. The Catholic cathedral took my breath away when I first saw it as a teenager,and I still quite like it as an indication of the forward-looking times it was designed in, however flawed the implementation.
For me - and I've visited all the English Anglican Cathedrals except I think two, and a number of the modern RC ones, Coventry stands comparison with almost anything medieval, and imo is at least as good as, or better than, Salisbury - for example.
I think that Victorian conversions, which I'm not *that* fond of, are part of the history and story of the building, which is always treated as part of a listing.
On LIverpool it is of interest that it started out as one thing and went through several versions.
Bury St Edmunds is more controversial imo from a "history" point of view. They have only just finished building their Central Tower in 2005, in "Medieval Style". Is that pastiche?
I have zero problem with some Victorian conversions - after all, they were old buildings, often tired, and in need of work. It is just that they did so much of it, in the same sorts of style.0 -
It's a better option than cloning a numberplate, at least when they get around to enforcing against cloned numberplates.Sandpit said:LOL - car dealers in London are reporting a surge in demand for ‘classic’ cars, as cars over 40 years aold are exempt from ULEZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/londoners-buy-classic-cars-dodge-sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion/0 -
Dore is where I live and grew up.Sean_F said:
Dore, in Sheffield, is fabulous. Unbelievably posh. Leeds has a fine Victorian city centre.Gardenwalker said:
Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool each have their merits. Bristol and Newcastle too.TimS said:
There are also many beautiful city centres, but aside from a handful in Britain (Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, York, one or two other small cathedral cities and er, that's it) most of them are on the continent or in North Africa and the Middle East. The vast majority of beautiful city centres around the world are wholly or mainly pedestrianised. The medinas of North Africa being probably the apotheosis of the 15 minute city.Pagan2 said:
Strangely there are a lot of places people want to go that aren't city or town centres. The only time for example I am in them is to get public transport back out to where I actually want to go. If I could avoid either I would because they are generally ugly places to beEl_Capitano said:
If there's parking at A and B, which very often in city centres there isn't.Pagan2 said:
Even with decent public transport it will still be a hub and spoke system where to get from a to b you will likely need to go to c first and change. A car you can go straight from a to b.Eabhal said:
I did say "decent public transport".Pagan2 said:
The cut in commute times for a start. Generally outside london central your commute time will double with public transport at the least. Time spent commuting is time not spent doing something that provides any economic gainsEabhal said:
Can you put a number on the additional economic activity you get from driving versus having a decent public transport system?Pulpstar said:
There's VAT on new cars as revenue too, and the subsequent economic activity that being able to drive somewhere can generate.Eabhal said:
No consideration of negative externalities? Congestion (economic cost of commute and delivery times is enormous), noise pollution, carbon emissions, air pollution, road traffic casualties...Pulpstar said:
The exchequer is about £24Bn in profit from drivers.CorrectHorseBat said:
ROFL, how much does the taxpayer pay for roads every year?BartholomewRoberts said:
"Public transport is indeed the worst form of transport there is."CorrectHorseBat said:
Just because I don't agree with you it doesn't make me a troll. This is just like Russia all over again. You're very dismissive of people that don't agree with you.BartholomewRoberts said:
You are a fanatic and a zealot. Or trolling and taking the piss, I'm not sure.CorrectHorseBat said:
We should build more towns with public infrastructure and no cars from day one. I agree.BartholomewRoberts said:We should build more British new towns is my preference. Not go two-footed into American cities, I never suggested that.
Cars are terrible.
I am not taking the piss. Public transport is indeed the worst form of transport there is.
Agreed. Expensive, slow, unreliable, doesn't even work without subsidies.
Private transport is much better. 👍
Expenditure:
Road expenditure ~ £11.3 Bn
Revenue:
Vehicle Excise duty ~ £7Bn
Fuel duty/VAT ~ £28Bn
Can you put some numbers on the externalities ?
And a big reason for reducing the number of cars on the road is to reduce congestion. That's the main delay to buses in Edinburgh, for example.
Birmingham and Portsmouth not so much.
Not sure about Sheffield, Leeds, and Southampton.
I wouldn't say unbelievably posh, rather posh maybe but it is all relative.0 -
Most of Edinburgh's Old Town is a Victorian conversion - it's newer than the New Town. And it's wonderful.JosiasJessop said:
"I think that Victorian conversions, which I'm not *that* fond of, are part of the history and story of the building, which is always treated as part of a listing."MattW said:
Interesting debate.JosiasJessop said:
I see Coventry cathedral rather differently. Architecture has always changed, and it is good to see people try new stuff with new materials and new techniques. The Victorians ****ed up hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly good parish churches with 'modernisations' that harked back to a gilded age that never really existed.Mexicanpete said:
Cologne cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt to its former glory. If I recall it took them into the 1970s to complete.IanB2 said:
The German towns that the war went through are understandably modern in the centre, but mostly they’ve done a pretty good job in recreating them as attractive places to live. Perhaps because they got started on it early, whereas in Britain we waited until the 60s and 70s when brutalist architecture and providing for cars were all the rage?Mexicanpete said:
Portsmouth reminds me of what happened to Birmingham. Fallen Victorian splendour collides with a cheap post war rebuild. But going west along the coast after you have left all the tenament block and car dealerships is very pleasant. Coventry Cathedral in a single building sums up such an unfortunate British mash-up.Carnyx said:
Rest is an embarrassment, says GW? Warrior is very fine, Portsmouth Point has a lot of its character still, and there is a lot of great C18 and C19 nautical architecture in the Dockyard, along the Gosport seafront, and so on. And a lot to be said for the Emsworth/Bosham/Chichester sector.Mexicanpete said:
I quite like the Spinnaker Tower. Queen Victoria would have had an excellent view from Osborn.Gardenwalker said:I was in Portsmouth not so long ago.
The Mary Rose and HMS Victory are deservedly famous. The rest is an embarassment, including the bathetic Spinnaker Tower.
In theory, Hampshire has a great coastline.
(I am currently on the beach on the other side of the Channel) but the actualité is profoundly crap.
I quite like Portsmouth, often a socialist oasis in a Tory desert.
Though it did get bombed by H. Goering and the planners, esp, in the central area, itd doesn't feel as mauled as Devonport.
I believe the idea of the new modernist Coventry cathedral rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, was a nice idea at the time. In these years of the new austerity it seems like just a symbol that we like to do everything on the cheap.
As two examples, take Liverpool's cathedrals. The Anglican cathedral looks like Bankside on acid (for the obvious reason), and I quite like its exterior as a late-Victorian-onwards take on a cathedral. It is also better than his initial design. The Catholic cathedral took my breath away when I first saw it as a teenager,and I still quite like it as an indication of the forward-looking times it was designed in, however flawed the implementation.
For me - and I've visited all the English Anglican Cathedrals except I think two, and a number of the modern RC ones, Coventry stands comparison with almost anything medieval, and imo is at least as good as, or better than, Salisbury - for example.
I think that Victorian conversions, which I'm not *that* fond of, are part of the history and story of the building, which is always treated as part of a listing.
On LIverpool it is of interest that it started out as one thing and went through several versions.
Bury St Edmunds is more controversial imo from a "history" point of view. They have only just finished building their Central Tower in 2005, in "Medieval Style". Is that pastiche?
I have zero problem with some Victorian conversions - after all, they were old buildings, often tired, and in need of work. It is just that they did so much of it, in the same sorts of style.0 -
It’ll be a few hundred cars, an uptick from a low base, many of whom are doing so to prove a point, and will work out that pretty much car aged over 40 is best used as a weekend toy, and unlikely to be particularly reliable as a daily.DecrepiterJohnL said:
And there was me thinking people could not afford to replace their cars. If we believe that article, they are rushing out to pay £10,000+ for classic models. Maybe I'm more cynical than the Telegraph reporter.Sandpit said:LOL - car dealers in London are reporting a surge in demand for ‘classic’ cars, as cars over 40 years aold are exempt from ULEZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/londoners-buy-classic-cars-dodge-sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion/
The sweet spot is going to be something like a Mercedes 300d from the early ‘80s. What you actually want is a ‘restomod’, which is an old car rebuilt with modern parts - expensive, often very expensive, but reliable in daily use.1 -
There's a Dutch cycling myth.Eabhal said:
Is there a British anti-cycling gene? Or a Dutch cycling one?Pagan2 said:
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it would be an economic black hole. Nor will in my opinion most people in britain get on a bike. I am fairly typical of most people I know that way....we hated riding a bike when we were a kid and we aren't going to get on one now.Eabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Take away peoples cars and most will end up doing what I do which is not bother going out unless I absolutely have to. All those clubs will end up shutting down due to lack of members therefore and all the country pubs and restaurants. The country will end up a bunch of virtual hermits because going anywhere you want to go if its not the town centre is just to damn hard.
About 10% of the population cycle and it has remained stationary pretty much over the last 5 years. A lot of those 6.5 million will no doubt be kids
https://www.statista.com/statistics/899206/cycling-participation-uk/#:~:text=In 2021, approximately 6.5 million,leisure or travel, in England.
Most people just dont want to cycle no matter how many cycle lanes you put in. We just don't bloody enjoy it
The primary mode of transportation in the Netherlands is cars. 200bn km a year are driven by the Dutch, more than ten times what they cycle.
Even Dutch cycling barely scratches the surface of driving. It's an option, and they've done well by building both more roads and cycle paths, so separating cars from bikes. Exactly as I propose and you oppose.0 -
"I'd go for a walk, but not if I have to walk there first."Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough2 -
There needs to be a move to stamped numberplates, otherwise the cloning problem is going to get way out of hand, with thousands of innocent people caught up. I’ve said before that everyone needs to customise in some minor way the front and rear of their car, because when the local authority has a photo of your car - with your numberplate - in court, it’s going to be for you to try and prove it’s not your car.MattW said:
It's a better option than cloning a numberplate, at least when they get around to enforcing against cloned numberplates.Sandpit said:LOL - car dealers in London are reporting a surge in demand for ‘classic’ cars, as cars over 40 years aold are exempt from ULEZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/londoners-buy-classic-cars-dodge-sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion/1 -
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it wouldEabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Even in holland "Cycling has a modal share of 27% of all trips (urban and rural) nationwide." and "36% of Dutch people listing the bicycle as their most frequent way of getting around on a typical day". Sure make your cycle paths and maybe you might get up to that though I frankly doubt it. But lets assume you do....your active travel bugbear covers 27% of journeys only and 36% of people. For the rest, a mere two thirds of the country, once you have got your way and banned private cars will be stuck in and end up like me going out only when its within easy walking distance or I have no choice and have to deal with public transport. But I guess thats ok for the active travel zealots like you....less pedestrians in your wayEabhal said:
Is there a British anti-cycling gene? Or a Dutch cycling one?Pagan2 said:
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it would be an economic black hole. Nor will in my opinion most people in britain get on a bike. I am fairly typical of most people I know that way....we hated riding a bike when we were a kid and we aren't going to get on one now.Eabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Take away peoples cars and most will end up doing what I do which is not bother going out unless I absolutely have to. All those clubs will end up shutting down due to lack of members therefore and all the country pubs and restaurants. The country will end up a bunch of virtual hermits because going anywhere you want to go if its not the town centre is just to damn hard.
About 10% of the population cycle and it has remained stationary pretty much over the last 5 years. A lot of those 6.5 million will no doubt be kids
https://www.statista.com/statistics/899206/cycling-participation-uk/#:~:text=In 2021, approximately 6.5 million,leisure or travel, in England.
Most people just dont want to cycle no matter how many cycle lanes you put in. We just don't bloody enjoy it0 -
Well presumably it was if you were growing up.TheScreamingEagles said:
Dore is where I live and grew up.Sean_F said:
Dore, in Sheffield, is fabulous. Unbelievably posh. Leeds has a fine Victorian city centre.Gardenwalker said:
Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool each have their merits. Bristol and Newcastle too.TimS said:
There are also many beautiful city centres, but aside from a handful in Britain (Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, York, one or two other small cathedral cities and er, that's it) most of them are on the continent or in North Africa and the Middle East. The vast majority of beautiful city centres around the world are wholly or mainly pedestrianised. The medinas of North Africa being probably the apotheosis of the 15 minute city.Pagan2 said:
Strangely there are a lot of places people want to go that aren't city or town centres. The only time for example I am in them is to get public transport back out to where I actually want to go. If I could avoid either I would because they are generally ugly places to beEl_Capitano said:
If there's parking at A and B, which very often in city centres there isn't.Pagan2 said:
Even with decent public transport it will still be a hub and spoke system where to get from a to b you will likely need to go to c first and change. A car you can go straight from a to b.Eabhal said:
I did say "decent public transport".Pagan2 said:
The cut in commute times for a start. Generally outside london central your commute time will double with public transport at the least. Time spent commuting is time not spent doing something that provides any economic gainsEabhal said:
Can you put a number on the additional economic activity you get from driving versus having a decent public transport system?Pulpstar said:
There's VAT on new cars as revenue too, and the subsequent economic activity that being able to drive somewhere can generate.Eabhal said:
No consideration of negative externalities? Congestion (economic cost of commute and delivery times is enormous), noise pollution, carbon emissions, air pollution, road traffic casualties...Pulpstar said:
The exchequer is about £24Bn in profit from drivers.CorrectHorseBat said:
ROFL, how much does the taxpayer pay for roads every year?BartholomewRoberts said:
"Public transport is indeed the worst form of transport there is."CorrectHorseBat said:
Just because I don't agree with you it doesn't make me a troll. This is just like Russia all over again. You're very dismissive of people that don't agree with you.BartholomewRoberts said:
You are a fanatic and a zealot. Or trolling and taking the piss, I'm not sure.CorrectHorseBat said:
We should build more towns with public infrastructure and no cars from day one. I agree.BartholomewRoberts said:We should build more British new towns is my preference. Not go two-footed into American cities, I never suggested that.
Cars are terrible.
I am not taking the piss. Public transport is indeed the worst form of transport there is.
Agreed. Expensive, slow, unreliable, doesn't even work without subsidies.
Private transport is much better. 👍
Expenditure:
Road expenditure ~ £11.3 Bn
Revenue:
Vehicle Excise duty ~ £7Bn
Fuel duty/VAT ~ £28Bn
Can you put some numbers on the externalities ?
And a big reason for reducing the number of cars on the road is to reduce congestion. That's the main delay to buses in Edinburgh, for example.
Birmingham and Portsmouth not so much.
Not sure about Sheffield, Leeds, and Southampton.
I wouldn't say unbelievably posh, rather posh maybe but it is all relative.1 -
That graph says:Pagan2 said:
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it would be an economic black hole. Nor will in my opinion most people in britain get on a bike. I am fairly typical of most people I know that way....we hated riding a bike when we were a kid and we aren't going to get on one now.Eabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Take away peoples cars and most will end up doing what I do which is not bother going out unless I absolutely have to. All those clubs will end up shutting down due to lack of members therefore and all the country pubs and restaurants. The country will end up a bunch of virtual hermits because going anywhere you want to go if its not the town centre is just to damn hard.
About 10% of the population cycle and it has remained stationary pretty much over the last 5 years. A lot of those 6.5 million will no doubt be kids
https://www.statista.com/statistics/899206/cycling-participation-uk/#:~:text=In 2021, approximately 6.5 million,leisure or travel, in England.
Most people just dont want to cycle no matter how many cycle lanes you put in. We just don't bloody enjoy it
2016 - 5 million.
2021 - 6.5 million.
Which is a 30% increase over 5 years - not exactly "pretty stationary".
Though 2021 is year 2 of pandemic, so I think a 2019 to 2022 comparison is more meaningful.
Given that the stat is from a sporting body, I'm not sure how far I trust it - even with the 30% rise.
1 -
Not just stepfathers - biological fathers too.Sandpit said:
Just because there’s lots of stepfathers, scoutmasters, and priests, that turn out to be abusers, doesn’t also mean that there isn’t Epstein and his group of wealthly friends.148grss said:
It's interesting to see the right already disavow this guy online for saying that diversity is a strength in the US.Sandpit said:
Exhibit 1: Jeffery Epstein.bondegezou said:
Do you believe large numbers of children are being abducted by organised sex traffickers who control the media?Sandpit said:
So the far-left nutjobs have been saying.Gardenwalker said:
Both are alt-right nutjob affairs.Sandpit said:
First song ever to debut at #1 in the US from an artist with no record label. No promotion for it at all, just word of mouth. Brilliant to see cultural moments like that.Andy_JS said:The new number one in the United States, "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
See also the film “Sound of Freedom”, which is one of the top films of the summer in the US, made on a tiny budget.
It was a weird conspiracy theory, until it turned out to be completely true.
On the "organised sex traffickers who control the media" conspiracy and whether it is "completely true" - the way the right view child abuse is obviously conspiratorial. Child abuse primarily happens in the family or a familial community (many denominations of churches or boy scouts of America). The Epstein example (and the examples in the UK of high power / rich men who abuse children such as Saville or MPs) show the rarer side of child abuse that still shows the nature of abuse - typically men, typically rich or in a position of powerful and typically above scrutiny. That could describe Epstein OR your local catholic priest. In the boy scouts of America the issue was the organisation itself didn't want oversight, that much of the labour is done by volunteers and (like the church) the desire for "male role models" in a world where some men consider that "under fire" meant a desire to move people around who were credibly accused of child abuse, rather than actually dealing with the problem.
The right wing need to put more emphasis of the Epstein's of the world because much of the right depends on the importance of the family (and the patriarch specifically) as well as the importance of the church, or organisations like the boy scouts. It is also why those people point at LGBTQ+ and gender non conforming / trans people specifically as groomers despite evidence against that; because those are external threats to right wing notions of family and masculinity and the things they actually uphold as good examples of those are the more evidenced threat to children.
The point is not that wealthy people are not abusers - of course they can be, and the power and wealth they have indeed typically protects them from being imprisoned for that.
It's just that the vast majority of child abuse happens within the family or the local community. Just like most sexual assault of adults is by people the victim knows rather than strangers - sexual assault and child abuse is not predominantly an issue with wealthy people (although that tends to be more organised) and is much more an issue of men with power and little oversight - which also includes a lot of fathers, priests, scoutmasters and other men in community.
What Epstein did was bad, and the structure of his organisation and links to other wealthy men shows a culture that accepts child abuse. But that structure is similar to how all abusers work - just at a different scale. They use their position of power over others to abuse them, they inculcate themselves from consequences by putting others in positions where they could be implicated or finding like minded individuals, they use their power within other structures to protect themselves and they make sure that they are indispensable to those who have the ability to provide consequences. Epstein did this via his wealth - getting in to positions where other people (whether they were involved in the abuse or not) relied on his continued freedom to benefit. His social circle, his community, involved a lot of other rich and powerful people, so implicating them protected himself.
When a father or priest is an abuser, similar tactics are used. They may be the main earner in the household, or a trusted community leader. They will obviously have opportunities to show themselves to be responsible adults and trusted and know significant personal things about others who could notice the abuse. They will have relationships with other figures of authority (their wife, the other adults in the family, other priests, other community leaders).
To focus so heavily on Epstein or Prince Andrew or even Saville is to miss the forest for the trees. They do the same things all abusers do, at a different scale because they have access to that specific social status. But they do not make up a significant number of abuse cases - because child abuse and sexual abuse are so endemic to society.
It is well noted, for example, that when Freud started his work he originally wanted to express how many patients were coming to him with examples of abuse from within the family / community but felt that he could not raise that publicly at the time because society at large would not believe it was so common, so instead he designed talking therapy to deal with the symptom (trauma in his patients) rather than deal with the cause (rampant sexual abuse predominantly by men, predominantly within the family).2 -
On my list of "Towns and Cities I have visited but never left the railway station".JosiasJessop said:
I *love* Southampton. Part of me wishes that I still lived in that area.CorrectHorseBat said:I quite like Southampton. Also has a fantastic hospital.
See also Brighton, Peterborough, Preston, Dundee, Perth, Ipswich, Plymouth, etc.
0 -
There was money to be made in the 2000s exporting late model Rover Minis to the USA on pre-1976 V5Cs. Replacement stamped VINs and engine numbers could be purchased with proof of log book. They were often sold as "1969 Austin Mini 1000 restored to (1999) Mini 40 specification". Presumably that is how it works in London. Highly, highly illegal over here though.MattW said:
It's a better option than cloning a numberplate, at least when they get around to enforcing against cloned numberplates.Sandpit said:LOL - car dealers in London are reporting a surge in demand for ‘classic’ cars, as cars over 40 years aold are exempt from ULEZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/londoners-buy-classic-cars-dodge-sadiq-khans-ulez-expansion/1 -
Lol!SandyRentool said:
"I'd go for a walk, but not if I have to walk there first."Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough0 -
Mileage is a silly measure given we are talking about reducing short journeys (less than 10km).BartholomewRoberts said:
There's a Dutch cycling myth.Eabhal said:
Is there a British anti-cycling gene? Or a Dutch cycling one?Pagan2 said:
You aren't going to fix it by public transport. Buses can't go everywhere people want to go from and to it would be an economic black hole. Nor will in my opinion most people in britain get on a bike. I am fairly typical of most people I know that way....we hated riding a bike when we were a kid and we aren't going to get on one now.Eabhal said:
It would be great to fix that with better public transport and active travel provision.Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough
Take away peoples cars and most will end up doing what I do which is not bother going out unless I absolutely have to. All those clubs will end up shutting down due to lack of members therefore and all the country pubs and restaurants. The country will end up a bunch of virtual hermits because going anywhere you want to go if its not the town centre is just to damn hard.
About 10% of the population cycle and it has remained stationary pretty much over the last 5 years. A lot of those 6.5 million will no doubt be kids
https://www.statista.com/statistics/899206/cycling-participation-uk/#:~:text=In 2021, approximately 6.5 million,leisure or travel, in England.
Most people just dont want to cycle no matter how many cycle lanes you put in. We just don't bloody enjoy it
The primary mode of transportation in the Netherlands is cars. 200bn km a year are driven by the Dutch, more than ten times what they cycle.
Even Dutch cycling barely scratches the surface of driving. It's an option, and they've done well by building both more roads and cycle paths, so separating cars from bikes. Exactly as I propose and you oppose.
I think longer journeys should be reduced somewhat by public transport (HS2, buses etc), but they will remain predominantly done by car, as they are in the Netherlands.
I've already explained this to you. Repeatedly.
0 -
Yes because walking there is pretty unpleasant because of all the cars...SandyRentool said:
"I'd go for a walk, but not if I have to walk there first."Pagan2 said:
Ironically for all Eabhals wanting people out of cars I would actually do more exercise if I had one.BartholomewRoberts said:
But they did.Eabhal said:
I don't blame people at all for driving everywhere given the lack of safe and pleasant walking and cycling infrastructure. I think it's a huge government failure that so many people use a car for short journeys.david_herdson said:
It's that kind of hectoring tone, particularly when combined with a message that (1) tells people that they're not good enough - for themselves and for humanity - and (2) wants to make their life less pleasant*, that makes them want to go and order a big fat pizza just out of spite.Eabhal said:We should all be getting 1 hour of exercise a day (or at least 150 mins a week). That means that most people with a commute less than 10km (6 miles) should be cycling or walking to work.
In England and Wales, 65% of commuters are within 10km of their workplace. 43% are within 5km. Yet only 14% walk or cycle.
Whatever happened to "protect the NHS"?
* There's a reason people drive or take a bus/train and it comes down to the traditional four metrics of modal choice: cost, speed, convenience and pleasantness. Granted, cost will always tend to weigh for cycling and will always do so for walking; the other three, however, usually more than offset it.
It's crazy that the NHS is under such pressure but we never do anything to reduce it - the answer is always more funding, more doctors, more beds.
I'm still baffled that the government didn't use COVID lockdowns to reduce obesity and to get people exercising more, particularly given these were the known co- morbidities we could do something about.
They made announcements on the news.
They made adverts. Though lots of people don't even see adverts anymore.
They had schools push things.
They had the NHS pushing out messages.
What more could be done that wasn't done?
We are constantly getting Change4Life materials from the kids school.
If people aren't eating healthy or exercising then that's by choice, not ignorance.
Having to rely on walking or public transport keeps me mostly at home and prevents me doing things I would otherwise do.
Examples I have considered doing since the move to the south west but cant because no public transport and not within a range I am willing to walk
Archery
Taking Aikido back up
Hiking in the local forest
To name but a few and note I think the bus here is a damn sight better than the bus service in Slough3 -
Rishi was born in that hospital! I should know, as I was also born a few days after him there!CorrectHorseBat said:I quite like Southampton. Also has a fantastic hospital.
1
This discussion has been closed.