Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Isn't this mainly to placate the big 5 builders who have stopped donating to the Tory party? The Conservative Party needs an election warchest so one can understand why the fragrant Gove has made this decision. Trebles all round.
Also good work from Harper today, rewriting Grant Shapps history over ULEZ/ TfL.
Apparently the Tories believe that voters are gullible idiots who will swallow whatever lie they are told is truth.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Absolutely fantastic Brexit dividend if that change happens!
We need more houses and this rule in particular is a ridiculous rule that should never have been implemented in the first place.
Besides while being constructed, houses don't generate or consume water - people do. Just like houses don't require schooling - people do. Just like houses don't require care homes - people do.
10 people in 1 house require the same number of school places, and approximately the same amount of water and waste, as 10 people in 2 houses.
Overcrowding is not a solution to a failure to invest in schools, or water, or anything else.
Construction is not the problem. A growing population needs more water, more schooling and more houses. Simply refusing to build the houses due to a lack of schooling, or water, or anything else is merely compounding a problem not solving it.
But if the houses are built they do create a permanent demand for water and an output of sewage. In that particular spot. So the public pay for that now. Not the builders.
What permanent demand for water and sewage does a building (as opposed to the people) create?
When I moved into our house we had to read our meter readings. Our water meter reading was 0. For the entire time between our home being constructed and us moving in a grand total of 0 units of water had been used.
I don't know bout you, but I flush the toilet when I go to it. I run the sink when I want a drink of water, or wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or wash my dishes. I turn the shower on when I have it. My house does none of that, I do it. It is the person consuming water.
Gas demand is going to be more related to houses over individual people, with electricity tilting slightly more towards people but yes I'd say aggregate water demand is pretty much a function you can base on people. If no housing was to be built you'd just have the existing housing utilising more water as the population grows.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
You fly when there is a perfectly good overnight train, offering Class 73 and Class 92 haulage?
Wrong choice!
What's the point of travelling by train in the dark? How can you see all the junctions and stations?
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport.
Aberdeen airport is not bad (I've been there), although the taxi rank is a bit bus shelter. It's alright: nothing special but clean and safe. However, travelling from/to Aberdeen gives you the opportunity to do this:
A bed! In a train! With a door you can lock and barricade to prevent others from getting to you! And room service! No telly, but I've slept in a lot worse.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Absolutely fantastic Brexit dividend if that change happens!
We need more houses and this rule in particular is a ridiculous rule that should never have been implemented in the first place.
Besides while being constructed, houses don't generate or consume water - people do. Just like houses don't require schooling - people do. Just like houses don't require care homes - people do.
10 people in 1 house require the same number of school places, and approximately the same amount of water and waste, as 10 people in 2 houses.
Overcrowding is not a solution to a failure to invest in schools, or water, or anything else.
Construction is not the problem. A growing population needs more water, more schooling and more houses. Simply refusing to build the houses due to a lack of schooling, or water, or anything else is merely compounding a problem not solving it.
But if the houses are built they do create a permanent demand for water and an output of sewage. In that particular spot. So the public pay for that now. Not the builders.
What permanent demand for water and sewage does a building (as opposed to the people) create?
When I moved into our house we had to read our meter readings. Our water meter reading was 0. For the entire time between our home being constructed and us moving in a grand total of 0 units of water had been used.
I don't know bout you, but I flush the toilet when I go to it. I run the sink when I want a drink of water, or wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or wash my dishes. I turn the shower on when I have it. My house does none of that, I do it. It is the person consuming water.
Gas demand is going to be more related to houses over individual people, with electricity tilting slightly more towards people but yes I'd say aggregate water demand is pretty much a function you can base on people. If no housing was to be built you'd just have the existing housing utilising more water as the population grows.
Yes, I deliberately did not mention gas. Anything related to heating is affected by housing. Although still you can disable heating and switch off the power in unoccupied homes, but people moving out of overcrowded homes into new ones will create new demand for heating, but that's not the externality discussed and nor is it a problem.
None of the so-called problems with construction carnyx mentioned has anything to do with construction. They are all to do with people.
And yes, people do live in places even before homes are built. Just too many people live in overcrowded accommodation, or expensive crap accommodation because that's all that's available.
A failure to invest in schools is not resolved by cramming children into overcrowded homes rather than homes where they can have their own bedroom to study in.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is not best understood of as a subsidy to housebuilders, it is to agriculture (which causes most of the pollution) and the water companies who are not adequately investing in water treatment facilities. AIUI what happened was, because the existing levels of pollution were so high, no more housebuilding could take place because there was insufficient capacity in the drainage system to adequately treat the additional waste water arising from it without causing pollution. It is a fuck up on many, many levels relating to decades of privatisation and mismanagement, but it isn't really anything to do with shovelling money to tory donors. The rules about pollution are EU rules which the government have kept and are enforcing them - to be fair on Gove and co, I suspect that this isn't the case in other member states.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport.
Aberdeen airport is not bad (I've been there), although the taxi rank is a bit bus shelter. It's alright: nothing special but clean and safe. However, travelling from/to Aberdeen gives you the opportunity to do this:
A bed! In a train! With a door you can lock and barricade to prevent others from getting to you! And room service! No telly, but I've slept in a lot worse.
Its a tourist service sold for £lots. And why not - it sells out in the summer. As an example I can have a return flight to London for £139 next week. Whereas the sleeper is sold out and would have been £100 more than that for one way...
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
The best type of pets people should have are dogs.
Other acceptable pets for people include rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Isn't this mainly to placate the big 5 builders who have stopped donating to the Tory party? The Conservative Party needs an election warchest so one can understand why the fragrant Gove has made this decision. Trebles all round.
Also good work from Harper today, rewriting Grant Shapps history over ULEZ/ TfL.
Apparently the Tories believe that voters are gullible idiots who will swallow whatever lie they are told is truth.
EU Ref and December 2019 suggest they are correct.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Oh, for God's sake.
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
Can't tell if you're serious, I kind of hope you're not
I don't deny I have been lucky, but I have also made my own luck, to an extent. Don't let the man take you down
He doesn't strike me as poor, and he seems to be self-employed as a consultant - and therefore able to carve out time. A trip to go see the Tas Tepeler would cost less than £1000, could be done in as little as a week, even five days if you're mad, and would blow your mind - and his mind - like nothing else on this green earth, in terms of archaeology. A spectacular archaeological site, probably the most important on the planet, maybe the most important in all human history (these are some expert opinions, not mine) is happening RIGHT NOW. And you can just drive up and watch them doing it. Mazin!
Speaking as another consultant, time very much equals money (unless it is PB in which case you get my time FOC...). Not working = not getting paid. Or at least that is the mentality I started with. A few years in and what I get paid is not directly connected with the revenue I earn for my company.
I took two weeks off in July, revenue that month was obviously much lower, but that had no impact on what I pull out. I still take opportunistic work where I can get it - a weekend gig meant doing 12 days without a break earlier this month. Output for that client was limited at best by the end of that, but they are happy to pay so I am happy to invoice.
Holidays are ok. Time off relaxing is more important. And I get bored easily. Best option is combining travel and work - something you excel at of course!
The whole concept of holidays is a bit weird. Someone pays you for not going to work? What’s in it for them?
When you add the foregone income to the cost of the holiday it becomes somewhat expensive. In fairness, @Leon seems to make money out of most of his trips. Good luck to him.
I'm crazy enough to find excursions like Home > Aberdeen > Gatwick > London > Coventry and return later the same day to be fun. Which is handy! Have got 2 days in London next week and a 5 day roadtrip as far as Warwick the week after as the next work trips. Its not exotic, but its a hell of a lot more time out and about than I would get otherwise.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
When going to an airport, pretend it's 1977 and you're flying on Concorde.
You mean you are only allowed to take 40 pounds cash and 100 pounds travellers cheques with you (and are asked to prove this at passport control). If you do have a credit card, it won't be accepted in many places and payment takes 5 minutes.
Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport.
Aberdeen airport is not bad (I've been there), although the taxi rank is a bit bus shelter. It's alright: nothing special but clean and safe. However, travelling from/to Aberdeen gives you the opportunity to do this:
A bed! In a train! With a door you can lock and barricade to prevent others from getting to you! And room service! No telly, but I've slept in a lot worse.
Its a tourist service sold for £lots. And why not - it sells out in the summer. As an example I can have a return flight to London for £139 next week. Whereas the sleeper is sold out and would have been £100 more than that for one way...
I've tried that train a few times and you never sleep on it, even with the new train. Its something that is best left to the tourists.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Isn't this mainly to placate the big 5 builders who have stopped donating to the Tory party? The Conservative Party needs an election warchest so one can understand why the fragrant Gove has made this decision. Trebles all round.
Also good work from Harper today, rewriting Grant Shapps history over ULEZ/ TfL.
Apparently the Tories believe that voters are gullible idiots who will swallow whatever lie they are told is truth.
Well the Tories believe that Tory voters 2015 to 2019 are, and that's enough to get them back into power.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Having said all of that next week I am going to the exotic and fascinating Ashford for a week. Canterbury, Dover and Hastings are already on the list. Anyone got some less well known suggestions?
Nearby vineyards that do interesting tours and tastings: Westwell, Gusbourne, Barnsole, Terlingham (and a few more further afield)
And of course the legendary Pett Bottom valley with its little privately owned vineyards.
Vineyards is not something that I would have thought of in this country. Thanks.
There are some excellent white wines in the South East. The reds, in my experience, are a little thin, but they’re one or two in Essex and Suffolk which are getting there. But the white’s, and often the sparkling, can be very good indeed.
There some really excellent cycle trails in Kent. I very much enjoyed the Saxon Shore Way from Deal to Canterbury. Also pleasant routes around Reculver on the coast. Shorter walks on the same routes are possible.
Having said all of that next week I am going to the exotic and fascinating Ashford for a week. Canterbury, Dover and Hastings are already on the list. Anyone got some less well known suggestions?
Nearby vineyards that do interesting tours and tastings: Westwell, Gusbourne, Barnsole, Terlingham (and a few more further afield)
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Not so. Everyone who is waiting for a house has been holding it in. Not using the toilet. For years. The moment a Tory Developer builds a house, it gives a member of the lower orders an opportunity to use a toilet.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Absolutely fantastic Brexit dividend if that change happens!
We need more houses and this rule in particular is a ridiculous rule that should never have been implemented in the first place.
Besides while being constructed, houses don't generate or consume water - people do. Just like houses don't require schooling - people do. Just like houses don't require care homes - people do.
10 people in 1 house require the same number of school places, and approximately the same amount of water and waste, as 10 people in 2 houses.
Overcrowding is not a solution to a failure to invest in schools, or water, or anything else.
Construction is not the problem. A growing population needs more water, more schooling and more houses. Simply refusing to build the houses due to a lack of schooling, or water, or anything else is merely compounding a problem not solving it.
But if the houses are built they do create a permanent demand for water and an output of sewage. In that particular spot. So the public pay for that now. Not the builders.
What permanent demand for water and sewage does a building (as opposed to the people) create?
When I moved into our house we had to read our meter readings. Our water meter reading was 0. For the entire time between our home being constructed and us moving in a grand total of 0 units of water had been used.
I don't know bout you, but I flush the toilet when I go to it. I run the sink when I want a drink of water, or wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or wash my dishes. I turn the shower on when I have it. My house does none of that, I do it. It is the person consuming water.
IIRC correctly making sure that the water is not connected is one legal way of preventing the Council starting Council Tax before it is all done. It annoys them a little.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
The best type of pets people should have are dogs.
Other acceptable pets for people include rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters.
Cats keep people as pets.
Keeping one big dog means you admit the same CO2 annually as someone driving an SUV
Not acceptable. You don't NEED a dog. It is a selfish indulgence, and what's more dogs shit everywhere, spread disease, and kill children. Get rid
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
The best type of pets people should have are dogs.
Other acceptable pets for people include rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters.
Cats keep people as pets.
Dog owners pick up their pet's shit. It doesn't get more 'pet owning the person' than that.
Having said all of that next week I am going to the exotic and fascinating Ashford for a week. Canterbury, Dover and Hastings are already on the list. Anyone got some less well known suggestions?
Nearby vineyards that do interesting tours and tastings: Westwell, Gusbourne, Barnsole, Terlingham (and a few more further afield)
And of course the legendary Pett Bottom valley with its little privately owned vineyards.
Do you know Ridgeview, near Ditchling? We went there to eat last week, and thought the food, wine and setting were all rather splendid.
Yes, it's a very good producer - one of the biggest, they are a negociant so they buy in most of their grapes. I understand they recently overhauled the visitor centre. A long way from Ashford though.
Having said all of that next week I am going to the exotic and fascinating Ashford for a week. Canterbury, Dover and Hastings are already on the list. Anyone got some less well known suggestions?
Nearby vineyards that do interesting tours and tastings: Westwell, Gusbourne, Barnsole, Terlingham (and a few more further afield)
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Exactly. You've long been pushing this point and while I don't see eye to eye with you on much, you deserve credit for pushing this issue and it is a very valid one. You are 100% unambiguously correct here.
For anyone who thinks that toilets wouldn't get flushed if people weren't living in the homes, then where exactly would they be living instead? Siberia?
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
So after ULEZ, trams, housebuilding, ancient civilisations, it turns out to be pets, and in particular that engine of social media, kitty cats that animates PB to vitriol and vituperation.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Absolutely fantastic Brexit dividend if that change happens!
We need more houses and this rule in particular is a ridiculous rule that should never have been implemented in the first place.
Besides while being constructed, houses don't generate or consume water - people do. Just like houses don't require schooling - people do. Just like houses don't require care homes - people do.
10 people in 1 house require the same number of school places, and approximately the same amount of water and waste, as 10 people in 2 houses.
Overcrowding is not a solution to a failure to invest in schools, or water, or anything else.
Construction is not the problem. A growing population needs more water, more schooling and more houses. Simply refusing to build the houses due to a lack of schooling, or water, or anything else is merely compounding a problem not solving it.
But if the houses are built they do create a permanent demand for water and an output of sewage. In that particular spot. So the public pay for that now. Not the builders.
What permanent demand for water and sewage does a building (as opposed to the people) create?
When I moved into our house we had to read our meter readings. Our water meter reading was 0. For the entire time between our home being constructed and us moving in a grand total of 0 units of water had been used.
I don't know bout you, but I flush the toilet when I go to it. I run the sink when I want a drink of water, or wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or wash my dishes. I turn the shower on when I have it. My house does none of that, I do it. It is the person consuming water.
IIRC correctly making sure that the water is not connected is one legal way of preventing the Council starting Council Tax before it is all done. It annoys them a little.
Precisely, if homes needed water then they'd need to be connected, even without being occupied.
But they don't. People need water - and people need to brush their teeth or flush their toilet whether they're living on their own, or with their immediate family, or three families crowded into a single overcrowded dwelling.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
Talking of ancient civilisations, meanwhile, how long have humans been around? Some perhaps few hundred thousand years. Dinosaurs existed for 120m years. Just imagine where (if?) humanity will be in 1m years, let alone 120m years. Bonkers.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
Absolutely fantastic Brexit dividend if that change happens!
We need more houses and this rule in particular is a ridiculous rule that should never have been implemented in the first place.
Besides while being constructed, houses don't generate or consume water - people do. Just like houses don't require schooling - people do. Just like houses don't require care homes - people do.
10 people in 1 house require the same number of school places, and approximately the same amount of water and waste, as 10 people in 2 houses.
Overcrowding is not a solution to a failure to invest in schools, or water, or anything else.
Construction is not the problem. A growing population needs more water, more schooling and more houses. Simply refusing to build the houses due to a lack of schooling, or water, or anything else is merely compounding a problem not solving it.
Hard to be outraged by the fact taxpayers will be footing the bill for pollution caused by, er, taxpayers.
It's hard to see where the outrage is, in this instance.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
Not defending pets. Just querying whether the contribution of a "private travel jet boss" in the notoriously factual DT is of any more value than the contribution of, say, Arthur the Alsatian in weighing up the environmental cost of private jets vs. pets.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Oh, for God's sake.
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
Can't tell if you're serious, I kind of hope you're not
I don't deny I have been lucky, but I have also made my own luck, to an extent. Don't let the man take you down
He doesn't strike me as poor, and he seems to be self-employed as a consultant - and therefore able to carve out time. A trip to go see the Tas Tepeler would cost less than £1000, could be done in as little as a week, even five days if you're mad, and would blow your mind - and his mind - like nothing else on this green earth, in terms of archaeology. A spectacular archaeological site, probably the most important on the planet, maybe the most important in all human history (these are some expert opinions, not mine) is happening RIGHT NOW. And you can just drive up and watch them doing it. Mazin!
I've not had a 'holiday' since the start of the pandemic. The odd day out, maybe.
There are more reasons than just work to be tied down.
Whilst I do have a number of places I'd like to go given the chance, I do wonder about some friends that are forever travelling the planet. What are they searching for? I don't think the answer to life the universe and everything lies in the Peruvian jungle (or wherever they are this week).
In my friend's case it's to tick off every country on the planet. He has done most of the easy ones and is now finding it progressively more difficult. As we're all officially spectrumy on this forum, I assume others can appreciate the sentiment.
i entirely appreciate that sentiment. I also love remote weird places, so I'm well jel of Somaliland and Djibouti, even tho I am reliably informed they are Total Shitholes. Often the Total Shitholes turn out to be the most fun, partly because no one else goes there
Parts of Russia are like this. Or, say, Darfur in Ethiopia
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
The best type of pets people should have are dogs.
Other acceptable pets for people include rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters.
Cats keep people as pets.
Those LibDems you sold me, they won't mate. They just walk around all day, Tweeting, and not mating. You sold me... queer LibDems. I want my money back!
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Without disagreeing with your broader point, isn’t the issue that their shit will be entering the waterways in a different place? Sewage systems may have a capacity where the people currently live, but a new housing estate will overwhelm the capacity in that area. Sewage capacity is not fungible.
Democratic politicians have failed in many ways, in California. Despite its wealth, and the state's many other advantages. Which is why so many families have chosen to leave the state.
To his credit, Governor Gavin Newsom agrees with those families (and me): '“I am mindful of the critics — and I’m one of them — that we can be doing more and better in myriad areas,” he said. “I’m mindful that as governor, I can’t do it all. But I’m also mindful that the buck stops here. And I’m ultimately going to be held to account.”
That reasoning is emblematic of how he views his remaining three and a half years at the Capitol. There’s a recognition that the passage of sweeping programs on homelessness and drugs, mental health and the housing shortage won’t immediately remedy problems that took decades to spiral out of control. He feels the pressure of time bearing down. And even as he favorably compared his record to recent predecessors in the interview, Newsom said he regrets he won’t be in office to oversee the full execution, when the public is rendering its ultimate judgment of him.' source: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/18/san-francisco-gavin-newsom-homeless-00111777
If Kamala Harris recognizes those failures, and has said so, I missed it. I think it fair to say that she is a small part of those California problems, and did little, if anything, to fix them.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
Yeah, but the witch hunts were CAUSED BY CATS
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
Not defending pets. Just querying whether the contribution of a "private travel jet boss" in the notoriously factual DT is of any more value than the contribution of, say, Arthur the Alsatian in weighing up the environmental cost of private jets vs. pets.
I imagine he is a tad biased, but his central point is good. Any pet owner is in a bad position to point their accusing, poo-covered, multi-parasitised fingers at anyone else, for enviro-negative behaviour
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
Yeah, but the witch hunts were CAUSED BY CATS
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
Witches seemed to be centred around fertile women in general. Perhaps stemming from the high level of infant mortality and hence anyone who was in a position to affect the health of infants (eg fertile women) was seen as potentially a threat.
Cats notwithstanding although Toxoplasmosis is a threat to pregnant women (and their children) which ties in with the theory.
Very good production of The Crucible on atm also which comes at it from another angle although the majority of those executed or "afflicted" were likewise women.
Actually, sod it, I will allow myself one photo - by me, from 2022 - of the Notorious Penis Chamber at Karahan Tepe. Mainly coz I’ll do anything to stop people talking about fricking ULEZ, also coz I just like writing “notorious penis chamber”
See here
What is this 12,000 year old room? WTF is it for?
At the moment, the best archaeological guess is that it is an initiation room for young adult males. It would have been roofed and dark. The boys would have stepped through the small door on the left, the room would have been half full of liquid piped in using the circled water channel. The liquid might have been animal blood - so one archaeologist told me. It might have poured through the mouth of the weird “head” acting as a spout. Then some ritual - sacrifice? Circumcision? Baptism? - would have been enacted. The boy becomes a man - a hunter - and then returns to the “audience room” just outside
This is 12,000 years old!!! Anyone who doesn’t find this seriously weird, brilliant, spooky, compelling and, yes, a *bit Graham Hancocky* is lacking a soul
Water tank? Why does everything unexplained have to be for 'rituals' of some bizarre kind?
A neolithic wooden trackway was discovered here in the Flatlands - it had been preserved in the peat. Quite a remarkable find really but as it was in a forgotten corner of the country not a lot was made of it.
Apparently - despite the lack of any artifacts - archaeologists say it must have been a route to a 'ritual platform'. Not the rather obvious purpose of a track to get to the other side of a wet area...
Most archaeologists agree that the Tas Tepeler are sacred sites. Stone circles, after all
There is near-zero evidence of human habitation at Gobekli Tepe (there is evidence at the other Tas Tepeler). Why build it? It is surely a temple; it is also, it seems, aligned astronomically
Some kind of penis worshipping hunter-warrior cult (with human sacrifice?) is the best guess at the moment
I admit to knowing almost nothing about these sites other than that they exist.
But how do you build a temple without living there, at least for some of the time?
And if you know how to build things, why not build houses?
The archaeology changes every year as they find amazing new stuff (which is one reason it’s so exciting)
For many years it was thought Gobekli Tepe was a singular miracle. A temple complex built by remarkably gifted cavemen who lived in temporary tents/shelters during the building season
Now at the other Tas Tepeler they have found permanent homes - besides the ritual shrines and cultic chambers. So it looks more and more like a civilisation, from 10,000 BC (or even earlier)
Worth pointing out that by the definition of 'civilisation' in that case it is not much different to the early pre-ceramic Neolithic of Northern Syria. The only big difference is the presence of temples. Jericho as a settlement dates back to 10,000 BC and the walled town dates to around 8,500 BC (and that wall is VERY impressive).
Even that is not the oldest structures in the area. Tell Qaramel has 5 towers dating back to around 10,000 BC and shows continuous occupation throughout the whole of the proto-Neolithic and pre-pottery Neolithic A & B (from around 10,500 to 9,000BC). These sites have been known since the 1970s.
The temples are, certainly, something else. But as I said before, this is not the revolutionary news that Hancock and others would have you believe.
Ian Hodder of Stanford Uni disagrees with you:
‘Gobekli Tepe changes everything.’
As an amateur archeologist with an interest in Syria, you’ll have heard of him
'Changes everything' is one of those phrases that can mean anything to anyone. Yes it is spectacular. No it does not mean an ancient 'civilisation' in Hancockian terms any more than the discovery of the Northern Syrian villages did.
That does not at all detract from the sites, nor does it mean the temples are not amazing. But when we have Sunil of this parish writing articles about Atlantis you have to stop and take a sniff of the smelling salts.
GT and the other sites push back the dates for large scale man made structures by a few hundred years. Not the 15,000 or so Hancock is regularly heard to claim.
I’m not batting for Hancock, you misconstrue me. I will indeed say that the Tas Tepeler are absolutely revolutionary, coz it is the case
Incidentally if you are interested in this stuff - and you obviously are - why don’t you go have a look? Seriously. See for yourself
These days Gobekli Tepe is now walled off and sheltered and gets a million visitors a year and that miraculous quality has largely gone (tho it is still a gob smacking site). When I first went I was the only non archaeologist there and we could wander between the stones drinking tea!
But at a site like Karahan Tepe you can still do that. Simply rock up. Wander about. You might be alone - or you can watch the archaeologists digging
Go on, do it! It would make an amazing holiday (combine it with a beach). Blow your mind!
If you want details on how to do it, DM me
It is definetely on my list. Along with various sites around Lake Van and in Kurdistan. My problem is time. I have had one 3 week holiday in 10 years. The joys of consultancy. I am hoping to do a bit more travelling again for pleasure rather than work but as always it is mañana.
3 weeks.... in ten years?!
That's insane. Life is for living, not working. Find the time before you keel over
Oh, for God's sake.
For [A PLURAL NUMBER OF DECADES SINCE 18] I had approx six periods, each a week or less, which could be described as a "holiday". It's only in my new job where they will not let you sell them that I have to take them, which are inevitably taken up with work.
You've never had a full-time job (or, arguably even a job as we would understand it) and you fail to understand the responsibility of people relying on you. Life is not like the movies and holidays are for children, not adults.
Can't tell if you're serious, I kind of hope you're not
I don't deny I have been lucky, but I have also made my own luck, to an extent. Don't let the man take you down
He doesn't strike me as poor, and he seems to be self-employed as a consultant - and therefore able to carve out time. A trip to go see the Tas Tepeler would cost less than £1000, could be done in as little as a week, even five days if you're mad, and would blow your mind - and his mind - like nothing else on this green earth, in terms of archaeology. A spectacular archaeological site, probably the most important on the planet, maybe the most important in all human history (these are some expert opinions, not mine) is happening RIGHT NOW. And you can just drive up and watch them doing it. Mazin!
I've not had a 'holiday' since the start of the pandemic. The odd day out, maybe.
There are more reasons than just work to be tied down.
Whilst I do have a number of places I'd like to go given the chance, I do wonder about some friends that are forever travelling the planet. What are they searching for? I don't think the answer to life the universe and everything lies in the Peruvian jungle (or wherever they are this week).
In my friend's case it's to tick off every country on the planet. He has done most of the easy ones and is now finding it progressively more difficult. As we're all officially spectrumy on this forum, I assume others can appreciate the sentiment.
i entirely appreciate that sentiment. I also love remote weird places, so I'm well jel of Somaliland and Djibouti, even tho I am reliably informed they are Total Shitholes. Often the Total Shitholes turn out to be the most fun, partly because no one else goes there
Parts of Russia are like this. Or, say, Darfur in Ethiopia
Darfur has the misfortune to be in Sudan.
Quite right too. I am thinking of the Danakil in Afar. Which is a shithole, but also spectacular
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
Just don’t grab a couple of full auto shotguns and think they will save you.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
Yeah, but the witch hunts were CAUSED BY CATS
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
I thought it was the toxoplasmosis that turned you into a cat lover? That's what it does to mice, anyway, so that they get eaten and the parasite is thus recycled.
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Cats are a genuine disaster for the environment. Possibly worse than dogs (tho it is close)
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Cats are a genuine disaster for the environment. Possibly worse than dogs (tho it is close)
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Domestic cats are making our only native cat species extinct through inter-breeding.
The Scottish wildcat is rarer than the Bengal Tiger. Oddly, people seem to be more concerned about the latter.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Ghosts — like UFOs, adrenochrome harvesting and COVID lab leaks — don’t exist. However, my mum had several ghost cat stories, and one ghost chimpanzee story,* so I gave you a like.
* The house previously belonged to the press officer at London Zoo, who invented the chimpanzees’ tea parties, which we only found out AFTER my mum had been hearing ghost chimpanzees. Dun dun dun!
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
I don't discount the evidence of your eyes or ears. Just that your brain has sent messages to your eyes and ears which then informed your vision.
You have to trust me on this, you don't have a ghost cat, albeit it is a lovely story to tell.
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Aren't all quadrupeds non-native? Does this apply to sheep?
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Ghosts — like UFOs, adrenochrome harvesting and COVID lab leaks — don’t exist. However, my mum had several ghost cat stories, and one ghost chimpanzee story,* so I gave you a like.
* The house previously belonged to the press officer at London Zoo, who invented the chimpanzees’ tea parties, which we only found out AFTER my mum had been hearing ghost chimpanzees. Dun dun dun!
UFOs exist. It is anything in the sky you cannot identify. Derrr
Similarly, ghosts exist, because millions of people have witnessed them. The true question is, what are they? Hallucinations? Disembodied spirits of the dead? Hoaxers in bedsheets?
That is your Epistemology GCSE Module 1 now concluded. You're welcome
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Without disagreeing with your broader point, isn’t the issue that their shit will be entering the waterways in a different place? Sewage systems may have a capacity where the people currently live, but a new housing estate will overwhelm the capacity in that area. Sewage capacity is not fungible.
No, because without sufficient housing people just live in overcrowded housing instead. That's no better and their shit still needs processing.
If you don't want people living "here" then where exactly should they be living instead? Markovia? Azeroth? Narnia? Or somewhere even less credible and more fantastical - like a part of the UK with an overabundance of housing and local services?
Bridging the brief excursion into ghosts back on topic, what does America do when the two party system offers a choice of candidates both of whom look like prize candidates for someone's Deadpool list?
Yes I know that American politics is catastrophically broken. But this is end of times broken. One party is in thrall to a geriatric crook set out to demolish the constitution and morality. The other party felt it had no other option but to install magic great-grandpa into the Oval Office - and seems set on giving him another life extension.
Why can't the non-Deadpool candidates get a look in?
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Aren't all quadrupeds non-native? Does this apply to sheep?
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
I don't discount the evidence of your eyes or ears. Just that your brain has sent messages to your eyes and ears which then informed your vision.
You have to trust me on this, you don't have a ghost cat, albeit it is a lovely story to tell.
Cat schmat. I'm prepared to accept that its a figment of my deranged imagination. But who is turning my office light off? I'm not - its left on. And then it goes off. Switched off, with the switch being thrown. And no, it isn't me forgetting or someone sneaking in doing it. I have cameras. Light on when I leave. Off when I return.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
Yeah, but the witch hunts were CAUSED BY CATS
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
I thought it was the toxoplasmosis that turned you into a cat lover? That's what it does to mice, anyway, so that they get eaten and the parasite is thus recycled.
Parasites are so freaky. Parasitic wasps in particular are perfectly Satanic
Laydz and Genlmen, the life cycle of Ampulex compressa, AKA the Emerald Cockroach Wasp
(Brace)
"Female wasps of this species were reported to sting a cockroach (specifically a Periplaneta americana, Periplaneta australasiae, or Nauphoeta rhombifolia) twice, delivering venom. The wasp delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. A biochemically-induced transient paralysis takes over the cockroach, where the temporary loss of mobility facilitates the second venomous sting at a precise spot in the victim's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses. The venom is reported to block receptors for the neurotransmitter octopamine.
Once the host is incapacitated, the wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae, after which it carefully feeds from exuding hemolymph. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. In the burrow, the wasp will lay one or two white eggs, about 2 mm long, between the roach's legs. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with any surrounding debris, more to keep other predators and competitors out than to keep the roach in.
With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach simply rests in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about 3 days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of 8 days, the final-instar larva will consume the roach's internal organs, finally killing its host. Eventually, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life. Development is faster in the warm season"
Talking of ancient civilisations, meanwhile, how long have humans been around? Some perhaps few hundred thousand years. Dinosaurs existed for 120m years. Just imagine where (if?) humanity will be in 1m years, let alone 120m years. Bonkers.
185m for dinos - you forgot the Cenozoic (aka "birds") IIRC they go back further than the Jurassic, too.
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Domestic cats are making our only native cat species extinct through inter-breeding.
The Scottish wildcat is rarer than the Bengal Tiger. Oddly, people seem to be more concerned about the latter.
Trouble is, AIUI, wildcats are close enough, genetically, to the domestic cat to be able to interbreed. And does.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Without disagreeing with your broader point, isn’t the issue that their shit will be entering the waterways in a different place? Sewage systems may have a capacity where the people currently live, but a new housing estate will overwhelm the capacity in that area. Sewage capacity is not fungible.
No, because without sufficient housing people just live in overcrowded housing instead. That's no better and their shit still needs processing.
If you don't want people living "here" then where exactly should they be living instead? Markovia? Azeroth? Narnia? Or somewhere even less credible and more fantastical - like a part of the UK with an overabundance of housing and local services?
I agree with you that we should build more housing and if there aren’t suitable sewage systems locally, then we should build those a.s.a.p. I’m just saying that just because people living where they currently are have adequate sewerage doesn’t mean that there’s automatically adequate sewerage if they all move to a new estate. There can be a need for new local infrastructure, which we should obviously provide.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
Yeah, but the witch hunts were CAUSED BY CATS
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
I thought it was the toxoplasmosis that turned you into a cat lover? That's what it does to mice, anyway, so that they get eaten and the parasite is thus recycled.
Parasites are so freaky. Parasitic wasps in particular are perfectly Satanic
Laydz and Genlmen, the life cycle of Ampulex Compressa, AKA the Emerald Cockroach Wasp
(Brace)
"Female wasps of this species were reported to sting a cockroach (specifically a Periplaneta americana, Periplaneta australasiae, or Nauphoeta rhombifolia)[ twice, delivering venom. The wasp delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. A biochemically-induced transient paralysis takes over the cockroach, where the temporary loss of mobility facilitates the second venomous sting at a precise spot in the victim's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses. The venom is reported to block receptors for the neurotransmitter octopamine.[
Once the host is incapacitated, the wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae, after which it carefully feeds from exuding hemolymph. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. In the burrow, the wasp will lay one or two white eggs, about 2 mm long, between the roach's legs. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with any surrounding debris, more to keep other predators and competitors out than to keep the roach in.
With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach simply rests in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about 3 days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of 8 days, the final-instar larva will consume the roach's internal organs, finally killing its host, and enters the pupal stage inside a cocoon in the roach's body. Eventually, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life. Development is faster in the warm season"
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
Not defending pets. Just querying whether the contribution of a "private travel jet boss" in the notoriously factual DT is of any more value than the contribution of, say, Arthur the Alsatian in weighing up the environmental cost of private jets vs. pets.
I imagine he is a tad biased, but his central point is good. Any pet owner is in a bad position to point their accusing, poo-covered, multi-parasitised fingers at anyone else, for enviro-negative behaviour
I read that article and his central claim is that a private jet only emits 2.1 tonnes of carbon each year. This would only be possible if it never flew anywhere.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
Although I can only read the headline, I'll bet that the article from a "private jet travel boss" is entirely objective.
But it's true. You can dispute the detailed numbers on the private jet claim, but pets are REALLY REALLY bad for the environment, and owning one is a monumental act of selfishness. Because you don't NEED a pet
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
This actually ties into our discussion this morning on the costs of saving the planet. Cars, lifestyle, meat, and now pets.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
Yeah, but the witch hunts were CAUSED BY CATS
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
I thought it was the toxoplasmosis that turned you into a cat lover? That's what it does to mice, anyway, so that they get eaten and the parasite is thus recycled.
Parasites are so freaky. Parasitic wasps in particular are perfectly Satanic
Laydz and Genlmen, the life cycle of Ampulex Compressa, AKA the Emerald Cockroach Wasp
(Brace)
"Female wasps of this species were reported to sting a cockroach (specifically a Periplaneta americana, Periplaneta australasiae, or Nauphoeta rhombifolia)[ twice, delivering venom. The wasp delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. A biochemically-induced transient paralysis takes over the cockroach, where the temporary loss of mobility facilitates the second venomous sting at a precise spot in the victim's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses. The venom is reported to block receptors for the neurotransmitter octopamine.[
Once the host is incapacitated, the wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae, after which it carefully feeds from exuding hemolymph. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. In the burrow, the wasp will lay one or two white eggs, about 2 mm long, between the roach's legs. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with any surrounding debris, more to keep other predators and competitors out than to keep the roach in.
With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach simply rests in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about 3 days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of 8 days, the final-instar larva will consume the roach's internal organs, finally killing its host, and enters the pupal stage inside a cocoon in the roach's body. Eventually, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life. Development is faster in the warm season"
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
I don't discount the evidence of your eyes or ears. Just that your brain has sent messages to your eyes and ears which then informed your vision.
You have to trust me on this, you don't have a ghost cat, albeit it is a lovely story to tell.
Cat schmat. I'm prepared to accept that its a figment of my deranged imagination. But who is turning my office light off? I'm not - its left on. And then it goes off. Switched off, with the switch being thrown. And no, it isn't me forgetting or someone sneaking in doing it. I have cameras. Light on when I leave. Off when I return.
No idea but again it is not supernatural. It is a circuit switch or something or other or you are misinterpreting. Or something. But it is not the ghost of Marso coming to help you save the planet.
I have a busy schedule or I would offer to come to stay in your house, alone, in the dead of night, to prove to you that there are no ghosts, although despite my certainty I don't rule out this very exchange as informing my subconscious accordingly.
And as Leon says, of course ghosts exist, as people see them. Just that they don't exist in the terms that we use when we discuss ghosts.
Talking of ancient civilisations, meanwhile, how long have humans been around? Some perhaps few hundred thousand years. Dinosaurs existed for 120m years. Just imagine where (if?) humanity will be in 1m years, let alone 120m years. Bonkers.
185m for dinos - you forgot the Cenozoic (aka "birds") IIRC they go back further than the Jurassic, too.
I mean if the net result of 185m years of development is that you are sitting, minding your own business on the lawn and you get nabbed by a fluffy moggy then I am conflicted as to whether or not I should be worried about the future of humanity.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
Derren Brown is good at this. Suggesting things to people that they then are surprised to discover they subsequently replay.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Without disagreeing with your broader point, isn’t the issue that their shit will be entering the waterways in a different place? Sewage systems may have a capacity where the people currently live, but a new housing estate will overwhelm the capacity in that area. Sewage capacity is not fungible.
No, because without sufficient housing people just live in overcrowded housing instead. That's no better and their shit still needs processing.
If you don't want people living "here" then where exactly should they be living instead? Markovia? Azeroth? Narnia? Or somewhere even less credible and more fantastical - like a part of the UK with an overabundance of housing and local services?
I agree with you that we should build more housing and if there aren’t suitable sewage systems locally, then we should build those a.s.a.p. I’m just saying that just because people living where they currently are have adequate sewerage doesn’t mean that there’s automatically adequate sewerage if they all move to a new estate. There can be a need for new local infrastructure, which we should obviously provide.
That's a function of population growth, yes. If the population is growing so demand grows, then the supply of services needs to too.
That is NOT an excuse to block housing or construction though.
If you want to prevent population growth then encourage net emigration as we have positive population growth anyway even without immigration.
If you don't want net emigration, then we need to grow services. Blocking houses and forcing people to live in overcrowded HMOs instead is not an alternative solution.
Just been reading an article on how New Zealand is trying to get rid of cats as well as the other non-native animals introduced by Europeans. Apparently the fewer cats, the more likely indigenous birds are to survive. They’ve even got people shooting feral cats.
Aren't all quadrupeds non-native? Does this apply to sheep?
Apparently not. Sheep are not carnivorous. It’s carnivorous quadrupeds which cause the problems.
Talking of ancient civilisations, meanwhile, how long have humans been around? Some perhaps few hundred thousand years. Dinosaurs existed for 120m years. Just imagine where (if?) humanity will be in 1m years, let alone 120m years. Bonkers.
185m for dinos - you forgot the Cenozoic (aka "birds") IIRC they go back further than the Jurassic, too.
Talking of ancient civilisations, meanwhile, how long have humans been around? Some perhaps few hundred thousand years. Dinosaurs existed for 120m years. Just imagine where (if?) humanity will be in 1m years, let alone 120m years. Bonkers.
Pedant hat.
Dinosaurs are a whole Superorder in traditional Linnean classification. They are represented by something north of 700 species and existed for around 170 million years.
Humans are one species of the Superorder Euarchonta which has itself been around for over 80 million years.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
I don't discount the evidence of your eyes or ears. Just that your brain has sent messages to your eyes and ears which then informed your vision.
You have to trust me on this, you don't have a ghost cat, albeit it is a lovely story to tell.
Cat schmat. I'm prepared to accept that its a figment of my deranged imagination. But who is turning my office light off? I'm not - its left on. And then it goes off. Switched off, with the switch being thrown. And no, it isn't me forgetting or someone sneaking in doing it. I have cameras. Light on when I leave. Off when I return.
No idea but again it is not supernatural. It is a circuit switch or something or other or you are misinterpreting. Or something. But it is not the ghost of Marso coming to help you save the planet.
I have a busy schedule or I would offer to come to stay in your house, alone, in the dead of night, to prove to you that there are no ghosts, although despite my certainty I don't rule out this very exchange as informing my subconscious accordingly.
And as Leon says, of course ghosts exist, as people see them. Just that they don't exist in the terms that we use when we discuss ghosts.
You cannot possibly know this about ghosts, indeed you do not know this
You can be seriously skeptical, but that's different
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
Derren Brown is good at this. Suggesting things to people that they then are surprised to discover they subsequently replay.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
Good, I get that argument. Its just that if 4 people hear the same thing at the same time and there is no practical way to explain the noise, then its either a group hallucination or I'm just lying as I type this. Or, its what it appears to be.
Remember that I was just as dismissive as you were! So I get the points you are making! Its just that I've seen shit that'll turn you white, and once you run out of easy dismissals you have look at what is left.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
Derren Brown is good at this. Suggesting things to people that they then are surprised to discover they subsequently replay.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
I for one am glad that "@TOPPING off of PB" has finally sorted out the grandest mysteries of the universe - death, God, the teleology of Creation - which have intrigued, compelled and vexed the finest philosophers, and indeed all of humanity, for the last 500,000 years
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Without disagreeing with your broader point, isn’t the issue that their shit will be entering the waterways in a different place? Sewage systems may have a capacity where the people currently live, but a new housing estate will overwhelm the capacity in that area. Sewage capacity is not fungible.
No, because without sufficient housing people just live in overcrowded housing instead. That's no better and their shit still needs processing.
If you don't want people living "here" then where exactly should they be living instead? Markovia? Azeroth? Narnia? Or somewhere even less credible and more fantastical - like a part of the UK with an overabundance of housing and local services?
I agree with you that we should build more housing and if there aren’t suitable sewage systems locally, then we should build those a.s.a.p. I’m just saying that just because people living where they currently are have adequate sewerage doesn’t mean that there’s automatically adequate sewerage if they all move to a new estate. There can be a need for new local infrastructure, which we should obviously provide.
That's a function of population growth, yes. If the population is growing so demand grows, then the supply of services needs to too.
That is NOT an excuse to block housing or construction though.
If you want to prevent population growth then encourage net emigration as we have positive population growth anyway even without immigration.
If you don't want net emigration, then we need to grow services. Blocking houses and forcing people to live in overcrowded HMOs instead is not an alternative solution.
So are you suggesting that all the infrastructure that supports a new estate is paid out of general taxation? Or would you pass the charge onto to the homeowners with factors fees or something?
DeSantis knows how to handle a hurricane. The racist shooting poses a bigger dilemma. A racially-motivated Jacksonville tragedy, couple with a looming storm, pose big tests for the governor.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of back-to-back crises — a racist mass shooting and a potentially catastrophic hurricane — could help burnish his image as a can-do, effective governor or further damage his standing with Black Americans who have grown livid over his policies.
Already, DeSantis’ attempts to show leadership in the immediate aftermath of the Saturday shooting were poorly received by some Black lawmakers, Democrats and residents in Florida. In the hours after a 21-year-old white man killed three Black Floridians near a historically Black college in Jacksonville, several state Democrats blamed DeSantis, who is running for president, for creating an environment, through policies such as loosening gun laws and ending diversity programs, that helped hate fester.
DeSantis has condemned the shooting and said “targeting people due to their race has no place in this state of Florida.” But attending a Sunday night vigil in Jacksonville, he was jeered and booed by people who had come out to remember the victims. At one point, a Jacksonville Democratic councilmember stepped in to calm the crowd, urging people to “put parties aside.” Later during the event, a pastor took issue with DeSantis describing the gunman as a “scumbag,” and said he should have used the word “racist” instead.
The vigil stood in contrast to press conferences in Tallahassee on Sunday and Monday, when DeSantis appeared visibly tired but spoke authoritatively about preparations overseeing Tropical Storm Idalia, which is forecast to become a major hurricane. He canceled campaign appearances and fundraisers, and told Floridians Sunday they could “rest assured” because “I am here” and would “get the job done.”
“He needs to be in Florida for as long as it takes,” said Adam Hollingsworth, the former chief of staff to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who served as governor before DeSantis. “His presidential ambitions could be a distraction, but first Gov. DeSantis has to dance with the one who brought him. Right now, that’s the people of Florida.”
Talking of ancient civilisations, meanwhile, how long have humans been around? Some perhaps few hundred thousand years. Dinosaurs existed for 120m years. Just imagine where (if?) humanity will be in 1m years, let alone 120m years. Bonkers.
Pedant hat.
Dinosaurs are a whole Superorder in traditional Linnean classification. They are represented by something north of 700 species and existed for around 170 million years.
Humans are one species of the Superorder Euarchonta which has itself been around for over 80 million years.
Okey dokey. Still interested in what we will be up to in a million years' time.
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
I don't discount the evidence of your eyes or ears. Just that your brain has sent messages to your eyes and ears which then informed your vision.
You have to trust me on this, you don't have a ghost cat, albeit it is a lovely story to tell.
Cat schmat. I'm prepared to accept that its a figment of my deranged imagination. But who is turning my office light off? I'm not - its left on. And then it goes off. Switched off, with the switch being thrown. And no, it isn't me forgetting or someone sneaking in doing it. I have cameras. Light on when I leave. Off when I return.
No idea but again it is not supernatural. It is a circuit switch or something or other or you are misinterpreting. Or something. But it is not the ghost of Marso coming to help you save the planet.
I have a busy schedule or I would offer to come to stay in your house, alone, in the dead of night, to prove to you that there are no ghosts, although despite my certainty I don't rule out this very exchange as informing my subconscious accordingly.
And as Leon says, of course ghosts exist, as people see them. Just that they don't exist in the terms that we use when we discuss ghosts.
You cannot possibly know this about ghosts, indeed you do not know this
You can be seriously skeptical, but that's different
Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport.
Aberdeen airport is not bad (I've been there), although the taxi rank is a bit bus shelter. It's alright: nothing special but clean and safe. However, travelling from/to Aberdeen gives you the opportunity to do this:
A bed! In a train! With a door you can lock and barricade to prevent others from getting to you! And room service! No telly, but I've slept in a lot worse.
Its a tourist service sold for £lots. And why not - it sells out in the summer. As an example I can have a return flight to London for £139 next week. Whereas the sleeper is sold out and would have been £100 more than that for one way...
Who needs a sleeper berth? The seats are cheap as chips.
Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport.
Aberdeen airport is not bad (I've been there), although the taxi rank is a bit bus shelter. It's alright: nothing special but clean and safe. However, travelling from/to Aberdeen gives you the opportunity to do this:
A bed! In a train! With a door you can lock and barricade to prevent others from getting to you! And room service! No telly, but I've slept in a lot worse.
Its a tourist service sold for £lots. And why not - it sells out in the summer. As an example I can have a return flight to London for £139 next week. Whereas the sleeper is sold out and would have been £100 more than that for one way...
Who needs a sleeper berth? The seats are cheap as chips.
As I understand it from watching and reading various reviews of the seats, the proposition is: A seat which has little padding A seat which has restricted room due to air ducts Said air ducts which blow cold air so that it is too cold Overhead lights which are pointlessly bright
Which ignores the other reality which is that its a seat and I don't sleep in a seat.
EDIT - Scott at Planes, Trains, Everything has done all of the overnight travel options from London to Glasgow. The sleeper seats were the most expensive and least comfortable...
"During the 13 weeks of the counterattack, Ukraine lost only five #Leopard 2 tanks out of 71 transferred, Forbes reported.
Another 10 tanks were damaged, although even with extremely heavy damage, tanks are sent to #Poland and #Germany for repair and returned to the front."
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
Derren Brown is good at this. Suggesting things to people that they then are surprised to discover they subsequently replay.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
I for one am glad that "@TOPPING off of PB" has finally sorted out the grandest mysteries of the universe - death, God, the teleology of Creation - which have intrigued, compelled and vexed the finest philosophers, and indeed all of humanity, for the last 500,000 years
Religion and ghosts and the supernatural. As someone once noted:
“Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”
And ghosts are simply a manifestation of our existential dread.
Furthermore, we’re all going to pay for it: Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
If an amendment in the House of Lords tabled on Tuesday passes, developers will no longer have to offset the nutrient pollution caused by sewage from new homes. The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders
Brexit - delivered through lies, shovelling money to wealthy Tory donors, degrading the world you live in and charging you for the privilege.
This is extremely good news, bypassing an absurd piece of legislation.
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Without disagreeing with your broader point, isn’t the issue that their shit will be entering the waterways in a different place? Sewage systems may have a capacity where the people currently live, but a new housing estate will overwhelm the capacity in that area. Sewage capacity is not fungible.
No, because without sufficient housing people just live in overcrowded housing instead. That's no better and their shit still needs processing.
If you don't want people living "here" then where exactly should they be living instead? Markovia? Azeroth? Narnia? Or somewhere even less credible and more fantastical - like a part of the UK with an overabundance of housing and local services?
I agree with you that we should build more housing and if there aren’t suitable sewage systems locally, then we should build those a.s.a.p. I’m just saying that just because people living where they currently are have adequate sewerage doesn’t mean that there’s automatically adequate sewerage if they all move to a new estate. There can be a need for new local infrastructure, which we should obviously provide.
That's a function of population growth, yes. If the population is growing so demand grows, then the supply of services needs to too.
That is NOT an excuse to block housing or construction though.
If you want to prevent population growth then encourage net emigration as we have positive population growth anyway even without immigration.
If you don't want net emigration, then we need to grow services. Blocking houses and forcing people to live in overcrowded HMOs instead is not an alternative solution.
So are you suggesting that all the infrastructure that supports a new estate is paid out of general taxation? Or would you pass the charge onto to the homeowners with factors fees or something?
General taxation expenditure should come out of general taxation, absolutely, of course it should. All public infrastructure for all homes are paid out of general taxation, yes.
New or old, doesn't make a difference, you still have to pay income tax, still pay council tax.
If you don't want to invest in new infrastructure, don't have population growth.
Why should young people pay more tax for having infrastructure to their home, just because its newer, when older homes infrastructure is maintained out of their taxes too?
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
Derren Brown is good at this. Suggesting things to people that they then are surprised to discover they subsequently replay.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
I for one am glad that "@TOPPING off of PB" has finally sorted out the grandest mysteries of the universe - death, God, the teleology of Creation - which have intrigued, compelled and vexed the finest philosophers, and indeed all of humanity, for the last 500,000 years
Religion and ghosts and the supernatural. As someone once noted:
“Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”
And ghosts are simply a manifestation of our existential dread.
Not rocket science. Or paleoarcheology.
And there was me thinking it was a quiet day on PB, focused mainly on ULEZ, and you've just gone and destroyed the basis of all human religion, with a mere cut and paste
Where are you on the mind/body problem? Perhaps we could get that sorted as well, before I go to Argos?
That just sounds exhausting. I am increasingly less enthralled with planes. I haven’t been on one since before Covid.
I don't understand this. I agree air travel can be exhausting and annoying. Indeed, it is this most of the time
But the travel! Just the sense of sitting in an airport, with all the world (or at least half of it) merely a plane flight away. We forget how lucky we are in Britain, location wise. Right in the "middle"
A travel writer friend of mine, a Brit based in New Orleans, mentioned this the other day, enviously. In the UK (esp London and SE England)) you are only an hour or two in flying time from a trillion amazing destinations. For him in Nawlins he is two hours from Cleveland Ohio
I have become comfortable being uncomfortable flying. Helps that Aberdeen is a fantastic little airport. Into that London is a choice of Luton or Gatwick. Luton is much quicker to get through but I no longer care which.
Flying internally in the UK is something I will happily defend. I can't get to and from where I need to be on land without it taking hours. So I fly.
If someone starts banging on at you about your "carbon footprint", ask them if they have any pets
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much eat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
The only type and number of pets people should be allowed to have is one cat.
Nope, not even cats. They kill 150-300 million wild creatures, every year, in the UK alone. It is an abomination. No wonder birdlife is collapsing
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
If the periodic appearances of Misty the ghost cat are anything to go by, cats will stick around near to human slaves even after they depart this realm.
Ghost cat now is it? I am sincerely jealous
I've talked about this before. A black cat-shaped thing which is never entirely there. With the exception of my 15 year old son (who has seen and heard nothing at all) everyone in the family and (very much scoffing at the idea before) house guests have all seen it.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else.
I know many people who say I don't have ghosts because they don't exist. Once said so at my house. The night before seeing one of them.
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Has anyone who has seen the ghosts not known that there are supposedly ghosts there? That could be affecting whether people are seeing them IMHO.
Yes. Me. The previous owner said nothing, so I had zero expectations and a pretty healthy "Just as an fyi, you don't have a ghost cat. It is something else" attitude to people who claimed to have seen a ghost.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
Derren Brown is good at this. Suggesting things to people that they then are surprised to discover they subsequently replay.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
Good, I get that argument. Its just that if 4 people hear the same thing at the same time and there is no practical way to explain the noise, then its either a group hallucination or I'm just lying as I type this. Or, its what it appears to be.
Remember that I was just as dismissive as you were! So I get the points you are making! Its just that I've seen shit that'll turn you white, and once you run out of easy dismissals you have look at what is left.
At my passing out ball at RMAS, of all places, there was a hypnotist. Perhaps you have seen a similar act. My abiding memory is of him getting some blokes up on stage and telling them that they could see everyone with no clothes on. He then let them loose on stage and the looks on their faces were priceless. They were absolutely gaping at all the girls in the place and not one of them was faking it.
Its amazing what the mind can do. Very sadly I was not one of those called up on stage for that trick.
Comments
If no housing was to be built you'd just have the existing housing utilising more water as the population grows.
Because pet ownership (I've been researching it) is catastrophic for the environment
"Having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/24/dogs-environment-private-jet-travel-boss/
When you add in all the damage pets do, from cats eating birds to dogs fouling waterways, to disturbing wildlife to farting methane to eating too much meat, and on and on, keeping pets is pretty much the worst thing a normal person can do, ecologically
https://www.sleeper.scot/
A bed! In a train! With a door you can lock and barricade to prevent others from getting to you! And room service! No telly, but I've slept in a lot worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rum2Hko3NaA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy3hj_dHKF8
None of the so-called problems with construction carnyx mentioned has anything to do with construction. They are all to do with people.
And yes, people do live in places even before homes are built. Just too many people live in overcrowded accommodation, or expensive crap accommodation because that's all that's available.
A failure to invest in schools is not resolved by cramming children into overcrowded homes rather than homes where they can have their own bedroom to study in.
Other acceptable pets for people include rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters.
Cats keep people as pets.
Get rid of your fucking pets, you selfish pet-keeping twats
The law afaik doesn't concern 'housebuilders' pollution', but the fact that they have to account for the prospective residents' shit entering the waterways. Given that their shit is already entering the waterways, and that therefore there is no environmental benefit in new houses being held up this way, all it was doing was contributing to the ongoing housing crisis. It will indeed massively benefit small housebuilders who can't afford to wait years before building, and will be welcomed by anyone with half a brain cell.
Also, National Trust South Foreland Lighthouse,
Not acceptable. You don't NEED a dog. It is a selfish indulgence, and what's more dogs shit everywhere, spread disease, and kill children. Get rid
If things look like favouring Labour though , as may be the case, they're insistence could look hubristic.
For anyone who thinks that toilets wouldn't get flushed if people weren't living in the homes, then where exactly would they be living instead? Siberia?
But they don't. People need water - and people need to brush their teeth or flush their toilet whether they're living on their own, or with their immediate family, or three families crowded into a single overcrowded dwelling.
"By owning a pet, you are doing more damage to the environment than you might realise
Truth-telling about pets can be a painful process but cats and dogs, particularly, are having a devastating impact on the planet"
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/pets-uk-ownership-cats-dogs-carbon-environmental-impact-b1249610.html
Plus, now deceased.
I think there is certainly an element in humans that looks for an external threat and that in turn justifies all kinds of bonkers behaviour. Not hugely dissimilar to the various witch hunts and other religious or ritual behaviours.
This is not to say that the temperature is not changing atm.
That I have a living black cat just adds to the confusion. He likes to yowl when hungry / upset. Was making a right old racket one morning in the doorway of my daughter's room (where he spends a lot of time). Tell him to shush then hear another yowl and realise my cat is off to my left on the stairs, not in the doorway ahead. Ah.
My other cat (they are siblings) seems determined to rescue Misty from being trapped in the antique wardrobe we inherited with the house. Scratches at one of the doors and gives a specific warning yowl. Usually at 4am. I say specific because when the other cat has gotten himself stuck somewhere she does the same yowl to alert us to his predicament whilst she scratches as the offending door...
To his credit, Governor Gavin Newsom agrees with those families (and me):
'“I am mindful of the critics — and I’m one of them — that we can be doing more and better in myriad areas,” he said. “I’m mindful that as governor, I can’t do it all. But I’m also mindful that the buck stops here. And I’m ultimately going to be held to account.”
That reasoning is emblematic of how he views his remaining three and a half years at the Capitol. There’s a recognition that the passage of sweeping programs on homelessness and drugs, mental health and the housing shortage won’t immediately remedy problems that took decades to spiral out of control. He feels the pressure of time bearing down. And even as he favorably compared his record to recent predecessors in the interview, Newsom said he regrets he won’t be in office to oversee the full execution, when the public is rendering its ultimate judgment of him.'
source: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/18/san-francisco-gavin-newsom-homeless-00111777
If Kamala Harris recognizes those failures, and has said so, I missed it. I think it fair to say that she is a small part of those California problems, and did little, if anything, to fix them.
True story
Lonely old women turned to cats for company, but the cat shit had feline toxoplasmosis in it, and this being the 15th-17th centuries, hygiene standards weren-t very good and the toxoplasmosis infected the old ladies, who went mad thereby (the parasite is known to cause bizarre mental disorders) and this weirdness got noticed by the neighbours, who accused the batty old hags of witchery, and so they were burned
That is why witches are depicted with their cats, as familiars. Vinegar Joe killed the Crone
*Snakes On A Plane was good. Saltie On A Plane will be awesome.
Cats notwithstanding although Toxoplasmosis is a threat to pregnant women (and their children) which ties in with the theory.
Very good production of The Crucible on atm also which comes at it from another angle although the majority of those executed or "afflicted" were likewise women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_Region
https://youtu.be/XfEuxRDYiyc?si=3YgrD2PtoiqlpFO6
Talking of brain parasites...I see the media are rather enjoying this one:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/28/live-worm-living-womans-brain-australia-depression-forgetfulness
Both are seriously negative. Ban them
I don't have a problem with sceptics - I was one until I lived here. But its hard to discount the evidence of my eyes and ears, nor the various items which have been dropped for us to find.
Granted we brought them along, but still.
I think they pick up bad habits from us.
The Scottish wildcat is rarer than the Bengal Tiger. Oddly, people seem to be more concerned about the latter.
* The house previously belonged to the press officer at London Zoo, who invented the chimpanzees’ tea parties, which we only found out AFTER my mum had been hearing ghost chimpanzees. Dun dun dun!
You have to trust me on this, you don't have a ghost cat, albeit it is a lovely story to tell.
Does this apply to sheep?
Similarly, ghosts exist, because millions of people have witnessed them. The true question is, what are they? Hallucinations? Disembodied spirits of the dead? Hoaxers in bedsheets?
That is your Epistemology GCSE Module 1 now concluded. You're welcome
If you don't want people living "here" then where exactly should they be living instead? Markovia? Azeroth? Narnia? Or somewhere even less credible and more fantastical - like a part of the UK with an overabundance of housing and local services?
Yes I know that American politics is catastrophically broken. But this is end of times broken. One party is in thrall to a geriatric crook set out to demolish the constitution and morality. The other party felt it had no other option but to install magic great-grandpa into the Oval Office - and seems set on giving him another life extension.
Why can't the non-Deadpool candidates get a look in?
"@BritainElects
3h
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 46% (-4)
CON: 30% (+5)
LDEM: 12% (+3)
via @DeltapollUK, 24 - 25 Aug"
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1696490855706616169
Laydz and Genlmen, the life cycle of Ampulex compressa, AKA the Emerald Cockroach Wasp
(Brace)
"Female wasps of this species were reported to sting a cockroach (specifically a Periplaneta americana, Periplaneta australasiae, or Nauphoeta rhombifolia) twice, delivering venom. The wasp delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. A biochemically-induced transient paralysis takes over the cockroach, where the temporary loss of mobility facilitates the second venomous sting at a precise spot in the victim's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses. The venom is reported to block receptors for the neurotransmitter octopamine.
Once the host is incapacitated, the wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae, after which it carefully feeds from exuding hemolymph. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. In the burrow, the wasp will lay one or two white eggs, about 2 mm long, between the roach's legs. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with any surrounding debris, more to keep other predators and competitors out than to keep the roach in.
With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach simply rests in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about 3 days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of 8 days, the final-instar larva will consume the roach's internal organs, finally killing its host. Eventually, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life. Development is faster in the warm season"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp
And does.
There's more horrific stuff going on in an average square mile of English soil than we coukd possibly imagine.
I have a busy schedule or I would offer to come to stay in your house, alone, in the dead of night, to prove to you that there are no ghosts, although despite my certainty I don't rule out this very exchange as informing my subconscious accordingly.
And as Leon says, of course ghosts exist, as people see them. Just that they don't exist in the terms that we use when we discuss ghosts.
Also got the interesting thing where I've had a room full of people sat downstairs and multiple people hear the same thing and react simultaneously. If its an auditory hallucination, its either one that happens to multiple brains in one go, or I'm lying and we just organised the shittiest flash mob ever.
I remember listening to an episode of whatever that ghosts/poltergeist podcast is on BBC Sounds and the guy relating the story said, at the outset, "we approached the house and something looked very strange, it didn't look right" and then subsequently went on to experience I think it was a poltergeist.
Well the clue was that he was already expecting something to be amiss.
Sadly or happily or wonderfully there is no supernatural. No ghosts, gods, or goblins. It all starts and ends with us. As it does with your ghost cat and the lights in your house.
That is NOT an excuse to block housing or construction though.
If you want to prevent population growth then encourage net emigration as we have positive population growth anyway even without immigration.
If you don't want net emigration, then we need to grow services. Blocking houses and forcing people to live in overcrowded HMOs instead is not an alternative solution.
It’s carnivorous quadrupeds which cause the problems.
Dinosaurs are a whole Superorder in traditional Linnean classification. They are represented by something north of 700 species and existed for around 170 million years.
Humans are one species of the Superorder Euarchonta which has itself been around for over 80 million years.
You can be seriously skeptical, but that's different
Remember that I was just as dismissive as you were! So I get the points you are making! Its just that I've seen shit that'll turn you white, and once you run out of easy dismissals you have look at what is left.
Edit - research reveals the last printed edition will be spring 2024.
DeSantis knows how to handle a hurricane. The racist shooting poses a bigger dilemma.
A racially-motivated Jacksonville tragedy, couple with a looming storm, pose big tests for the governor.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of back-to-back crises — a racist mass shooting and a potentially catastrophic hurricane — could help burnish his image as a can-do, effective governor or further damage his standing with Black Americans who have grown livid over his policies.
Already, DeSantis’ attempts to show leadership in the immediate aftermath of the Saturday shooting were poorly received by some Black lawmakers, Democrats and residents in Florida. In the hours after a 21-year-old white man killed three Black Floridians near a historically Black college in Jacksonville, several state Democrats blamed DeSantis, who is running for president, for creating an environment, through policies such as loosening gun laws and ending diversity programs, that helped hate fester.
DeSantis has condemned the shooting and said “targeting people due to their race has no place in this state of Florida.” But attending a Sunday night vigil in Jacksonville, he was jeered and booed by people who had come out to remember the victims. At one point, a Jacksonville Democratic councilmember stepped in to calm the crowd, urging people to “put parties aside.” Later during the event, a pastor took issue with DeSantis describing the gunman as a “scumbag,” and said he should have used the word “racist” instead.
The vigil stood in contrast to press conferences in Tallahassee on Sunday and Monday, when DeSantis appeared visibly tired but spoke authoritatively about preparations overseeing Tropical Storm Idalia, which is forecast to become a major hurricane. He canceled campaign appearances and fundraisers, and told Floridians Sunday they could “rest assured” because “I am here” and would “get the job done.”
“He needs to be in Florida for as long as it takes,” said Adam Hollingsworth, the former chief of staff to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who served as governor before DeSantis. “His presidential ambitions could be a distraction, but first Gov. DeSantis has to dance with the one who brought him. Right now, that’s the people of Florida.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/28/desantis-florida-crises-hurricane-racist-shooting-00113226
A seat which has little padding
A seat which has restricted room due to air ducts
Said air ducts which blow cold air so that it is too cold
Overhead lights which are pointlessly bright
Which ignores the other reality which is that its a seat and I don't sleep in a seat.
EDIT - Scott at Planes, Trains, Everything has done all of the overnight travel options from London to Glasgow. The sleeper seats were the most expensive and least comfortable...
"During the 13 weeks of the counterattack, Ukraine lost only five #Leopard 2 tanks out of 71 transferred, Forbes reported.
Another 10 tanks were damaged, although even with extremely heavy damage, tanks are sent to #Poland and #Germany for repair and returned to the front."
https://twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1696526083678744851
“Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”
And ghosts are simply a manifestation of our existential dread.
Not rocket science. Or paleoarcheology.
New or old, doesn't make a difference, you still have to pay income tax, still pay council tax.
If you don't want to invest in new infrastructure, don't have population growth.
Why should young people pay more tax for having infrastructure to their home, just because its newer, when older homes infrastructure is maintained out of their taxes too?
And there was me thinking it was a quiet day on PB, focused mainly on ULEZ, and you've just gone and destroyed the basis of all human religion, with a mere cut and paste
Where are you on the mind/body problem? Perhaps we could get that sorted as well, before I go to Argos?
Its amazing what the mind can do. Very sadly I was not one of those called up on stage for that trick.