On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
I do not believe we have ever done better than the Georgian square. And you can build the houses quite high - because of the airy space at the heart
Obviously not a solution for mass housing, but it should be an inspiration
Gentle density as the saying goes. You can pack people quite tightly together if you give them trees, greenery, beauty, a door on the road (ideally), public transport, shops and pubs and cafes within 5-10 minutes walk
We learned all this in the 18th century then somehow deliberately forgot post 1945
And tear down every single post war city centre and rebuild them exactly as they were in 1910. Make it a national crusade. The beautification of Britain
Why not? Starmer needs something inspiring not just drab management. That would inspire
It may happen, if Starmerhomes gets off the ground. Something between Poundbury and New London Vernacular. We could do a lot worse.
The challenge is what to do about cars. They just take up so much land, and force all the nice stuff so far apart.
(What's that Skippy? You can hear howls of dissent from the Warrington area?)
Underground parking, like the French
And high density housing and decent public transport, like the French.
I'm sorry, French suburban public housing is not an example we want to follow. In what world do we want to recreate the sink estate that we've finally after 40 years been able to get away from. French banlieues are absolutely the worst example of urban housing in all of Europe.
And I say this having grown up in one of London's most violent estates, we should absolutely avoid going back to that style of housing.
Whilst we're talking about new-builds, an interesting and (to me) weird thing occasionally goes on. Our plumber told me he has a good trade in ripping out bathrooms and putting new ones in brand-new new-build houses. Not in grand houses, but in the sort of new-build house you get around here. People struggling to get the deposits, with massive mortgages, then spend four or five grand taking out a perfectly serviceable bathroom to replace it with something that is *them*.
The same thing apparently happens with kitchens, including, in a few cases, knocking out walls to make rooms more open-plan. You get skips outside brand-new houses.
The plumber and his mates then sell all the brand-new, unused or little-used stuff on other jobs.
I don't think this is the fault of the builder; the bathrooms and kitchens are serviceable. It just seems so incredibly wasteful.
I was executor for an elderly relative earlier this year - bathroom was shot, bidet didn't match, handbasin cracked, bathroom piping perished in places. Our tame plumber just patched up the immediate leak and told us not to bother doing anything more - the buyer would want to implement a new bathroom to their own tastes anyway, and he'd lost count of the number of times he'd installed a new bathroom only to see it binned within months.
Yeah, you either leave everything as it is, or you totally gut the place and do the whole house from scratch.
Interestingly, as I may have said on here before we bought a large apartment in Ukraine a few years ago, which was eventually handed over only a few months ago because of everything that’s going on there. The handover was of what might be called shell & core; we now need to do the kitchen, bathrooms, wardrobes, flooring, lighting etc. ourselves.
Indeed. The relative's house needed a new kitchen and new carpets/lino etc throughout, at least, as well as some refurbsihment to the exterior woodwork and a repaint passim. Not second guessing the buyer with the new bogs meant also we could sell at an even more moderate price for a remarkably fast sale - just before the crash, as I've remarked on here (and guided in considerable part by the wisdom of PB).
In the end the walls next the bathroom got knocked down to make a huge one, kitchen moved to another room, and so on and so forth ...
Good call then. If it’s going to be a project house anyway, then it makes little sense to do more than the bare minimum - unless you want to fund the whole project in cash and time. In a declining market, a lot of people are happy to do the project themselves if it gets them a cheap house, rather than paying top dollar for the nicest property on the street.
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
I do not believe we have ever done better than the Georgian square. And you can build the houses quite high - because of the airy space at the heart
Obviously not a solution for mass housing, but it should be an inspiration
Gentle density as the saying goes. You can pack people quite tightly together if you give them trees, greenery, beauty, a door on the road (ideally), public transport, shops and pubs and cafes within 5-10 minutes walk
We learned all this in the 18th century then somehow deliberately forgot post 1945
And tear down every single post war city centre and rebuild them exactly as they were in 1910. Make it a national crusade. The beautification of Britain
Why not? Starmer needs something inspiring not just drab management. That would inspire
It may happen, if Starmerhomes gets off the ground. Something between Poundbury and New London Vernacular. We could do a lot worse.
The challenge is what to do about cars. They just take up so much land, and force all the nice stuff so far apart.
(What's that Skippy? You can hear howls of dissent from the Warrington area?)
Underground parking, like the French
Moreover "underground parking" in most European cities is nowhere near as expensive as UK councils seem to assume it is, because they simply get the diggers in to clear out a couple of acres of land in the same way as you would digging foundations, then fill it with parking spaces on a couple of levels and cover the whole areas over again with concrete or grass.
There's underground parking in a lot of the developments down by the river in Deptford - I use one of them when I'm shopping at the supermarket there - and they're great. Dry, secure, plentiful parking, and invisible.
It really depends on the ground. Building underground can be a real pain in the backside, particularly if the water table is relatively high. Having a good, suitable spot could well reduce the cost of a long-lasting structure by a half or a third over a poor location. Building above ground can be so much easier and cheaper. If you do it properly, that is...
Yes I can see the water table issue but is that not an issue for any new building given the need for foundations? A single level car park is no different from a basement or underground gym.
All the buildings in places like Canary Wharf have large underground spaces, many of which are car parks, and those are on the same level as flooded docks.
It's *very* different. Foundations (either traditional, slab or piled) are solid things. Car parks are empty spaces that need to be kept dry, or dryish, on the inside. And that basement or underground gym needs to be engineered so they don't suffer from the same problems.
Places like Canary Wharf and others can do it because they throw money at it. If the underground structure is valuable enough, of course you can do it. But it's nearly always cheaper to build above ground. Sometimes *much* cheaper.
This isn't a reason not to do it; just that it's costly.
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
I find Georgian and Edwardian architecture the most pleasing to the eye. Not as fussy as Victorian, and with well proportioned rooms of a size for modern living. Building standards and materials were better in Edwardian times as properly trained artisans did much of the work, at least in the properties that still exist. Proper damp courses and carpentry etc.
Mrs Foxy's grandfather was a small scale builder and said that in the building boom of the 1930s and 1950's to 1960's any idiot could get a site job and often did.
On the other hand, I live in a 2002 built house, and while it has less soul or character, it is much warmer than previous houses, and the first one that I have owned where the roof never leaks!
'Kerb appeal' is nice but it's the inside that counts. That's where you spend your time.
Is that perhaps one of the problems of modern Britain in 2 sentences?
For thousands of years humans have spent most of their time outside, in and amongst the community. This locking away indoors thing is a pretty recent phenomenon.
I think it’s fairly unique to @kinabalu who has only traveled as far as Bruges. Once
Going again next year. For a bit longer this time. 4 days.
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
I do not believe we have ever done better than the Georgian square. And you can build the houses quite high - because of the airy space at the heart
Obviously not a solution for mass housing, but it should be an inspiration
Gentle density as the saying goes. You can pack people quite tightly together if you give them trees, greenery, beauty, a door on the road (ideally), public transport, shops and pubs and cafes within 5-10 minutes walk
We learned all this in the 18th century then somehow deliberately forgot post 1945
And tear down every single post war city centre and rebuild them exactly as they were in 1910. Make it a national crusade. The beautification of Britain
Why not? Starmer needs something inspiring not just drab management. That would inspire
It may happen, if Starmerhomes gets off the ground. Something between Poundbury and New London Vernacular. We could do a lot worse.
The challenge is what to do about cars. They just take up so much land, and force all the nice stuff so far apart.
(What's that Skippy? You can hear howls of dissent from the Warrington area?)
Underground parking, like the French
Moreover "underground parking" in most European cities is nowhere near as expensive as UK councils seem to assume it is, because they simply get the diggers in to clear out a couple of acres of land in the same way as you would digging foundations, then fill it with parking spaces on a couple of levels and cover the whole areas over again with concrete or grass.
There's underground parking in a lot of the developments down by the river in Deptford - I use one of them when I'm shopping at the supermarket there - and they're great. Dry, secure, plentiful parking, and invisible.
It really depends on the ground. Building underground can be a real pain in the backside, particularly if the water table is relatively high. Having a good, suitable spot could well reduce the cost of a long-lasting structure by a half or a third over a poor location. Building above ground can be so much easier and cheaper. If you do it properly, that is...
Yes I can see the water table issue but is that not an issue for any new building given the need for foundations? A single level car park is no different from a basement or underground gym.
All the buildings in places like Canary Wharf have large underground spaces, many of which are car parks, and those are on the same level as flooded docks.
It's *very* different. Foundations (either traditional, slab or piled) are solid things. Car parks are empty spaces that need to be kept dry, or dryish, on the inside. And that basement or underground gym needs to be engineered so they don't suffer from the same problems.
Places like Canary Wharf and others can do it because they throw money at it. If the underground structure is valuable enough, of course you can do it. But it's nearly always cheaper to build above ground. Sometimes *much* cheaper.
This isn't a reason not to do it; just that it's costly.
I quite like the idea of a randomly flooding car park as a way of managing the number of tonka-tanker SUVs.
The school-children of Wimbledon and Richmond might approve. *
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
If IHT is tinkered with I think the furthest the government will go is potentially increasing the primary homes allowance from £500k to £600k which would cover a pretty big increment of the blue wall oldies at £1.2m per couple and blue wall boomers who want to inherit. Reducing the headline rate or increasing the non-housing allowance seem completely out of the question.
Complete abolition of IHT would be too much of an open goal, inviting charges that Rishi is gifting his family hundreds of millions of pounds, and similarly for the millionaire Jeremy Hunt. For that reason, I can't see it.
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
I do not believe we have ever done better than the Georgian square. And you can build the houses quite high - because of the airy space at the heart
Obviously not a solution for mass housing, but it should be an inspiration
Gentle density as the saying goes. You can pack people quite tightly together if you give them trees, greenery, beauty, a door on the road (ideally), public transport, shops and pubs and cafes within 5-10 minutes walk
We learned all this in the 18th century then somehow deliberately forgot post 1945
And tear down every single post war city centre and rebuild them exactly as they were in 1910. Make it a national crusade. The beautification of Britain
Why not? Starmer needs something inspiring not just drab management. That would inspire
It may happen, if Starmerhomes gets off the ground. Something between Poundbury and New London Vernacular. We could do a lot worse.
The challenge is what to do about cars. They just take up so much land, and force all the nice stuff so far apart.
(What's that Skippy? You can hear howls of dissent from the Warrington area?)
Underground parking, like the French
And high density housing and decent public transport, like the French.
I'm sorry, French suburban public housing is not an example we want to follow. In what world do we want to recreate the sink estate that we've finally after 40 years been able to get away from. French banlieues are absolutely the worst example of urban housing in all of Europe.
And I say this having grown up in one of London's most violent estates, we should absolutely avoid going back to that style of housing.
How else are you going to get sufficient housing supply in urban areas?
Otoh - good news from Edinburgh. The crackdown on STLs has seen a large increase in the number of flats available, particularly in the city centre, seeing prices drop by 15% there.
Will be interesting to see how this affects the Fringe - the legislation is quite clever as it means you can still rent your spare bedroom out for significantly lower fees as long as you still live there.
Things like DVLA, the Passport Service, Stamp Duty Land Tax, the High Court, work extremely efficiently online. The Probate Service, County Courts, and Land Registry do not. What I don’t understand is why the IT that works as intended can’t just be used across the board.
One of the things that gets you IT that works as intended is keeping the scope constrained, so you build "a website that works for the DVLA" (a manageable task) and not "a comprehensive framework that will solve the online requirements of a dozen different government departments simultaneously" (a mammoth endeavour that is likely to produce bad results very late at great expense).
The other thing is, instead of spending years trying to agree a universal format for storing information (on health, for instance, or books or houses) and then struggling to retrofit new developments and edge cases, simply define a standard for passing information between systems.
My sister has made a 25-year career in IT for a logistics company, due to the fact that every supplier lists the goods they are sending to the warehouses in different formats, and every supermarket lists the goods they are taking from the warehouses in different formats again.
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
Not sure that the tenements in Morningside are particularly cherished. Villas with walled gardens otoh … Otherwise I agree with your points
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
What Zelensky can do in the spring, depends entirely on how many more weapons and systems his allies can supply and train his troops on over the winter.
Yes, there’s some Germans who just want cheap gas, and some Amercians who want to see ‘money’ spent domestically rather than in wars far away - but for most of Europe, this war needs to be seen as existential, and anything except a clear defeat for Russia will mean Putin’s men just keep coming back for more. The whole of Europe needs to step up, militarily and diplomatically, to force an end to this war.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times, but Sunak and Biden both need to get themselves re-elected next year - what can they offer OPEC to crash the oil price and deny Russia foreign currency, as well as sorting out the inflation and reducing the singular most obvious price of any commodity to their own electorates?
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
If IHT is tinkered with I think the furthest the government will go is potentially increasing the primary homes allowance from £500k to £600k which would cover a pretty big increment of the blue wall oldies at £1.2m per couple and blue wall boomers who want to inherit. Reducing the headline rate or increasing the non-housing allowance seem completely out of the question.
Complete abolition of IHT would be too much of an open goal, inviting charges that Rishi is gifting his family hundreds of millions of pounds, and similarly for the millionaire Jeremy Hunt. For that reason, I can't see it.
That is probably true enough, yet still silly as the probability that their estates are set by the rules of Rishi and Hunt rather than some distant successors is <<5%.
The surprising thing to me in the Russia-Ukraine war is the inability of the Russians to control either the skies or the Black Sea. Indeed it appears that Russian Crimea is really quite vulnerable from the south. These give at least a glimmer of hope I think. But ianae etc etc
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
There was a really interesting series on R4 at the back of 9 recently by an architect who had consulted psychologists. What he found was that clean lines and sparse outlines actually caused depression and had measurable effects on peoples health. The human eye and brain needs a bit of detail and a more human scale to feel comfortable. It was a thought provoking series although I couldn't help feeling it would have made better TV with pictures.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Re Ukraine vs Russia...what we need is Jezza to invite them all to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Problem solved.
Despite the vast number of folk offering Corbyn free accommodation in their heads, I’m sure as a good socialist he would want to pay a living rent, preferably in a rent controlled system.
Haaland again. Have to say the quality of the football in this first 30 minutes has been awesome. These two teams are so far ahead of the rest that it is a bit embarrassing.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
What Zelensky can do in the spring, depends entirely on how many more weapons and systems his allies can supply and train his troops on over the winter.
Yes, there’s some Germans who just want cheap gas, and some Amercians who want to see ‘money’ spent domestically rather than in wars far away - but for most of Europe, this war needs to be seen as existential, and anything except a clear defeat for Russia will mean Putin’s men just keep coming back for more. The whole of Europe needs to step up, militarily and diplomatically, to force an end to this war.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times, but Sunak and Biden both need to get themselves re-elected next year - what can they offer OPEC to crash the oil price and deny Russia foreign currency, as well as sorting out the inflation and reducing the singular most obvious price of any commodity to their own electorates?
It’s not existential for the west. The Korean armistice did not mean China then marched across all of South Asia
Both sides were utterly exhausted
And when you look at the histories of north and South Korea since the armistice it looks to me like Seoul was definitely the winner. That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
Then rearm and join NATO and turn Ukraine into a thriving magnetic democratic beacon like South Korea, in contrast to the impoverished Donbas
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
There was a really interesting series on R4 at the back of 9 recently by an architect who had consulted psychologists. What he found was that clean lines and sparse outlines actually caused depression and had measurable effects on peoples health. The human eye and brain needs a bit of detail and a more human scale to feel comfortable. It was a thought provoking series although I couldn't help feeling it would have made better TV with pictures.
I am sure that's correct. That's why the famous Brutalist architect whose name escapes me lived in a Tudor Manor house. You'd like the video in the quote nest if you haven't seen it.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
He can redirect his forces to the top right of the rUkraine and clear the Russians out of the Kharkiv Oblast, which just(?) means the Kupiansk raion
He can redirect his forces to the Kherson Oblast and try to retake it, or at least the Skadovsk and Kherson raions. That would give a rUK sufficient coastline to function as a state.
It's a war of occupation. They need to prove they can retake land. If they are denied land by mines then they must strike where mines are absent, so marshy ground and mountains.
Stations are moving from DAB to DAB+ so put a new wireless on your Christmas list.
Why are they messing about with DAB. It is a technology that is shortly destined for the bin (it was only ever a stop gap technology). At home you can use your own internet connection to listen to any "radio" station, when 5G roll out is complete, the near term future is internet will be everywhere and unlimited.
We are already seeing this with tv, FreeView will have an internet only version, Sky is pushing all its customers to go the internet route, etc.
Does Sky Glass suffer from the same time lag as other internet TV apps and online telly have? It’s a fatal flaw when watching sport, as the action is often two minutes behind real time and someone in the pub etc knows about the goals before you see them on the screen. Completely ruins the experience.
The official F1 app can’t even get their own radio commentary to sync with the timing screen, it’s usually about 30s behind because the timing data feed goes to the commentators (in London, wherever the race happens to be) and then back out to the internet. The delay on internet vs satellite TV can be a couple of minutes for Sky.
Yep, hopeless. More reasons to avoid app-based telly. It’s rubbish.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
Well it would be if I actually said that. You’re Chinese whispering the LuckyGuy Chinese whisper of my original lighthearted comment, which was that one Bild article has had more negative effect on PB morale than a hundred Saturday morning trolls.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
What Zelensky can do in the spring, depends entirely on how many more weapons and systems his allies can supply and train his troops on over the winter.
Yes, there’s some Germans who just want cheap gas, and some Amercians who want to see ‘money’ spent domestically rather than in wars far away - but for most of Europe, this war needs to be seen as existential, and anything except a clear defeat for Russia will mean Putin’s men just keep coming back for more. The whole of Europe needs to step up, militarily and diplomatically, to force an end to this war.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times, but Sunak and Biden both need to get themselves re-elected next year - what can they offer OPEC to crash the oil price and deny Russia foreign currency, as well as sorting out the inflation and reducing the singular most obvious price of any commodity to their own electorates?
It’s not existential for the west. The Korean armistice did not mean China then marched across all of South Asia
Both sides were utterly exhausted
And when you look at the histories of north and South Korea since the armistice it looks to me like Seoul was definitely the winner. That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
Then rearm and join NATO and turn Ukraine into a thriving magnetic democratic beacon like South Korea, in contrast to the impoverished Donbas
The problem here is that Ukraine have to keep fighting in order to have the desired armistice. All that happens is that the fighting is scaled back. It suits Russia to keep having a war, it is just a skirmish on the edgelands that keeps society in order. The idea that Ukraine can agree a peace is a non starter. Russia has always just been waiting for the US/west to run out of enthusiasm at which point it will choose the moment at which it starts a new offensive. The whole purpose of the conflict is to weaken the power of the West. It is now looking like it will succeed.
I don't think there is any 'peace' but a possibility of freezing the conflict and fortifying the new border.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
What Zelensky can do in the spring, depends entirely on how many more weapons and systems his allies can supply and train his troops on over the winter.
Yes, there’s some Germans who just want cheap gas, and some Amercians who want to see ‘money’ spent domestically rather than in wars far away - but for most of Europe, this war needs to be seen as existential, and anything except a clear defeat for Russia will mean Putin’s men just keep coming back for more. The whole of Europe needs to step up, militarily and diplomatically, to force an end to this war.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times, but Sunak and Biden both need to get themselves re-elected next year - what can they offer OPEC to crash the oil price and deny Russia foreign currency, as well as sorting out the inflation and reducing the singular most obvious price of any commodity to their own electorates?
It’s not existential for the west. The Korean armistice did not mean China then marched across all of South Asia
Both sides were utterly exhausted
And when you look at the histories of north and South Korea since the armistice it looks to me like Seoul was definitely the winner. That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
Then rearm and join NATO and turn Ukraine into a thriving magnetic democratic beacon like South Korea, in contrast to the impoverished Donbas
The Korean War went 3 years and 1 month from start to armistice, so that takes us up to March 2025. Ukraine is still actually a fairly new war (or a very long one if you count the starting pistol as being 2014).
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
I don't think VVP can settle for the territory the RF has now; it doesn't stack up to the price Russia has paid.
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
There was a really interesting series on R4 at the back of 9 recently by an architect who had consulted psychologists. What he found was that clean lines and sparse outlines actually caused depression and had measurable effects on peoples health. The human eye and brain needs a bit of detail and a more human scale to feel comfortable. It was a thought provoking series although I couldn't help feeling it would have made better TV with pictures.
I am sure that's correct. That's why the famous Brutalist architect whose name escapes me lived in a Tudor Manor house. You'd like the video in the quote nest if you haven't seen it.
I like a mixture of both. We’re renovating our French barn at the moment and it’ll be a mix of mediaeval stone barn and modernist metal and glass. The most important thing though, to me, is generous dimensions, decent ventilation and plenty of light.
My least favourite architectural style by far is the poky 1980s house with tiny windows and carpeted loo. Followed by badly built late Victorian neo-gothic, of which there are lots of examples around here,
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
@Leon, did you not see this? The Ukranians are using AI to clear land mines. How amazing is that, some of the world’s best technology in the hands of Ukraine. Surely you want to see a whole load more AI and drones next year, winning the war?
That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
I don't think VVP can settle for the territory the RF has now; it doesn't stack up to the price Russia has paid.
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
Polls say a large majority of Russians want the war to end now, if it can end on the present front lines
So Putin would not have any trouble selling it to the Russian people. To the nutters? Dunno
Erling Haaland becomes the fastest-ever player to hit 50 goals in the Premier League
And its not even close. 48 games vs 67 for Cole. That's Ronaldo/Messi territory.
And with far less touches of the ball than any of them....he touches the ball about as often as the matchday mascot...thats a good or bad thing is a different matter.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Multiply that by millions. If you need a full demining *team* to clear *one* mine then you are totally fucked. This is not a serious approach. If they are really doing this then they have lost.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
What Zelensky can do in the spring, depends entirely on how many more weapons and systems his allies can supply and train his troops on over the winter.
Yes, there’s some Germans who just want cheap gas, and some Amercians who want to see ‘money’ spent domestically rather than in wars far away - but for most of Europe, this war needs to be seen as existential, and anything except a clear defeat for Russia will mean Putin’s men just keep coming back for more. The whole of Europe needs to step up, militarily and diplomatically, to force an end to this war.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times, but Sunak and Biden both need to get themselves re-elected next year - what can they offer OPEC to crash the oil price and deny Russia foreign currency, as well as sorting out the inflation and reducing the singular most obvious price of any commodity to their own electorates?
It’s not existential for the west. The Korean armistice did not mean China then marched across all of South Asia
Both sides were utterly exhausted
And when you look at the histories of north and South Korea since the armistice it looks to me like Seoul was definitely the winner. That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
Then rearm and join NATO and turn Ukraine into a thriving magnetic democratic beacon like South Korea, in contrast to the impoverished Donbas
The problem here is that Ukraine have to keep fighting in order to have the desired armistice. All that happens is that the fighting is scaled back. It suits Russia to keep having a war, it is just a skirmish on the edgelands that keeps society in order. The idea that Ukraine can agree a peace is a non starter. Russia has always just been waiting for the US/west to run out of enthusiasm at which point it will choose the moment at which it starts a new offensive. The whole purpose of the conflict is to weaken the power of the West. It is now looking like it will succeed.
I don't think there is any 'peace' but a possibility of freezing the conflict and fortifying the new border.
Well, yes, that’s what I am predicting. The war won’t “end”: officially Korea is still at war, I believe
Then both sides will rearm and face each other across some horrible mine-saturated DMZ for the foreseeable future
The west will need to make Ukraine one of the most potent militaries in the world, to deter Russia. Every NATO country will have to raise defence spending a LOT
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
He can redirect his forces to the top right of the rUkraine and clear the Russians out of the Kharkiv Oblast, which just(?) means the Kupiansk raion
He can redirect his forces to the Kherson Oblast and try to retake it, or at least the Skadovsk and Kherson raions. That would give a rUK sufficient coastline to function as a state.
It's a war of occupation. They need to prove they can retake land. If they are denied land by mines then they must strike where mines are absent, so marshy ground and mountains.
Retaking the land is one way they can win. They can also make the occupation too costly for Russia - something sanctions help with. There is no doubt that Russia's economy is hurting, and more than that, there is a massive lost opportunity for Russia here. They have wasted money, men and material fighting this war, and every day it continues hurts Russia more in the long term.
It may suit Putin for his people to suffer in this way; many dictators like an enemy nearby (see Venezuela and Guyana as another future example). Until something suddenly snaps...
The Russian elections also should be factored in. As rigged as the elections are, Putin will want some good news from the front. Then, afterwards, perhaps a mobilisation that will cost Russia even more treasure.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
@Leon, did you not see this? The Ukranians are using AI to clear land mines. How amazing is that, some of the world’s best technology in the hands of Ukraine. Surely you want to see a whole load more AI and drones next year, winning the war?
That doesn't look like AI; it looks like big data with a currently sexy headline as a hook.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
This is a powerful piece, though I don't agree with it all. This strikes me as very true:
For countries such as Britain, helpless chicks under America’s wing, the primary lesson is that we should either increase our ability to defend ourselves alone, or limit our self-insertion into the affairs of stronger rival states.
Personally I think both are long overdue. We've been speaking very loudly and carrying a very small and diminishing stick since the 90s. Let's dial down the rhetoric a bit and try to enhance the stick a lot.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Multiply that by millions. If you need a full demining *team* to clear *one* mine then you are totally fucked. This is not a serious approach. If they are really doing this then they have lost.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Multiply that by millions. If you need a full demining *team* to clear *one* mine then you are totally fucked. This is not a serious approach. If they are really doing this then they have lost.
Yes, it’s quite forlorn
Russia has laid MILLIONS of mines and experts say it can literally lay 1000s every hour, far faster than they can be cleared
How do you get round that? I guess paratroop over them, attack from the Black Sea…. But these are pipe dreams
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Multiply that by millions. If you need a full demining *team* to clear *one* mine then you are totally fucked. This is not a serious approach. If they are really doing this then they have lost.
"AI" just seems to mean any type of software now.
Absolutely grinds my gears....there is also never any distinction made been ML and AI. At the boundary there are arguments about what is what, but a lot of what is termed AI that isn't even more than dimensionality reduction. There is no "intelligence".
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Multiply that by millions. If you need a full demining *team* to clear *one* mine then you are totally fucked. This is not a serious approach. If they are really doing this then they have lost.
Yes, it’s quite forlorn
Russia has laid MILLIONS of mines and experts say it can literally lay 1000s every hour, far faster than they can be cleared
How do you get round that? I guess paratroop over them, attack from the Black Sea…. But these are pipe dreams
On the front lines I think it’s been mainly with explosives and mine clearing vehicles. Slow work but they got through several lines of them. The issue now seems to be lack of ammunition.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
This is a powerful piece, though I don't agree with it all. This strikes me as very true:
For countries such as Britain, helpless chicks under America’s wing, the primary lesson is that we should either increase our ability to defend ourselves alone, or limit our self-insertion into the affairs of stronger rival states.
Personally I think both are long overdue. We've been speaking very loudly and carrying a very small and diminishing stick since the 90s. Let's dial down the rhetoric a bit and try to enhance the stick a lot.
It's the same delusion that I have pointed out about the Palestine march and now the anti-Semitic one. We still think the world gives a damn what we think. They long ago ceased to do so. Europe is falling into similar irrelevance. If anything, the Ukraine war is distorting the picture a little by suggesting that Europe still matters. It is now a back water and, on balance, that is maybe no bad thing.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Multiply that by millions. If you need a full demining *team* to clear *one* mine then you are totally fucked. This is not a serious approach. If they are really doing this then they have lost.
"AI" just seems to mean any type of software now.
The story is fairly silly, it is obviously aimed at raising PB morale and making sure @TimS and @JosiasJessop don’t cry
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Er, that says 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 120,000 injured by AUGUST 2023, so it actually more pessimistic than my premise
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
There was a really interesting series on R4 at the back of 9 recently by an architect who had consulted psychologists. What he found was that clean lines and sparse outlines actually caused depression and had measurable effects on peoples health. The human eye and brain needs a bit of detail and a more human scale to feel comfortable. It was a thought provoking series although I couldn't help feeling it would have made better TV with pictures.
I am sure that's correct. That's why the famous Brutalist architect whose name escapes me lived in a Tudor Manor house. You'd like the video in the quote nest if you haven't seen it.
I like a mixture of both. We’re renovating our French barn at the moment and it’ll be a mix of mediaeval stone barn and modernist metal and glass. The most important thing though, to me, is generous dimensions, decent ventilation and plenty of light.
My least favourite architectural style by far is the poky 1980s house with tiny windows and carpeted loo. Followed by badly built late Victorian neo-gothic, of which there are lots of examples around here,
Sure, but this discussion is about beauty. Your glass and metal barn extension might be beautiful, or it might not. The mere presence of glass and metal is neither here nor there.
I like Victorian Neo-gothic, though some is better than other. I didn't love Atkinson Morley hospital when my Mum was being treated for cancer. But as styles go, it's decorative and fun. The Victorians never went far wrong in my book.
IHT is unpopular partly as it is a death tax on estates and assets often made from income previously taxed and having faced council tax etc too.
The threshold at £325k is also not far off the average UK property price so more estates are potentially hit, certainly those not able to benefit from the additional £175k spousal allowance on the main residence
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustains extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty as I age!
My view is that inheritance tax should be set at 100% and income tax/NI should be set at 0%. Earn your own money you lazy barstewards. A reasonable position of which I am sure we can all agree. 😃
Income tax also applies to city bonuses and shares and investments and rental income.
Far more pay income tax than IHT too so if we adopted your policy public services spending would have to be slashed
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? LO>and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Er, that says 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 120,000 injured by AUGUST 2023, so it actually more pessimistic than my premise
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
LOL. You said: "They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive " And the counter-offensive was only 'the most brutal' phase if you discount everything that happened in February to May last year.
You plucked your figures out of your backside and got found out.
Things like DVLA, the Passport Service, Stamp Duty Land Tax, the High Court, work extremely efficiently online. The Probate Service, County Courts, and Land Registry do not. What I don’t understand is why the IT that works as intended can’t just be used across the board.
One of the things that gets you IT that works as intended is keeping the scope constrained, so you build "a website that works for the DVLA" (a manageable task) and not "a comprehensive framework that will solve the online requirements of a dozen different government departments simultaneously" (a mammoth endeavour that is likely to produce bad results very late at great expense).
** The Post Office's Horizon system waves hello **
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? LO>and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Er, that says 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 120,000 injured by AUGUST 2023, so it actually more pessimistic than my premise
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
LOL. You said: "They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive " And the counter-offensive was only 'the most brutal' phase if you discount everything that happened in February to May last year.
You plucked your figures out of your backside and got found out.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? LO>and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Er, that says 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 120,000 injured by AUGUST 2023, so it actually more pessimistic than my premise
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
LOL. You said: "They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive " And the counter-offensive was only 'the most brutal' phase if you discount everything that happened in February to May last year.
You plucked your figures out of your backside and got found out.
Yes, dear, whatever you say
I think you need to reboot your AI. It's gone rather odd.
That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
I don't think VVP can settle for the territory the RF has now; it doesn't stack up to the price Russia has paid.
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
Yes hardly a 'win' is it. An interesting question that occurs is you sit Putin down the day before he invades and you offer him 'this' 21 months later. What expression comes over his cheeky little face?
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
I feel sorry for Zekensky. A genuinely inspiring leader but the brutal facts of war are now against him
Over the winter the Russians will renew their hideous pounding of Ukrainian cities and infra. Grinding away the will to fight
And then, come the spring? What can Zelenskyy do? He hasn’t the troops to force any kind of new offensive and victory, Russia is still entrenched behind six billion landmines. It’s a tragic stalemate
There is a lot more room for manoeuvre and progress east of the Dnipro river than there is further east. There are logistical challenges of getting enough equipment and men over a river a km wide in places but the Ukrainians are driving the Russians back far enough to make a pontoon safe from artillery.
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes. That is the lesson. Modern technology allows drones and robots to lay mines at such an astounding rate - thousands a minute - no attacking force can get through
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
@Leon, did you not see this? The Ukranians are using AI to clear land mines. How amazing is that, some of the world’s best technology in the hands of Ukraine. Surely you want to see a whole load more AI and drones next year, winning the war?
That doesn't look like AI; it looks like big data with a currently sexy headline as a hook.
Of course. But some people just read the headlines.
That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
I don't think VVP can settle for the territory the RF has now; it doesn't stack up to the price Russia has paid.
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
To save Putin's face a bit, the Western sponsors could guarantee to ban neo-Nazi groups (or just the logos at any rate) in RUK. They're not going to want neo-Nazi armies in an EU accession state anyway. I don't think Putin deserves much consideration, but if the war is to stop there are probably some fairly meaningless gestures like that to give him something to sell.
The other “known unknown” that is not talked about much re Ukraine, is that we have a Russian presidential election next year.
No, it will not be a free and fair election. But these things can have a habit of focusing minds, and exposing opposition.
If there truly are people in the Kremlin or military who are tired of the war, then engineering a situation where Putin is made to stand down at the election would give everything an air of legitimacy as opposed to tanks on the streets of Moscow. Similarly, Putin’s victory could bring out demonstrators, as happened in Belarus, and lead to instability. Russia is a tinderbox - it just needs a spark. And historically we have very rarely been aware of change in the Kremlin in advance - the first we know about it is when it happens. The coup against Krushchev. Yeltsin’s resignation.
Of course given the accepted wisdom that Putin’s control is still near absolute this could all be a damp squib.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Er, that says 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 120,000 injured by AUGUST 2023, so it actually more pessimistic than my premise
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
The chunk they took out south of Orikhiv is about 15km. It's about the distance from Leeds to Bradford. Half the distance from Southampton to Portsmouth. If it cost them 150,000 dead and injured then that's 10,000 casualties per kilometer. Ten casualties per metre. One casualty per ten centimetres.
I don't know what to say to figures like that.
They're obviously wrong (not all casualties were in the Orikhiv campaign) but even if it's a tenth of that, it's still not copable.
Anyone interested the realities of mine clearance is directed to "Afghanistan" by Vladislav Tamarov. The Soviets mined the 'stan with such enthusiasm that they completely lost track of where they all were. Eventually this proved to be as great a hazard to the Soviets as it was to the Muj. Tamarov was a teenage gopnik from Leningrad who got sent to do his "International Duty" clearing landmines in the Panjshir Valley.
That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
I don't think VVP can settle for the territory the RF has now; it doesn't stack up to the price Russia has paid.
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
Yes hardly a 'win' is it. An interesting question that occurs is you sit Putin down the day before he invades and you offer him 'this' 21 months later. What expression comes over his cheeky little face?
On topic, I have been on a rather complicated journey with my views on IHT. My basic reaction for many years was to fundamentally disagree with the concept. I have gradually warmed to it over the years.
My current view is that the current way our society is structured makes for a tax on inherited wealth to be sensible. Most of our money is tied up in property, and as we live longer we are all putting more demands on the state re health and care costs. It seems to me more preferable that this is taken from you after your death than while you are alive. Additionally, while I fully understand and agree with the concept of being able to do something for your children after you have gone, if that creates and sustained extreme (note: extreme) wealth disparities that again are just going to get tied up in property assets at a time of a severe housing shortage that doesn’t feel particularly equitable to me.
Maybe I’m just doing the reverse of most people and becoming more of a lefty in my old age.
You’re not alone. On this issue I’ve moved left
We need some way of levelling the playing field for people who don’t inherit. The state taking a hefty chunk of estates worth more than £500,000 seems fair (and all the loopholes should be closed). But that money should then be ploughed into housebuilding (nice Georgian terraces, not redbrick horror boxes)
And I’m on a journey on architecture too. I used to hate the idea of pastiche buildings rather than embracing the future with nice clean lines and so on. Saw pastiche architecture as reactionary, unimaginative. I think like most in my generation I was conditioned by the awful mock this and that of the 1980s and the ugly neo-neo-classical wrecks that sprung up in Southern Europe.
However I now realise two things. First, that people like old styles of building and traditional street layouts, so why piss them off by building stuff they don’t want? And secondly, pastiche can be very good and effective if done properly. The key is done properly. Absolutely authentic to the original style not skimping with small windows or double garages on the side. Travelling in Europe for the last couple of decades I’ve come to realise how much of the pretty pretty mediaeval city centres were actually reconstructed post-war.
Old Tbilisi is a good example. Total 2000s Disney-Sakashvili pastiche in most places but very pretty.
I am in full agreement, however, what we really need is, I feel, an understanding by architects of the immutable qualities of beauty in architecture, and to plan and build within guidelines inspired by those qualities. Some could be pastiche, some modern.
That link is interesting, but imo it is a set of talking points about what a thing LOOKS LIKE, and does not consider how a place works or is socially organised. If you like, imo it is almost a decorator talking about architecture, and quite postmodern that it talks about surfaces and facades.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though. Oft-repeated, but true.
It's not so long since Georgian architecture was cheap, nasty, old fashioned and ripe for demolition. Now some won't hear a word against it. IMO that's just another turn of fashion.
Beauty is also a matter of fashion - for that you can just look at human fashion; in a fairly short time we have gone from lissom to bodacious as the 'approved' female look. Driven at least in part by a shift to a more screen-based culture, imo.
A similar trend can be seen in interior design even, where Stripped Out Scandi (roughly 'Ikea') has been replaced by Modern Hipster - all textures, colours and intricate bits. The latter also photos far more attractively to be displayed.
My most abstruse example of an industry revolving practice is perhaps junction boxes in electrical wiring - whether they are viewed as "to standard" or not. Every generation or so the position reverses (afaics), and more lovely work for the next lot of electricians.
About 6 years ago my lettings agent told me that if I had 2 student house interiors fairly modestly redesigned / redecorated from Stripped out Scandi to Modern Hipster, he could get me a 25% rent increase the next year. And it worked - he achieved more than that. That is by matching desired perception.
If anyone wants I can PM you an article I wrote about the new design.
There's also a need for those in the industry to find ways to create a living - that is by changing the taste so they get more work. Chintz and Gingham Checks will be back in due course; it's interesting how eg Kilner have turned the latter into a brand identifier on their jars.
But 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' isn't true, and in many ways is where we've been going wrong. There are certain things we all find beautiful, in people as well as buildings and art, and yes, fashion, personal predilections and the desire for the new has an impact, but there are still primeval qualities, which in humans connote good breeding material, and in buildings, safety, security and plenty. It's the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' approach that in the 1960s thinks you can chuck up a brittle, dirty, concrete and glass tower block and it will one day be cherished like a Morningside tenement. It won't, and an understanding of why we find buildings beautiful tells us why it won't. If architects understood these concepts and worked within them, buildings could be stunningly modern, still beautiful, and we could produce buildings as revered as the Georgians and Victorians.
There was a really interesting series on R4 at the back of 9 recently by an architect who had consulted psychologists. What he found was that clean lines and sparse outlines actually caused depression and had measurable effects on peoples health. The human eye and brain needs a bit of detail and a more human scale to feel comfortable. It was a thought provoking series although I couldn't help feeling it would have made better TV with pictures.
I am sure that's correct. That's why the famous Brutalist architect whose name escapes me lived in a Tudor Manor house. You'd like the video in the quote nest if you haven't seen it.
I like a mixture of both. We’re renovating our French barn at the moment and it’ll be a mix of mediaeval stone barn and modernist metal and glass. The most important thing though, to me, is generous dimensions, decent ventilation and plenty of light.
My least favourite architectural style by far is the poky 1980s house with tiny windows and carpeted loo. Followed by badly built late Victorian neo-gothic, of which there are lots of examples around here,
Sure, but this discussion is about beauty. Your glass and metal barn extension might be beautiful, or it might not. The mere presence of glass and metal is neither here nor there.
I like Victorian Neo-gothic, though some is better than other. I didn't love Atkinson Morley hospital when my Mum was being treated for cancer. But as styles go, it's decorative and fun. The Victorians never went far wrong in my book.
Edwardian for me. The right balance between liveable interior and attractive exterior, between function and form, between style and substance, between mouth and trousers.
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
Some hyperbole in there, but also the sense that Kyiv has run out of road. The only way it can win now is by super weapons aimed at Russia directly. America, Britain and Germany won’t supply those = WW3
Russia is similarly exhausted, so it will end up as a frozen war like Korea
The US are probably going to have to engineer regime change as Zelensky looks like he's intent on going down with the ship. Maybe Zaluzhny who will faithfully push the Pentagon's line at all times.
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
There's a lot of FUD and sh*t being spread around at the moment. As a 'journalist', you should be more than aware of this. And @Dura_Ace swims in fetid pools of the pro-Russian telegam channels. Which, whilst they give a different aspect of the war, might have similar, but opposite, biases to the stuff we all read.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
I plucked the figure out of my Cornish arse, but I think it’s a good guess
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
So you pulled it out of your posterior. Well done!
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
Oh FFS. This is as stupid as @TimS saying we mustn’t be negative about the war as it is “bad for PB morale”. I was unaware we had all been recruited to the Azov Regiment 2.0
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
No. *You* don't talk facts. You invent sh*t, as you did below.
Ok. What’s your estimate for Ukrainian dead and injured during the counter offensive?
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
I've no idea, and any *guess* I made would be pulled out of my fragrant backside. Somewhere between 1 and (the population of Ukraine-1).
Er, that says 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 120,000 injured by AUGUST 2023, so it actually more pessimistic than my premise
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
I think people tend to ignore any figures in your posts. It's a shame because every so often they'll be correct but you've brought it on yourself.
General comment only rather than on Ukrainian war casualties.
If IHT is tinkered with I think the furthest the government will go is potentially increasing the primary homes allowance from £500k to £600k which would cover a pretty big increment of the blue wall oldies at £1.2m per couple and blue wall boomers who want to inherit. Reducing the headline rate or increasing the non-housing allowance seem completely out of the question.
Er, how do you make that out? The primary homes allowance or rather RNRB is 175K per person = of course 350K for a married couple (only) - tough shite if one is single or an aunt/uncle.
Edit: of course, that depends on having children.
The maximum allowance per person is 325 basic plus RNRB = 500K. But IIRC the RNRB depnds on how big the estate is. It also depnds on having a hosue worth 350K - ie if the house is worth less the allowance is not transferable to other assets. It's a huge bung to Tory'voting pensioners in the south.
Amazing. The Liverpool equaliser was a carbon copy of City's goal. Identical to the inch.
Both these teams have superb defences and good goalkeepers. To score against them you really need to be on the run and stretching them rather than any kind of set play.
IHT is unpopular partly as it is a death tax on estates and assets often made from income previously taxed and having faced council tax etc too.
The threshold at £325k is also not far off the average UK property price so more estates are potentially hit, certainly those not able to benefit from the additional £175k spousal allowance on the main residence
It's not unusual to tax money again. Look at income from bank accounts and investments?
If IHT is tinkered with I think the furthest the government will go is potentially increasing the primary homes allowance from £500k to £600k which would cover a pretty big increment of the blue wall oldies at £1.2m per couple and blue wall boomers who want to inherit. Reducing the headline rate or increasing the non-housing allowance seem completely out of the question.
Er, how do you make that out? The primary homes allowance or rather RNRB is 175K per person = of course 350K for a married couple (only) - tough shite if one is single or an aunt/uncle.
Edit: of course, that depends on having children.
The maximum allowance per person is 325 basic plus RNRB = 500K. But IIRC the RNRB depnds on how big the estate is. It also depnds on having a hosue worth 350K - ie if the house is worth less the allowance is not transferable to other assets. It's a huge bung to Tory'voting pensioners in the south.
Just raise the IHT threshold from £325k to £1 million for all estates
That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
I don't think VVP can settle for the territory the RF has now; it doesn't stack up to the price Russia has paid.
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
Yes hardly a 'win' is it. An interesting question that occurs is you sit Putin down the day before he invades and you offer him 'this' 21 months later. What expression comes over his cheeky little face?
No expression - it's the botox.
Ha yes. And what's that all about? He's a strongman dictator of a fading superpower not an ageing actor still chasing leading man parts.
If IHT is tinkered with I think the furthest the government will go is potentially increasing the primary homes allowance from £500k to £600k which would cover a pretty big increment of the blue wall oldies at £1.2m per couple and blue wall boomers who want to inherit. Reducing the headline rate or increasing the non-housing allowance seem completely out of the question.
Er, how do you make that out? The primary homes allowance or rather RNRB is 175K per person = of course 350K for a married couple (only) - tough shite if one is single or an aunt/uncle.
Edit: of course, that depends on having children.
The maximum allowance per person is 325 basic plus RNRB = 500K. But IIRC the RNRB depnds on how big the estate is. It also depnds on having a hosue worth 350K - ie if the house is worth less the allowance is not transferable to other assets. It's a huge bung to Tory'voting pensioners in the south.
Just raise the IHT threshold from £325k to £1 million for all estates
Yes, yes, we got the message that your party doesn't believe in hard work any more.
Comments
And I say this having grown up in one of London's most violent estates, we should absolutely avoid going back to that style of housing.
Places like Canary Wharf and others can do it because they throw money at it. If the underground structure is valuable enough, of course you can do it. But it's nearly always cheaper to build above ground. Sometimes *much* cheaper.
This isn't a reason not to do it; just that it's costly.
The school-children of Wimbledon and Richmond might approve. *
(*) And Oxford, it seems.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23943755.oxford-headteacher-fears-injuries-speeding-near-school/
Reports from. Inside Kyiv say the politicians and generals are split. Some realise they cannot win, and need to negotiate, others say Zelensky is “messianic” in his conviction Ukraine can still prevail
But how? They lost maybe 50-100,000 men in the counter offensive and gained a couple of villages and about 5km of land
They can’t do that again. So what - in all honesty - is left to them?
Maybe their best bet is assassinating Putin. I cannot see any other military game changer
The bastards built a ring-road on it.
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/nostalgia/derbys-only-georgian-square-demolished-2088710
Derby was also notorious for demolishing listed manor houses owned by the Council.
That's the problem with monomania - whatever "beautiful style" is being monomaniacal about. The problem is not the style, but the monomaniac.
It should also be remembered that Russia is the country that came nearest a coup, under six months ago.
Where did you get that 50-100,000 men figure from?
Otoh - good news from Edinburgh. The crackdown on STLs has seen a large increase in the number of flats available, particularly in the city centre, seeing prices drop by 15% there.
Will be interesting to see how this affects the
Fringe - the legislation is quite clever as it means you can still rent your spare bedroom out for significantly lower fees as long as you still live there.
Otherwise I agree with your points
What the last several months have shown is that the modern hi-tech western armour has not been anything like the breakthrough or game changer that was hoped. Attacking remains way more difficult than defending as the Russians are finding at Adiivka and the armour simply has not changed that.
Yes, there’s some Germans who just want cheap gas, and some Amercians who want to see ‘money’ spent domestically rather than in wars far away - but for most of Europe, this war needs to be seen as existential, and anything except a clear defeat for Russia will mean Putin’s men just keep coming back for more. The whole of Europe needs to step up, militarily and diplomatically, to force an end to this war.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times, but Sunak and Biden both need to get themselves re-elected next year - what can they offer OPEC to crash the oil price and deny Russia foreign currency, as well as sorting out the inflation and reducing the singular most obvious price of any commodity to their own electorates?
In August 2023 it was estimated Ukraine had lost at least 100,000 men in total
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/07/ukraine-marines-lost-lot-of-men-counter-offensive-russia/
Everyone agrees the counter offensive has been the most brutal, bloody stage of the war for Ukraine - so you can add tens of thousands since August
There are reports of entire companies being wiped out
A total of 50-100,000 Ukrainian men and women killed and injured over the entire counter offensive seems pretty reasonable. Perhaps conservative
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66581217
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-counteroffensive-heavy-casualties-grief-loss-cemeteries-kharkiv/
“Chinese strategists have followed these discussions closely, of course, and are particularly attuned to the major role that landmines have played in the Ukraine War. That conflict increasingly shows signs of becoming a stalemate, as defensive technologies, such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems have demonstrated their value. A mid-2023 detailed Chinese-language survey of landmine warfare in the Ukraine War yields the conclusion that mines have played the most important role in stymieing the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The article states, “Landmines…as everyone knows, are easy to sow, but hard to remove.””
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/09/landmines-in-ukraine-lessons-for-china-and-taiwan.html
Of course this works both ways. Ukraine can also sow a billion mines and scupper any Russian offensive. So it is a stalemate
Spreading sh*t like that is just doing Putin's work for him. And from someone who thinks of himself as a 'journalist' ...
https://time.com/6330445/demining-ukraine/
“On a top floor of Kyiv's Cabinet of Ministers building, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and two advisers huddle around a laptop. A map of the country is on the screen, overlaid with a honeycomb pattern of hexagonal tiles, ranging from pale yellow to blood red. As the group types questions into a chatbot, filtering for areas close to schools or power lines, the model zooms into the satellite imagery until a field with individual trees becomes visible. A red bubble with an exclamation point marks a suspected landmine. A staffer clicks a button, creating a request to dispatch a demining team to clear it.”
Both sides were utterly exhausted
And when you look at the histories of north and South Korea since the armistice it looks to me like Seoul was definitely the winner. That should maybe be Ukraine’s aim - accept for now the painful and horrible loss of territory. It’s bleak and sad and immoral but there we are
Then rearm and join NATO and turn Ukraine into a thriving magnetic democratic beacon like South Korea, in contrast to the impoverished Donbas
We talk facts. For quite a while the facts were positive for Ukraine. They bravely fought off the Russians then superbly turned the tables
Now, not so much
- He can redirect his forces to the top right of the rUkraine and clear the Russians out of the Kharkiv Oblast, which just(?) means the Kupiansk raion
- He can redirect his forces to the Kherson Oblast and try to retake it, or at least the Skadovsk and Kherson raions. That would give a rUK sufficient coastline to function as a state.
It's a war of occupation. They need to prove they can retake land. If they are denied land by mines then they must strike where mines are absent, so marshy ground and mountains.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Kherson_Oblast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Kharkiv_Oblast
The whole purpose of the conflict is to weaken the power of the West. It is now looking like it will succeed.
I don't think there is any 'peace' but a possibility of freezing the conflict and fortifying the new border.
It is obviously A LOT but understandably the Ukrainians don’t release figures so as to maintain PB morale
However, we can make semi-educated guesses. Mine is 50,000-100,000 Ukrainian casualties. Yours?
He needs Odessa as a minimum and ideally a land bridge to the PMR. That's still well short of the objectives that Lavrov articulated as necessary for halting the SMO but he could sell that to the people who matter in Russia (oligarchs, criminals and raving nationalists on TV).
My least favourite architectural style by far is the poky 1980s house with tiny windows and carpeted loo. Followed by badly built late Victorian neo-gothic, of which there are lots of examples around here,
So Putin would not have any trouble selling it to the Russian people. To the nutters? Dunno
Then both sides will rearm and face each other across some horrible mine-saturated DMZ for the foreseeable future
The west will need to make Ukraine one of the most potent militaries in the world, to deter Russia. Every NATO country will have to raise defence spending a LOT
It may suit Putin for his people to suffer in this way; many dictators like an enemy nearby (see Venezuela and Guyana as another future example). Until something suddenly snaps...
The Russian elections also should be factored in. As rigged as the elections are, Putin will want some good news from the front. Then, afterwards, perhaps a mobilisation that will cost Russia even more treasure.
Personally I think both are long overdue. We've been speaking very loudly and carrying a very small and diminishing stick since the 90s. Let's dial down the rhetoric a bit and try to enhance the stick a lot.
Russia has laid MILLIONS of mines and experts say it can literally lay 1000s every hour, far faster than they can be cleared
How do you get round that? I guess paratroop over them, attack from the Black Sea…. But these are pipe dreams
It's meaningless, and your fapping off trying to defend your figures is hilarious. Especially when you look at the figures from all sources in Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
If the Ukes lost that many before the most brutal stage - the counter offensive - really began, then again my estimate looks entirely reasonable, and possibly optimistic
I like Victorian Neo-gothic, though some is better than other. I didn't love Atkinson Morley hospital when my Mum was being treated for cancer. But as styles go, it's decorative and fun. The Victorians never went far wrong in my book.
The threshold at £325k is also not far off the average UK property price so more estates are potentially hit, certainly those not able to benefit from the additional £175k spousal allowance on the main residence
Far more pay income tax than IHT too so if we adopted your policy public services spending would have to be slashed
You plucked your figures out of your backside and got found out.
That is my unique and incisive football commentary of the day
No, it will not be a free and fair election. But these things can have a habit of focusing minds, and exposing opposition.
If there truly are people in the Kremlin or military who are tired of the war, then engineering a situation where Putin is made to stand down at the election would give everything an air of legitimacy as opposed to tanks on the streets of Moscow. Similarly, Putin’s victory could bring out demonstrators, as happened in Belarus, and lead to instability. Russia is a tinderbox - it just needs a spark. And historically we have very rarely been aware of change in the Kremlin in advance - the first we know about it is when it happens. The coup against Krushchev. Yeltsin’s resignation.
Of course given the accepted wisdom that Putin’s control is still near absolute this could all be a damp squib.
But it needs to be talked about more, IMHO.
I don't know what to say to figures like that.
They're obviously wrong (not all casualties were in the Orikhiv campaign) but even if it's a tenth of that, it's still not copable.
I hate to bring up Verdun again, but...
General comment only rather than on Ukrainian war casualties.
Ten or twenty minutes in a sin bin
Edit: of course, that depends on having children.
The maximum allowance per person is 325 basic plus RNRB = 500K. But IIRC the RNRB depnds on how big the estate is. It also depnds on having a hosue worth 350K - ie if the house is worth less the allowance is not transferable to other assets. It's a huge bung to Tory'voting pensioners in the south.