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Will the weirdo cat hater be gone soon? – politicalbetting.com

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  • Pagan2 said:

    Yes and newcastle is as I remember a city....not a rural area where you sometimes have to walk around trying to get a signal
    Llandudno Mostyn Street is shocking for that and is regularly discussed by the shops and on forums that there is simply no signal
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163
    edited August 2024
    Eabhal said:

    Interesting - genuinely. I suppose I find counting cash out quite challenging (certainly much more difficult than a contactless payment) , and have fallen for the trap of assuming everyone else does too.
    The problem is that paying with contactless is *too* easy. Until it stops working because you have no money left.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 10,160
    Pagan2 said:

    I mostly don't use cash but sometimes I do because as I said no network connection....I am not anti using a card just too many times its a case of needing the back up cash because something went wrong. What am I meant to do when I get a taxi and they try the card machine and it doesn't work....tell them to drop me off a mile away where there is a signal?
    A taxi with a card machine that doesn't work? Never!
  • eek said:

    Thames Water are to the extent that they allowed their owners to attach £15bn of debt against the company that wasn’t spent on the improvements that £15bn spent on improvements would have delivered
    This isnt just a Thames Water issue though. The regulator/government are demanding an increased level of investment which can only come from bill payers, but are blocking the increasing of bills to achieve it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,567
    Eabhal said:

    This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).

    Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
    That's a bit harsh on Edinburgh, surely?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,808
    Eabhal said:

    This can be a major issue (very specific example) just after marathons, when you can have 10,000 people trying to buy a beer and a burger and the number of people spamming instagram overwhelms the network. This can now be mitigated by signal boosters (used at Formula 1, for example).

    Otherwise, it's only in a vanishingly few places where a network isn't available. I spend my time in the most remote parts of the UK - it really is a niche issue even here. The one thing that hasn't caught up is the parking in some parts of the Highlands, but the estates understand and just leave a note on your car requesting a bank transfer.
    I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,808
    Eabhal said:

    A taxi with a card machine that doesn't work? Never!
    If the machine gets no signal then yes it doesn't work
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,591
    Andy_JS said:

    Why have latest comments reverted to being at the bottom of the page after about 10 years? It was like that when I first visited the site.

    This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,233

    This isnt just a Thames Water issue though. The regulator/government are demanding an increased level of investment which can only come from bill payers, but are blocking the increasing of bills to achieve it.
    If they hadn’t run up debt to give money to the shareholders, they would have lots of that profit thing to invest in their business.

    This sounds like Boeing complaining they can’t compete with the loony from South Africa. Because said loony keeps on investing in his business, not loading up with debt to do buybacks.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739
    edited August 2024
    Pagan2 said:

    I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
    I’ve told you the story about EE moving the focus of the local antennas to the A1M instead of focusing on a local housing estate - resulting in their senior network engineering being in a house without a signal.

    The 2 hour downtime did result in the issue being fixed rather rapidly 4 months after the issue was first reported

    I don’t think the HR person woke up at 3am to get his home address was that impressed either although the security guard tasked with waking him up didn’t mind
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 10,160
    edited August 2024
    Pagan2 said:

    I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
    Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.

    We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945

    This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
    Vanilla will seduce you in in the end.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,240
    HYUFD said:

    Not a problem in our rural churches, on;y visitors outside of services we get are walkers and a few US tourists to see the one where Locke is buried. Plus had a homeless tramp who slept in the porch of another one a few years ago
    Little Wenham is pretty rural -- it's not on a public road, and the usual way to get there is to walk. Rural areas have bored and stupid teenagers too... But yes, this kind of thing is comparatively pretty rare and most churches that are left unlocked are fine. (As an atheist I appreciate that they are accessible.)

  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,295
    "Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years
    Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast

    Genevieve Holl-Allen"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/28/pollsters-labours-support-general-election-vote-share/
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,808
    eek said:

    I’ve told you the story about EE moving the focus of the local antennas to the A1M instead of focusing on a local housing estate - resulting in their senior network engineering being in a house without a signal.

    The 2 hour downtime did result in the issue being fixed rather rapidly 4 months after the issue was first reported
    In my area things were largely fine till a building was expanded upwards, I guess now we are in some sort of shadow
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,945
    Pagan2 said:

    I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
    I can only get a signal in the bay window of my flat's front room.
    That's where my phone lives.
  • This is a very unwelcome development. When I click into the main site I want to see what people are talking about now, not five hours ago. If anyone's listening, please make it stop.
    Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 14,012
    Eabhal said:

    I appreciate the sentiment but it is rather odd how cash seems to be the one area where the needs of the old and poor has become absolutely paramount, while in so many other areas of our society those needs are routinely ignored.

    But I contest "stupid". You have to be pretty smart to use cash, and I'm interested by the fact the folk with learning disabilities who use my bus still use it, under supervision. It looks very stressful to me, but perhaps being used by their carers to engender some independence/self-worth/mental ability?
    The great John Rawls. The right way to organise society is from the perspective that it works properly and well from the point of view of someone who doesn't know what place he or she is going to have within it.

    The old and poor are not paramount, but how we are organised must take account of the old, the poor, those born with heroin addiction and fetal alcohol syndrome because of their mothers etc. Keeping cash going isn't a high price for the rest to pay.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739
    Pagan2 said:

    In my area things were largely fine till a building was expanded upwards, I guess now we are in some sort of shadow
    It doesn’t take much - John Lewis Oxford street is a faraday cage depending on the network you are on and the frequencies they own / use
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,808
    Eabhal said:

    Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.

    We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
    How the hell do you think these machines offline...they need to contact your bank to make sure you have funds. Most of them work off mobile to connect....else shops wouldn't put up signs saying sorry cash only we don't have a connection. I didn't claim I couldn't make cash payments when it happens I was complaining about the idiots wanting to phase out cash as contactless works for them reliably....because they live in area's with always good connectivity
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 14,012
    Pagan2 said:

    I mostly don't use cash but sometimes I do because as I said no network connection....I am not anti using a card just too many times its a case of needing the back up cash because something went wrong. What am I meant to do when I get a taxi and they try the card machine and it doesn't work....tell them to drop me off a mile away where there is a signal?
    I always have some cash with me - basically at least enough to get home. It isn't exactly hard to get rid of it when you feel you have too much.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739

    Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
    @TSE @rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.

    For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
  • eek said:

    @TSE @rcs1000 - I take it the change is accidental and can be fixed or at least reported.

    For the moment https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ has everything in chronological order from the oldest first but at least allows you to leap to the last page easily
    It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,576

    It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
    It’s always been latest comments at the end as far as I’m concerned.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 65,565
    test
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,567

    test

    Sri Lanka, by eight wickets.
  • mercatormercator Posts: 815

    It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
    I was worried it was just me

    On the cash issue, I just don't understand the militancy. I have no need for a wheelchair. They cost me time by getting in my way and money because the government and businesses have to spend money on wheelchair accessibility. Neither point is a good argument against wheelchairs. Even if wheelchairs were exceptionally useful for drug dealers I would not think that a good reason to restrict their availability to the disabled. And I certainly would not go on about it.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,302
    Hey, the PB.com comments are upside down!

    What's going on?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,302

    It’s always been latest comments at the end as far as I’m concerned.
    That's on Vanilla PB; on proper PB.com it's latest comments at the top, just near the posting box.

    Or at least it was until this evening.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739

    It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first

    It would be better for it to be reinstated to latest comments first
    Which is what I suggested (if it’s any easy fix ) or at the very least reported to vanilla so they can fix whatever they have screwed up
  • mercatormercator Posts: 815

    Hey, the PB.com comments are upside down!

    What's going on?

    Korangar
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022
    Like it or not but the childless/parent divide is I fear going to become more and more of a political issue as the number of childless people grows. There is already a growing tension around 'child-friendly' policies and you now hear talk of 'who's going to look after them when they're old.' I suppose it is something I ought to think of myself but I don't. Who cares to think of themselves as old and incapable?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,405
    DougSeal said:

    Cultural shifts happened a lot quicker. I did my A-Levels in 1992 and went off to do a gap yah in India teaching English for six months. When I left it was the tail end of Madchester (the music press was awaiting The Happy Mondays' "Yes Please" with increasingly hilarious reports from Barbados), shoegaze, and grunge.

    When got back in early 93 Suede were just starting, heralding 3 and a half years of Britpop shite. Okay, it had its moments (I actually quite like Suede and Pulp were ace in that period) but a lot of it was twee bollocks. There was definitely a cultural shift of sorts while I was away. And I missed nearly the entire run of 'Eldorado', which I've always regretted.

    Then Britpop definitively ended when the BBC played 'Walkaway' by Cast over the closing credits of England's Euro '96 semi-final loss. The following year everyone seemed to have a mobile phone. Except me.
    I think I had your life a year later.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    Test
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,295

    Hey, the PB.com comments are upside down!

    What's going on?

    It used to be like this about 10 years ago. Amazing to think we put up with it for so long, having to scroll down all the time.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,739
    edited August 2024
    mercator said:

    I was worried it was just me

    On the cash issue, I just don't understand the militancy. I have no need for a wheelchair. They cost me time by getting in my way and money because the government and businesses have to spend money on wheelchair accessibility. Neither point is a good argument against wheelchairs. Even if wheelchairs were exceptionally useful for drug dealers I would not think that a good reason to restrict their availability to the disabled. And I certainly would not go on about it.
    There are people who need cash

    1)because It’s what they are used to
    2) it’s how they were taught to budget
    3) it’s how they can manage to work out what is left to spend that week / month

    I cant remember if it’s Sweden or Norway but one of them has got to the point where so many businesses went cashless that they’ve discovered that cash is essential for some people so it’s now legally required that cash has to be accepted
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,302
    edited August 2024
    dixiedean said:

    Vanilla will seduce you in in the end.
    I've had to resort to Vanilla temporarily, PB.com is currently unusable.

    But vanilla PB is inferior to a properly working PB.com imo.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    Andy_JS said:

    It used to be like this about 10 years ago. Amazing to think we put up with it for so long, having to scroll down all the time.
    Them were the days! :D
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,509
    TimS said:

    I agree, it's stepwise. Things jumped from 1870-1900, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1955-1970, 1986-1993, 2007-2021, and stayed fairly stable in the intervening years.
    Technology isn't changing very much either, except in IT and some parts of medicine. Certainly little compared to the giant strides between 1750 and 1900 in transportation, sanitation, refrigeration, industrial processes, chemistry and chemical engineering, etc etc etc.

    Still, I suppose at least we're not going backwards, though the Unabomber and some other Green nutters would like us to.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    I live in Newcastle and never use or carry cash
    I’ve never needed it for years, and I travel all over Europe. It’s pointless.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022
    I'll be honest when pb initially reversed the comments from top to bottom all those years ago it did take some getting used to. Feels like a blast from the past.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    Cash as a physical object is a lot easier to understand than waving a card about, particularly in terms of it being a finite resource. The abstract nature of paying by card would be parsed as equivalent to magic by some.

    Who might then not understand why it stops working when they've spent too much money too quickly. Much easier to understand that with cash, even if you find the numbers, etc, difficult.
    One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795
    Eabhal said:

    Again, you do not need a mobile connection to make the payment and the shop does not either (as long as they have a phone line and basic internet access). Some chip and pin machines can work offline for a period too.

    We are talking significantly less than 1% of locations who have poor enough internet access, of any type, for this to be an issue. And there is nothing stopping them taking cash payments - that's their call, and our call whether or not to carry cash. I walked through Scotland for a week and didn't carry a penny.
    I do lots of hiking across very rural parts of England and Wales. Haven’t taken or needed cash ever.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795
    eek said:

    There are people who need cash

    1)because It’s what they are used to
    2) it’s how they were taught to budget
    3) it’s how they can manage to work out what is left to spend that week / month

    I cant remember if it’s Sweden or Norway but one of them has got to the point where so many businesses went cashless that they’ve discovered that cash is essential for some people so it’s now legally required that cash has to be accepted
    Really? Are online businesses forced to accept cash?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,302
    Fishing said:

    Technology isn't changing very much either, except in IT and some parts of medicine. Certainly little compared to the giant strides between 1750 and 1900 in transportation, sanitation, refrigeration, industrial processes, chemistry and chemical engineering, etc etc etc.

    Still, I suppose at least we're not going backwards, though the Unabomber and some other Green nutters would like us to.
    It's all been downhill since July 20, 1969.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163

    One of the most patronising posts on this issue I’ve ever read.
    I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.

    These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.

    I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.

    You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
  • Pagan2 said:

    How the hell do you think these machines offline...they need to contact your bank to make sure you have funds. Most of them work off mobile to connect....else shops wouldn't put up signs saying sorry cash only we don't have a connection. I didn't claim I couldn't make cash payments when it happens I was complaining about the idiots wanting to phase out cash as contactless works for them reliably....because they live in area's with always good connectivity
    The way the contactless payment went in and out of usability was quite an issue on the train from Wellington to Auckland earlier this year. I tended to use cash wherever possible because in NZ there is some confusion between credit cards and what we call debit cards. The problem with cash was that it was tendered so infrequently that very few were sure whether a particular note was genuine or not. It didn't help that every denomination had two different designs but on the same colour scheme and same general theme - very strange.

    Have still bought some Euros to take to France next week.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.

    These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.

    I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.

    You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
    I think you might need to re-read your OP!
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,559
    Detail on the North Carolina polling and how the state is changing:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpmgSNgZiK8
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    theProle said:

    FPT

    That would get the opposite of what you want - those 1.5 million houses would get built alright, but no one would put anything else into the planning system for after that point, as they would just be generating tax liabilities.

    What you want is a few, but sane, building regs, actually efforced. What we have is the total opposite, insane numbers of regs, little meaningful result, lots of cost.
    The fix for this is not more regs - it's to abolish most of them, then actually enforce the ones that are worth having.
    Re the build cost issue, it is fundamentally driven by labour and material cost. Scrapping building regulations would not significantly change the labour/material cost. There are issues with building regs but they mostly seem to be connected to rushed policy changes post Grenfell and panics about safety.

    I showed some estate agents around my flat today. The flat is old with deep rooms which are very cool in summer. It is quite the contrast with modern single aspect flats with fans on and windows wide open. Apparently it is the amount of insulation is causing overheating. I would be interested if that is true, I suspect there is truth in it. The EPC is E and to get up to C you would need to put on some insulation inside the walls, that would destroy the entire character of the flat and probably then cause it to overheat in summer. The windows are over a hundred years old, they would be ripped out in favour of UPVC, around 50 windows in the flat gone. For what purpose? The energy bills are £80 a month. The damage would never be justified. It seems like total philistine regulation.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    The way the contactless payment went in and out of usability was quite an issue on the train from Wellington to Auckland earlier this year. I tended to use cash wherever possible because in NZ there is some confusion between credit cards and what we call debit cards. The problem with cash was that it was tendered so infrequently that very few were sure whether a particular note was genuine or not. It didn't help that every denomination had two different designs but on the same colour scheme and same general theme - very strange.

    Have still bought some Euros to take to France next week.
    You won’t need them.
  • I worked for a while at a school for kids with moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. I spent a lot of time with a class of 14 and 15 year olds, not too far away from the end of their time in full-time education, then at age 16.

    These were children where the whole school wasn't going to manage to get a GCSE between the lot of them. When the teachers weren't dealing with severe disruption from one child or another, they were well aware of the challenge they had to teach them very basic life skills.

    I'm not being patronising about their ability to budget with contactless payments instead of cash. I'm being realistic and practical.

    You're just completely ignorant of any life experience other than your own.
    There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject

    Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163

    I think you might need to re-read your OP!
    You need to get out of your bubble.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,856
    https://x.com/jackelsom/status/1828903044979012017

    EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.

    It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163

    There is no point in engaging with a closed mind on this subject

    Fortunately many people are not as obsessive about the use of cash
    Lost causes are my idiom.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,280

    Having to refresh all the comments from the start is unfortunate and would be good to get it back to normal asap
    Looks like they ran out of coins for the meter.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    Tele home page reporting BBC chief saying we've "all be let down by Jenas and Edwards"

    Why are they conflating Jenas with Edwards? As far as I know Jenas has been "inappropriate" with someone who worked for the BBC while Edwards is a convicted criminal with a penchant for child porn?

    Seems odd to conflate the two things?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163

    https://x.com/jackelsom/status/1828903044979012017

    EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.

    It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇

    I remember during the knockout stage of the Euros, someone likened Starmer's instruction that people support the England team to a headteacher scolding the pupils at an assembly. This is similar.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    Lost causes are my idiom.
    Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
  • TOPPING said:

    I'm not sure that's right. I'm not militant about it but very few people of any socioeconomic group need cash these days.
    Did a meet with a load of local orgs re the loss of the last bank in the town. As someone that gets cash out every couple of years, I was dubious.

    I was wrong, arguments made by Citizens Advice, AgeUK, and quite a lot of other non profit kind of people were convincing. Some of the stories quite distressing.

    We need to keep cash.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    rcs1000 said:

    Woah...

    Is the ordering of posts all reversed? So it's now newest last.

    I might need to change that.

    I think TSE might have pushed the wrong button again... You just can't get the staff these days can you? 😂
  • Carry on using cash if you must, I wouldn’t ban it. I’m just sick of people’s patronising attitude towards the old and poor - who use contactless happily and daily in their millions.
    The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
  • rcs1000 said:

    Woah...

    Is the ordering of posts all reversed? So it's now newest last.

    I might need to change that.

    Thanks @rcs1000
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,559
    rcs1000 said:

    Woah...

    Is the ordering of posts all reversed? So it's now newest last.

    I might need to change that.

    Uh-huh!!
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    The point is many do including myself, but also the use of cash is important to very many people and not just the elderly and will continue to be so
    Good for them. But it is pointless.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,856

    I remember during the knockout stage of the Euros, someone likened Starmer's instruction that people support the England team to a headteacher scolding the pupils at an assembly. This is similar.
    Meanwhile cannabis smoke gets ever harder to avoid.
  • Good for them. But it is pointless.
    To you it is - but not many others
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 59,414

    Meanwhile cannabis smoke gets ever harder to avoid.
    Have you considered not rolling joints?
  • Test
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,559

    Good for them. But it is pointless.
    Your certainty on this issue is...alarming.

    My take is that if certain businesses want to stop taking cash, so be it. They can take the risk of the loss of business not being sufficient to close them down. But cash is vital to the way many budget. We should do all we can to preserve their right to cash.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    To you it is - but not many others

    To you it is - but not many others
    It is so pointless, risky, wasteful and tedious a system of transaction that many businesses abandon it daily, with Tesco cafes being the latest high-profile case to do so. There will always be a handful of cash fetishists: many of them reside on PB. But it’s so inconvenient compared to contactless that most people will avoid it.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 4,653
    DavidL said:

    Yes. Regrets, he may have a few, but then again, apparently, too few to mention.

    Trump would find admitting he made a mistake more embarrassing than replacing his VP. He won't do it.

    Didn't he sort of kind of call for his previous VP pick to be hanged? Which seems, to me, somewhat more of a rebuke.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,233
    edited August 2024
    rcs1000 said:

    Have you considered not rolling joints?
    Isn’t that poverty shaming? Shirley, anyone of means has a professional blunt roller on their entourage?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    C.A.S.H
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,795

    Your certainty on this issue is...alarming.

    My take is that if certain businesses want to stop taking cash, so be it. They can take the risk of the loss of business not being sufficient to close them down. But cash is vital to the way many budget. We should do all we can to preserve their right to cash.
    Such as? I wouldn’t force businesses to accept it. If they want to go cashless, up to them.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022

    https://x.com/jackelsom/status/1828903044979012017

    EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.

    It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇

    Is this really necessary?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867

    ...

    This is what they've been longing to get into power for 14 years to do? What an absolute shower.
    Puritan Keith has been itching to show the plebs who's in charge...
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 4,653

    ...

    This is what they've been longing to get into power for 14 years to do? What an absolute shower.
    "Hello?! Hello?! I want to report someone smoking near the Cone Hotline!"

    This is what Engels was waiting for all this time. He can finally rest in peace.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,233

    Is this really necessary?
    Children’s parks I get.

    Pub gardens? Outside other buildings?

    I hate smoking, but unless we actually ban it, what’s the idea here?
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,924
    edited August 2024
    kle4 said:

    So...taking their own explanation at face value, they provide a poor service and infrastructure at the moment? Despite the defence for current bills being that it was for investment into service and infrastructure? And they chose to make poor business decisions and now need very high bills to correct for that?

    On Wednesday, the company announced it wanted to go further, hiking bills by as much as 59%. The proposed changes in bills do not take account of inflation.

    Such a move would take the average annual water bill to £638 per customer by 2030. Average bills are currently around £443.

    Chris Weston, chief executive of Thames Water, said the money from higher bills would be invested in new infrastructure and improving services.

    "They [customers] are not being asked to pay twice, but to make up for years of focus on keeping bills low," he said in a response to the regulator.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2lgl9kypno

    Wait, what?

    Yorkshire Water charge me about £700, and that's with a discount for no rainwater discharge.

    Perhaps they do have low bills....

    [Edit: or perhaps I need a meter....]
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,856
    GIN1138 said:

    Puritan Keith has been itching to show the plebs who's in charge...
    They’ll have to let more people out of prison to make way for problem smokers.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,884
    Cash has been the one defining requirement for sophisticated societies for the last three thousand years or so. I instinctively feel there is a need for it, but I can't back it up
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,774
    Two NYT front pages for comparison.
    Anyone who claims the NYT favours the Democrats - as the now departed Leon claimed on a regular basis - is full of shit.

    On left: Oct 29 2016. James Comey discovers some emails, revives inquiry into HRC email. (Later dismissed.)

    On right: Aug 28 2024. A new grand jury re-indicts Trump on criminal charges of plotting to overturn 2020 election.

    https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1828798114704351348
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,823

    This isnt just a Thames Water issue though. The regulator/government are demanding an increased level of investment which can only come from bill payers, but are blocking the increasing of bills to achieve it.
    The current owners were stupid enough to buy a regulated company with £15bn in debt and the banks/bond investors were stupid enough to lend a regulated company £15bn, both need to take big haircuts, as much as 80% for bondholders for the government to bail it out. The value of Thames Water is well below zero and the lenders won't want to take equity, I'm pretty sure they'd grab 20p in the pound if the government offered it.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,820
    Pagan2 said:

    I can almost never get a mobile signal except one room of my house, I have to leave my mobile there. I live in a town of 40k people and not completely on the outskirts....my local shop goes cash only almost monthly for a day or two because their card machines can't connect.......its not vanishingly small, plenty of places that aren't remote here you can't get a connection
    I was at a gig at Alexandra Palace and the streetfood place I got some chili from couldn't accept any payments because they couldn't get a proper signal.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,295
    Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 51,131
    Nigelb said:

    The traditional media have not had a great election so far.
    Good article, I think.

    How the media blew 2024′s election

    https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/media-elections-dnc-kamala-harris-military-20240827.html
    .. I’ll start with the weekend’s lowlight: a news story that worked up the media food chain from the muck of smaller right-wing outlets, then got boosted on X/Twitter by Alex Thompson, a widely read national political correspondent for Axios, before the New York Post hyped it in your local Wawa and eventually the New York Times felt compelled to address it. You see, an idea that has animated the right for the last couple of weeks is the fantasy that Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz is a phony. Sunday’s purported news slammed Walz for a 2006 episode when his then-congressional campaign claimed he’d won a youth award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce when really it was — get this! — the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce!

    Never mind that the 2006 Walz campaign had corrected this tiny mistake (picture Barack Obama doing the hand thing, but even smaller), probably the work of a junior staffer, the second they learned about it…

    .. It would require another column — maybe a book — to explain why this is happening. I see it as less the public’s main complaint (corporate control of the media) and more about our profession’s weird value structure, where it’s more important to be savvy, cynical, and not be portrayed as naive shills for liberalism than to care about saving democracy from authoritarian rule, on top of maybe a new and not always healthy brand of careerism from younger journalists.

    The Chicago-based media critic Mark Jacob, a retired veteran editor of that city’s Tribune and Sun Times, nailed it Monday with a piece headlined “Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance.” Jacob has harsh words for how reporters have covered the race, writing that “too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources — in service to the political industry, not the public.” But he also notes that traditional media can’t figure out how to compete for young eyeballs against sites like edgy and fast-paced TikTok. Jacob pointed out that public faith in mass media has plunged from 72% in 1976, after Watergate, to just 32% today.

    You know who gets the new landscape better than anyone else? Kamala Harris…

    Picked up one of those right wing radio stations while driving across Ohio earlier; relentless non-stop anti-Kamala bile being churned out, hour after hour. Hopefully they don’t have too many swing voters as listeners?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    Andy_JS said:

    Newsnight reports that the government is considering banning smoking in pub gardens. And a pollster on the programme said that it would probably be popular with most voters, who are surprisingly authoritarian, (as we saw during the covid 19 lockdowns).

    Yeah, Covid turned us into a nation of snitchers and curtain twitchers so there are no negatives for Puritanical Starmer in this policy but doesn't make it right.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,820
    Andy_JS said:

    "Pollsters overestimated Labour’s support by largest margin in 50 years
    Vote share for Starmer’s party was lower than expected, while gap with Tories was much narrower than forecast

    Genevieve Holl-Allen"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/28/pollsters-labours-support-general-election-vote-share/

    It's the Telegraph. File under nonsense.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,163

    Children’s parks I get.

    Pub gardens? Outside other buildings?

    I hate smoking, but unless we actually ban it, what’s the idea here?
    It's a thing that they can do, that doesn't cost any money. The vast majority of people don't smoke, and don't like it when other people smoke near them.

    I can understand why they've done it, although I've already implicitly criticised it myself.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    ...

    This is what they've been longing to get into power for 14 years to do? What an absolute shower.
    This is in line with the general theme of 'continuity desperation'. Make up laws you think they will be popular but then just roll them out with no idea who will enforce them or any assessment of the impact. This one might actually not be a good idea, IE people will stop going to pubs, not sure if there will be an exemption for shisha tents. But even if it is a good idea, it can't be implemented/enforced without resources, of which there are none.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,774

    Wait, what?

    Yorkshire Water charge me about £700, and that's with a discount for no rainwater discharge.

    Perhaps they do have low bills....

    [Edit: or perhaps I need a meter....]
    No, I have a meter, and they’re still just thieves.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,867
    edited August 2024
    I had a meal this evening and paid with C.A.S.H. Was able to give the staff a £5 tip as well, which I would't have done if I was paying with C.A.R.D 🤔
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,295
    GIN1138 said:

    Yeah, Covid turned us into a nation of snitchers and curtain twitchers so there are no negatives for Puritanical Starmer in this policy but doesn't make it right.
    We need an anti-authoritarian fightback in this country, but I can't think which party or politicians are going to lead it. Very depressing situation.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,823

    https://x.com/jackelsom/status/1828903044979012017

    EXCL: Starmer is extending the indoor smoking ban to cover a raft of outdoor areas, leaked government plans reveal.

    It includes pub gardens, children’s parks and outside sports grounds, universities, schools, hospitals and more 👇

    What a joke. I don't smoke but this is excessive. Kids parks I can just about understand but everything else is ridiculous. Banning smoking around hospitals is going to result in a reduction of operating hours because doctors (of which at least half smoke in my experience) will have to walk all over the place to have a fag and that will eat into patient hours. Pub gardens are completely idiotic to ban smoking in, it's outdoors in a generally over 18s location.

    I think Labour are speed running unpopularity. I don't think they've thought this through at all. The Tories didn't recover when they became very unpopular and I don't think Labour realise there is a point at which there is no return, time won't solve it for them.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,295
    Tres said:

    It's the Telegraph. File under nonsense.
    Don't shoot the messenger.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,834

    IPlayer streaming is usually approx 120 seconds behind BBC on proper telly. Ditto ITV Player and ITV. It’s utterly lousy… and useless during major events.
    A whole 120 seconds? What major drawbacks does that confer?
This discussion has been closed.