I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
It's funny how all the MAGA people are doing this Haitian fearmongering when the person involved in this election who is most likely to have actually eaten a cat is clearly Robert F Kennedy Jr https://x.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1833324467352641975
Don't mention cats on here.
I had a sense Leon would be along, and decided to preempt him.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’m smitten
There should be a PB city index
- Oysters - Cycle lanes - Tank museum
Ok, I think the ultimate PB city is Munster, Germany.
As a general thing I think we should stop lauding politicians for announcing initiatives and take a cynical attitude because mostly its all fart and no follow through. If Labour manages to build 1.5 million houses I will be the first to applaud.
Till they actually do however they deserve no plaudit's for announcing stuff and bunging money at initiatives because lets face it is not like history shows us its easy to make announcements....levelling up, immigration down to 10s of thousand, building 1.5 million houses in 5 years.
When it happens then its time to say well done, not when some scheme is announced. We would all be better being more cynical about these things and show politicians if they want to reap the benefit they have to actually achieve
It's spin .
We built about 1,2 million houses in the last 5 years. So Starmer is only proposing another 300k new builds. In reality we need 1.5 million houses in the next 5 years on top of the 1.2 million we already build if it is to have any impact.
According to the official ONS statistics, those numbers are way over the top - by about 35-40%.
Starts Apr 2019 to Mar 2024: 886,867 Completions Apr 2019 to Mar 2024: 976,167
For comparison
Starts Apr 2014 to Mar 2019: 815,620 Completions Apr 2014 to Mar 2019: 761,840
The 2019 to 2024 numbers include my straight line extrapolation over the 2 year COVID period, which is very generous and may be adding an extra 100k to the number. There are adjustments and minor category inclusions and exclusion I expect, but not to that extent.
It is notable that starts in the 2023-2024 period were only ~150k, which I suggest is down to the Election and Sunak's NIMBY-pandering.
For the Starmer promise, I think they may hit around 1.2 million in the first 5 years, and 1.5 million in the second 5 years if they get 2 terms. That will be doing well.
It's worth remembering that we will not know the out-turn until around 5.5 years from now, so it will be a guessing game at the next Election.
SKS and AlanBrooke will be pleased to know that the Pointers are doing their bit - we've just bought a building pot and plan to build our own (planners permitting). Exciting times.
Completion 2032 if you do well .
Mrs P has specified completion by Christmas 2026.
Planners, architects, builders, building inspectors... you have been warned.
I'm nearly inclined to offer you a charity bet on that, @Benpointer - being in for Christmas 2026, which TBF is slightly different from Completion, depending on how it is defined. Starting from a naked plot with no PP that would be nearly unprecedented in my experience. Have you already applied for Planning already?
I think the only way I can see that being achieved is a turnkey package from a TF company, possibly with a professional half -> full time project manager, and services in place.
Though I appreciate you very much know the ropes.
Say loser pays £100 to Wheels for Wellbeing.
How confident are you, and what would your terms be?
I have the disadvantage of not knowing where Ben is but I think if you get planning permission before Christmas you will be doing very well...
Ben mentioned it the other week - a smallish town Dorset / Somerset way iirc.
I've started a new thread over on BH asking the question anonymously, as we do a "how long does it take" every so often. Since we now have nearly 20k members (though many stay for a time and then drop out), there should be a few posts. My normal suggested range is 2-5 years with PP already in place, or 3-7 from scratch. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/40417-have-you-gone-from-planning-app-to-moving-in-in-~2-yeas/
I have one example of 2 years 3 months so far, and that was on a sloping site needing a big retaining wall.
My punt is that it will be only 5% who do it, but that most take a longer timescale to be able to be more involved and do work themselves, so it is a skewed sample.
For me, there are too many unknowns that can throw it off, especially underground unknowns.
But I'm delighted Ben has the plot and is moving it on.
Friends of ours built a house yonks back as a self-build. It's quite an amazing place, but it took six months longer than expected, but came in on budget and more or less how they wanted it.
You can have two of time, budget and features. Not all three.
THAT is an absolute tragedy, both for his family and for journalism. He has done a brilliant and consistent job on that podcast, which has been daily on weekdays since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I've been a listener to a large majority of them, and it has been consistently interesting and thought provoking.
I'm no Telegraph fan, as is clear. David Knowles will be desperately missed.
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Letby’s conviction is unsafe, says Boris Johnson’s former science adviser Evidence presented to the jury was so flawed as to make it not a fair trial, argues James Phillips ... “It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/ (£££)
It’s not their job to weigh the evidence
The consultants are supposed to protect patients
The prosecution builds a case (I’m sure they were looking for weak links)
The judges assess whether the law has been followed
The jury makes their decision
Which does make one wonder about improvements.
If no one in the chain could check the use of statistical evidence…
Brings to mind some convictions that turned out to be flawed - the DNA evidence didn’t actually prove beyond reasonable doubt.
I’ve not spent a huge amount of time thinking about this.
But I thought the criticism was of the partial selection of the statistical evidence *presented to the jury*.
Not that it was wrong, but that it was partial and designed to convince the jury of the case.
And you can’t take a single piece of evidence in isolation and say “this didn’t work therefore the conviction is flawed”. Juries form their view based on the totality of evidence
Like everyone else I have not read the transcripts of the trial, but SFAICS there is a regular confusion about statistical evidence.
At the trial evidence was presented that in each of the alleged incidents (murder and attempted murder) Letby was on duty in a material place; and that as a matter of fact no other person was on duty at all or significant numbers of times at these incidents.
This is not statistical evidence, it is ordinary factual evidence. Without it there could have been no case as if she could not be shown to be present there is no case to answer in each case.
The critics now are saying: statistical evidence was not presented of the rotas more generally, about every possible incident of unexpected harm etc to a child, and this may have shown (I suppose) either other murderers as possible suspects, or a pattern to show the deaths were not criminal.
The defence are entitled to go down that track and didn't. Probably because it could not work. The prosecution would not have wanted to go there as it was not part of their case.
That IS statistical evidence - effectively seeking to demonstrate certainty.
It's been argued that the tabulation in question was selective and that the full tabulation has other persons as possible suspects, as indeed one would expect from random chance - which therefore includes Letby. If Letby's correlation canm be explained as chance ...
There's also a suggestion that the data are unreliable (bad recording, last minute changes and swaps, early/late shift changeovers).
Thirty burglaries take place in town X in the course of a year. There is video evidence that Burglar Bill is present in the room during the hours it happens for 20 of them, and some other corroborating evidence. He is charged with 20 burglaries. His defence is that there is no evidence that he was present at the other 10 so he is innocent of the 20. The jury convicts.
The Letby rota evidence is merely evidence that she was in the relevant place at the relevant time. This is factual, not statistical. The trial is the place to argue about accuracy etc.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’m smitten
Friend of mine moved there straight after the Brexit vote. I'm a bit envious.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Went to school on Vancouver Island. If you can take a ferry out there. Victoria is a pretty if dull city. But the views are spectacular. Tsawassen to Schwartz Bay is best. Also. Have a mooch around the Gulf Islands. They are lovely and sleepy. As an oddity check out Point Roberts. A tiny peninsula of the US stuck onto the southern suburbs of Vancouver. It's bizarre. The train journey from Vancouver to Banff is one of the greatest in the world. They do have a lot of homeless. It's the only city in Canada you can survive the winter on the streets, so it collects a huge number from far and wide.
80% chance of good weather for the next launch window, 35’ from now. They’re about going to start loading fuel, which commits to this window for today.
THAT is an absolute tragedy, both for his family and for journalism. He has done a brilliant and consistent job on that podcast, which has been daily on weekdays since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I've been a listener to a large majority of them, and it has been consistently interesting and thought provoking.
I'm no Telegraph fan, as is clear. David Knowles will be desperately missed.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’m smitten
There should be a PB city index
- Oysters - Cycle lanes - Tank museum
Ok, I think the ultimate PB city is Munster, Germany.
A bit far from oyster beds, no?
I do enjoy cities that fulfil the stereotype. Particularly fun to discover that yes Tokyo is indeed full of sleep-deprived salarymen in suits trooping off to get drunk and sing karaoke before returning to their desks, Delhi does actually have brown dusty air and kids do play cricket on dusty patches of grass, Geneva is indeed reserved and unfriendly and full of adverts for watches, and you can’t move in Edinburgh in summer for bagpipers in kilts outside shops selling woollen clothing.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
I was nosing around a Mayfair art gallery the other day and the woman there got chatting to me, deploying those high end soft selling skills that I suppose landed her the job in the first place. It was quite hard to resist. I very nearly left with a little sketch by somebody famous. Anyway, point is, she was from Vancouver. It's way out West, as we know, which allowed me to launch the sophisticated sentence, "the centre of gravity of Canada is more to the East, isn't it?". That got a knowing smile.
(there's also an island there, I think, a rather lush and affluent one where Harry and Meghan lived for a while)
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’m smitten
Friend of mine moved there straight after the Brexit vote. I'm a bit envious.
I arrived on a very soft sweet sunny September day so maybe that’s warping my perspective
But this evening gone I had a nice fruity IPA on the waterfront (where the seaplanes dock!) and the barman was an Irish guy. From cork. We got talking and I asked him if it was all as lovely as it looked and he said “YES! It really is! It’s fantastic”
He told me he’d been in the city a couple of years so he’d had time to become disenchanted. But he wasn’t
Perhaps this is one of the better achievements of the British empire. Protecting Vancouver and BC from covetous Americans. Thereby saving it from guns and persistent slavery, and making it one of the most liveable and desirable cities on earth
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
We need to know what car he has before we can be fully paid up Jenrick dick riders.
Land Rover apparently (no model info available unfortunately for full eeugh/dick riding potential).
Haha,
What's that - a quiet murmur of admiration or an "I knew it" sneer of utter contempt?
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Yes. Good cycling infrastructure too, which makes it very unusual for North America.
And a very walkable downtown
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’m smitten
There should be a PB city index
- Oysters - Cycle lanes - Tank museum
Ok, I think the ultimate PB city is Munster, Germany.
A bit far from oyster beds, no?
I do enjoy cities that fulfil the stereotype. Particularly fun to discover that yes Tokyo is indeed full of sleep-deprived salarymen in suits trooping off to get drunk and sing karaoke before returning to their desks, Delhi does actually have brown dusty air and kids do play cricket on dusty patches of grass, Geneva is indeed reserved and unfriendly and full of adverts for watches, and you can’t move in Edinburgh in summer for bagpipers in kilts outside shops selling woollen clothing.
And London is full of men wearing bowler hats, carrying umbrellas, while chimney sweeps dance on roofs.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Chedck out the winter climate? I'd assume maritime like the UK, but who knows?
Yes, similar to southern England
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
Been there on holiday. Really nice place. Feels 'safe' as well. Walked about both day and night with no sign of issues. If you get the chance a trip out to Capillano north of the city is worth a visit. Easy bus ride out if you don't have a car. Touristy but spectacular scenery
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Ah, so I’m not the first person to notice that “Vancouver is really nice with a lovely location, I could live here easily”?
Oh well
Some places are nice to visit.
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
My first cut rule of thumb for that in the UK would be "where do vicars live in retirement"? I'd add good public transport as a criteria.
They have the constraints that generally match - intellectually curious, financially usually somewhat constrained, very well-qualified academically, cultured, varied interests, exposed to a wide cross-section of life, often plan well in advance with the time to think about it.
In my area of North Notts / Derbys it tends to be Newark or Matlock afaics, rather than say Southwell.
How would others identify these places? I'd say housing and perhaps jobs are the tough criteria. I'd add Whitby but housing prices may have run away there by now.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Chedck out the winter climate? I'd assume maritime like the UK, but who knows?
Yes, similar to southern England
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
Been there on holiday. Really nice place. Feels 'safe' as well. Walked about both day and night with no sign of issues. If you get the chance a trip out to Capillano north of the city is worth a visit. Easy bus ride out if you don't have a car. Touristy but spectacular scenery
Thanks. I’m on an official Gazette roadtrip so I’ll keep y’all posted
Its also a LOT cheaper than the USA, presumably due to a weaker currency etc?
And yes as soon as I got out of my car in central Couver I thought “ahhh, safe”. You can tell these things instantly
Indeed there should be a special PB word for that as well: “the instant sense, on arrival, of detecting whether a particular place is safe or unsafe”
I have a quite a refined version of this sense (from all my travels, you gain it inevitably). I believe it might have saved me serious trouble a couple of times
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Ah, so I’m not the first person to notice that “Vancouver is really nice with a lovely location, I could live here easily”?
Oh well
Some places are nice to visit.
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
My first cut rule of thumb for that in the UK would be "where do vicars live in retirement"? I'd add good public transport as a criteria.
They have the constraints that generally match - intellectually curious, financially usually somewhat constrained, very well-qualified academically, cultured, varied interests, exposed to a wide cross-section of life, often plan well in advance with the time to think about it.
In my area of North Notts / Derbys it tends to be Newark or Matlock afaics, rather than say Southwell.
How would others identify these places? I'd say housing and perhaps jobs are the tough criteria. I'd add Whitby but housing prices may have run away there by now.
Whitby is often unbearably touristy (though the tourists that go are markedly more pleasant than those found in Scarborough!)
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Ah, so I’m not the first person to notice that “Vancouver is really nice with a lovely location, I could live here easily”?
Oh well
Some places are nice to visit.
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
My first cut rule of thumb for that in the UK would be "where do vicars live in retirement"? I'd add good public transport as a criteria.
They have the constraints that generally match - intellectually curious, financially usually somewhat constrained, very well-qualified academically, cultured, varied interests, exposed to a wide cross-section of life, often plan well in advance with the time to think about it.
In my area of North Notts / Derbys it tends to be Newark or Matlock afaics, rather than say Southwell.
How would others identify these places? I'd say housing and perhaps jobs are the tough criteria. I'd add Whitby but housing prices may have run away there by now.
Whitby is often unbearably touristy (though the tourists that go are markedly more pleasant than those found in Scarborough!)
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Chedck out the winter climate? I'd assume maritime like the UK, but who knows?
Yes, similar to southern England
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
Been there on holiday. Really nice place. Feels 'safe' as well. Walked about both day and night with no sign of issues. If you get the chance a trip out to Capillano north of the city is worth a visit. Easy bus ride out if you don't have a car. Touristy but spectacular scenery
Thanks. I’m on an official Gazette roadtrip so I’ll keep y’all posted
Thank you kindly, but that's really not necessary.
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Ah, so I’m not the first person to notice that “Vancouver is really nice with a lovely location, I could live here easily”?
Oh well
Some places are nice to visit.
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
My first cut rule of thumb for that in the UK would be "where do vicars live in retirement"? I'd add good public transport as a criteria.
They have the constraints that generally match - intellectually curious, financially usually somewhat constrained, very well-qualified academically, cultured, varied interests, exposed to a wide cross-section of life, often plan well in advance with the time to think about it.
In my area of North Notts / Derbys it tends to be Newark or Matlock afaics, rather than say Southwell.
How would others identify these places? I'd say housing and perhaps jobs are the tough criteria. I'd add Whitby but housing prices may have run away there by now.
Whitby is often unbearably touristy (though the tourists that go are markedly more pleasant than those found in Scarborough!)
The Park and Ride there is excellent
It is. As is the walk down from the Abbey Car park. I assume you've popped just north and visited Sandsend?
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
For what it's worth, high Tory Charles Moore thinks the three who definitely should go forward are: Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat.
He's a good writer and his triple-decker biography of Thatcher is quite a thing. But a terrible adviser - by all accounts one of the coterie that backed Boris's worst decisions on party management.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Chedck out the winter climate? I'd assume maritime like the UK, but who knows?
Yes, similar to southern England
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
Been there on holiday. Really nice place. Feels 'safe' as well. Walked about both day and night with no sign of issues. If you get the chance a trip out to Capillano north of the city is worth a visit. Easy bus ride out if you don't have a car. Touristy but spectacular scenery
Thanks. I’m on an official Gazette roadtrip so I’ll keep y’all posted
Its also a LOT cheaper than the USA, presumably due to a weaker currency etc?
And yes as soon as I got out of my car in central Couver I thought “ahhh, safe”. You can tell these things instantly
Indeed there should be a special PB word for that as well: “the instant sense, on arrival, of detecting whether a particular place is safe or unsafe”
I have a quite a refined version of this sense (from all my travels, you gain it inevitably). I believe it might have saved me serious trouble a couple of times
If you'd gone there a year ago you'd have had the opposite reaction, Vancouver was previously the home of fentanyl addicts in Canada because they had a very permissive policy on drug dealing and use. They reversed it recently and it's become a nice and relatively safe place again. One can only hope that SF, Portland and Seattle follow suit.
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
He should have partnered up with Russia Today again.
Obviously he has an inability to recognise a state propagandist.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond And so when I was invited to take part in a “blue chip” history of the rise of the SNP by Firecrest Films for the BBC, I should have smelled a rat immediately, instead of believing the assurances that they willingly gave, that they were intent on making serious programming (2/8) 10:00 am · 10 Sep 2024
'It'll be different this time' said every sucker born.
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Chedck out the winter climate? I'd assume maritime like the UK, but who knows?
Yes, similar to southern England
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
Been there on holiday. Really nice place. Feels 'safe' as well. Walked about both day and night with no sign of issues. If you get the chance a trip out to Capillano north of the city is worth a visit. Easy bus ride out if you don't have a car. Touristy but spectacular scenery
Thanks. I’m on an official Gazette roadtrip so I’ll keep y’all posted
Its also a LOT cheaper than the USA, presumably due to a weaker currency etc?
And yes as soon as I got out of my car in central Couver I thought “ahhh, safe”. You can tell these things instantly
Indeed there should be a special PB word for that as well: “the instant sense, on arrival, of detecting whether a particular place is safe or unsafe”
I have a quite a refined version of this sense (from all my travels, you gain it inevitably). I believe it might have saved me serious trouble a couple of times
If you'd gone there a year ago you'd have had the opposite reaction, Vancouver was previously the home of fentanyl addicts in Canada because they had a very permissive policy on drug dealing and use. They reversed it recently and it's become a nice and relatively safe place again. One can only hope that SF, Portland and Seattle follow suit.
They still have the homeless here but - because of guns, policing, noom? - it just doesn’t have that immediately edgy vibe you get, tragically, in so many cities in the USA
Having been here all of 12 hours, and therefore entitled to speak with great authority, Vancouver feels like a North American version of Sydney or Melbourne
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Is this a new ban, or the one from 2023? Same excuse as Andy Burnham - "I didn't notice the sign".
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
That excuse (not seeing the sign) always seems to me to be an aggravation in that the driver is clearly driving without due care and attention, contrary to s3. Did he also fail to notice the mother and pram?
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Ah, so I’m not the first person to notice that “Vancouver is really nice with a lovely location, I could live here easily”?
Oh well
Some places are nice to visit.
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
My first cut rule of thumb for that in the UK would be "where do vicars live in retirement"? I'd add good public transport as a criteria.
They have the constraints that generally match - intellectually curious, financially usually somewhat constrained, very well-qualified academically, cultured, varied interests, exposed to a wide cross-section of life, often plan well in advance with the time to think about it.
In my area of North Notts / Derbys it tends to be Newark or Matlock afaics, rather than say Southwell.
How would others identify these places? I'd say housing and perhaps jobs are the tough criteria. I'd add Whitby but housing prices may have run away there by now.
The problem for many vicars is on retirement they're entering the property market for the first time.
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
My impression of the Beeb is that it always, until quite recently, lacked the confidence to properly challenge or scrutinise the SNP. Terrified of seeming condescending or Anglo-centric. St Nicola did very well out of them during Covid when the Beeb was in full genuflection mode and Salmond was never put any serious pressure at all which, tbf, was due to him being so personally formidable during his time in office. No interviewer could touch him. The only notable exception I can think of was Andrew Neil, a well-briefed working-class Scot not lacking in confidence , who in the one interview he secured did give Nicola a pretty torrid time. That said, Eck may have a point with this documentary. But, let's face it, the Indy crowd are a bag of ferrets at the moment. So no wonder he isn't happy with the contributions of his rivals.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, is the clear winner in the latest ConservativeHome survey of Tory members into how well they think shadow cabinet ministers are peforming
Guardian blog
Membership are going to be pretty angry if Jenrick stitches this up so they dont have Kemi in the final two to vote for aren't they?
On topic. If Badenoch could convince enough Tory MPs to support her I'm sure she'd be tempted to play a few games with lending support to other candidates to engineer her favoured match-up for the member's vote.
Alas, that crucial ingredient for winning a popularity contest - popularity - appears to be missing.
As Tory leadership contenders go, I have a bit more time for Badenoch than others because she's shown a few flashes of saying interesting things and having original thoughts. But no-one likes a whiny loser.
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Is this a new ban, or the one from 2023? Same excuse as Andy Burnham - "I didn't notice the sign".
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
That excuse (not seeing the sign) always seems to me to be an aggravation in that the driver is clearly driving without due care and attention, contrary to s3. Did he also fail to notice the mother and pram?
"Temporary blackout" too. Surely that should be a life ban on medical grounds?
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Is this a new ban, or the one from 2023? Same excuse as Andy Burnham - "I didn't notice the sign".
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
That excuse (not seeing the sign) always seems to me to be an aggravation in that the driver is clearly driving without due care and attention, contrary to s3. Did he also fail to notice the mother and pram?
Or the Bridge or Police Car wearing Hi-Viz
(My photo quota. This van looks to be a couple of metres too tall).
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Letby’s conviction is unsafe, says Boris Johnson’s former science adviser Evidence presented to the jury was so flawed as to make it not a fair trial, argues James Phillips ... “It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/ (£££)
It’s not their job to weigh the evidence
The consultants are supposed to protect patients
The prosecution builds a case (I’m sure they were looking for weak links)
The judges assess whether the law has been followed
The jury makes their decision
Which does make one wonder about improvements.
If no one in the chain could check the use of statistical evidence…
Brings to mind some convictions that turned out to be flawed - the DNA evidence didn’t actually prove beyond reasonable doubt.
I’ve not spent a huge amount of time thinking about this.
But I thought the criticism was of the partial selection of the statistical evidence *presented to the jury*.
Not that it was wrong, but that it was partial and designed to convince the jury of the case.
And you can’t take a single piece of evidence in isolation and say “this didn’t work therefore the conviction is flawed”. Juries form their view based on the totality of evidence
Like everyone else I have not read the transcripts of the trial, but SFAICS there is a regular confusion about statistical evidence.
At the trial evidence was presented that in each of the alleged incidents (murder and attempted murder) Letby was on duty in a material place; and that as a matter of fact no other person was on duty at all or significant numbers of times at these incidents.
This is not statistical evidence, it is ordinary factual evidence. Without it there could have been no case as if she could not be shown to be present there is no case to answer in each case.
The critics now are saying: statistical evidence was not presented of the rotas more generally, about every possible incident of unexpected harm etc to a child, and this may have shown (I suppose) either other murderers as possible suspects, or a pattern to show the deaths were not criminal.
The defence are entitled to go down that track and didn't. Probably because it could not work. The prosecution would not have wanted to go there as it was not part of their case.
I have not studied the evidence or the criticisms in this case but in my experience when the Crown focuses on a number of suspicious events and then cross references those events to the presence of the accused the inference that they are seeking to draw is that the presence of the accused was a causal factor in the occurring of those events.
It is easy to see how a jury might draw such an inference if that is all the evidence that they are given. If, on the other hand, evidence was led that showed that these events also occurred on occasions when the accused was not present two alternative inferences could be drawn. Firstly, these events, although desperately sad and unfortunate, are not "suspicious" at all. Secondly, even if they were "suspicious" the causal connection to the accused is simply not made out.
This brings us back to the decision of the defence not to lead that evidence. Again, from experience, it seems unlikely that they would have made that choice had the evidence was indeed that these events were as likely to occur when the accused was not there as when she was. At best, they might have shown that not every occurrence of such an event took place when Letby was there but that a significant percentage of them did, something they might have considered to be unhelpful.
Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, is the clear winner in the latest ConservativeHome survey of Tory members into how well they think shadow cabinet ministers are peforming
Guardian blog
Membership are going to be pretty angry if Jenrick stitches this up so they dont have Kemi in the final two to vote for aren't they?
But would they be angry enough to vote for his opponent?
RIP Schengen. Born 26th March 1995. Died 10th September 2024. No flowers.
You do realise that there have been sporadic border checks within Schengen for years? France reintroduced them for the Olympics, for example, and there have been many, many other examples.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
Chedck out the winter climate? I'd assume maritime like the UK, but who knows?
Yes, similar to southern England
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
Been there on holiday. Really nice place. Feels 'safe' as well. Walked about both day and night with no sign of issues. If you get the chance a trip out to Capillano north of the city is worth a visit. Easy bus ride out if you don't have a car. Touristy but spectacular scenery
Thanks. I’m on an official Gazette roadtrip so I’ll keep y’all posted
Its also a LOT cheaper than the USA, presumably due to a weaker currency etc?
And yes as soon as I got out of my car in central Couver I thought “ahhh, safe”. You can tell these things instantly
Indeed there should be a special PB word for that as well: “the instant sense, on arrival, of detecting whether a particular place is safe or unsafe”
I have a quite a refined version of this sense (from all my travels, you gain it inevitably). I believe it might have saved me serious trouble a couple of times
If you'd gone there a year ago you'd have had the opposite reaction, Vancouver was previously the home of fentanyl addicts in Canada because they had a very permissive policy on drug dealing and use. They reversed it recently and it's become a nice and relatively safe place again. One can only hope that SF, Portland and Seattle follow suit.
They still have the homeless here but - because of guns, policing, noom? - it just doesn’t have that immediately edgy vibe you get, tragically, in so many cities in the USA
Having been here all of 12 hours, and therefore entitled to speak with great authority, Vancouver feels like a North American version of Sydney or Melbourne
Cycling, sailing, Grouse mountain for winter sports or a 2 hour bus ride to Whistler. It's a great location if you're into outdoor sports as well as being a nice city.
Will the discovery of rich, exploitable lithium deposits in Texas and neighbouring southern states (also in PA, I believe) change the politics of renewable energy in the US ?
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/lithium-mining-boom-northeast-texas/ ...Burba developed a third way, called direct lithium extraction, in 1995. In DLE, brine is pumped through cylinders made of a fiber-reinforced polymer and filled with crystalline granules slightly larger than grains of sand. Lithium ions get stuck, much like contaminants in an ordinary water filter, but the granules release the prized metal when the cylinder is flushed with fresh water. The process takes less than an hour to extract lithium that would otherwise take months or years to mine or to concentrate through evaporation, and it doesn’t ruin large stretches of land or pollute millions of gallons of water.
In the nineties, Burba designed and built the first DLE plant, in a place ominously called Hombre Muerto, in Argentina. The plant remains in operation today, although DLE didn’t immediately take off because global lithium demand at the time was satisfied by existing mines and evaporation ponds. But as the need for batteries has soared, so has interest in new lithium sources. Last year the financial giant Goldman Sachs called DLE “a potential game changing technology.”
Over the years, to test his invention, Burba has evaluated brine samples from fifty locations around the world. “Most are crap,” he says, relaxing in jeans and black alligator boots in a large house with vaulted ceilings outside Atlanta, a small town a thirty-minute drive south of Texarkana. The brine containing the most lithium he’s found in North America, rivaling the best in the world, lies beneath a one-hundred-mile swath of northeast Texas and southern Arkansas. It’s a mostly rural area of soaring pines and muddy bayous. Burba’s home, where he and Carol moved in 2021 to be nearer her aging parents, sits smack in the middle of it...
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Is this a new ban, or the one from 2023? Same excuse as Andy Burnham - "I didn't notice the sign".
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
That excuse (not seeing the sign) always seems to me to be an aggravation in that the driver is clearly driving without due care and attention, contrary to s3. Did he also fail to notice the mother and pram?
Or the Bridge or Police Car wearing Hi-Viz
(My photo quota. This van looks to be a couple of metres too tall).
The ability to ignore things in some drivers is remarkable.
During the testing of the New Routemaster Bus, the driver drove until the diesel tank was dry. Ignoring several alarms. He then drove it until the battery ran down as well. Which set off another alarm as it drained.
He complained afterwards about the noise from the alarms….
RIP Schengen. Born 26th March 1995. Died 10th September 2024. No flowers.
You do realise that there have been sporadic border checks within Schengen for years? France reintroduced them for the Olympics, for example, and there have been many, many other examples.
Yes. This time is different. This time is political, in response to the recent elections in Germany, and not operational, in response to a specific external event.
It's much harder for them to go back, and the pressure for other countries to follow suit will be strong. The Dutch may be next.
I'm disappointed, but this is what happens when people don't advocate for freedoms. They get taken away.
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
Letby’s conviction is unsafe, says Boris Johnson’s former science adviser Evidence presented to the jury was so flawed as to make it not a fair trial, argues James Phillips ... “It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/ (£££)
It’s not their job to weigh the evidence
The consultants are supposed to protect patients
The prosecution builds a case (I’m sure they were looking for weak links)
The judges assess whether the law has been followed
The jury makes their decision
Which does make one wonder about improvements.
If no one in the chain could check the use of statistical evidence…
Brings to mind some convictions that turned out to be flawed - the DNA evidence didn’t actually prove beyond reasonable doubt.
I’ve not spent a huge amount of time thinking about this.
But I thought the criticism was of the partial selection of the statistical evidence *presented to the jury*.
Not that it was wrong, but that it was partial and designed to convince the jury of the case.
And you can’t take a single piece of evidence in isolation and say “this didn’t work therefore the conviction is flawed”. Juries form their view based on the totality of evidence
Like everyone else I have not read the transcripts of the trial, but SFAICS there is a regular confusion about statistical evidence.
At the trial evidence was presented that in each of the alleged incidents (murder and attempted murder) Letby was on duty in a material place; and that as a matter of fact no other person was on duty at all or significant numbers of times at these incidents.
This is not statistical evidence, it is ordinary factual evidence. Without it there could have been no case as if she could not be shown to be present there is no case to answer in each case.
The critics now are saying: statistical evidence was not presented of the rotas more generally, about every possible incident of unexpected harm etc to a child, and this may have shown (I suppose) either other murderers as possible suspects, or a pattern to show the deaths were not criminal.
The defence are entitled to go down that track and didn't. Probably because it could not work. The prosecution would not have wanted to go there as it was not part of their case.
I have not studied the evidence or the criticisms in this case but in my experience when the Crown focuses on a number of suspicious events and then cross references those events to the presence of the accused the inference that they are seeking to draw is that the presence of the accused was a causal factor in the occurring of those events.
It is easy to see how a jury might draw such an inference if that is all the evidence that they are given. If, on the other hand, evidence was led that showed that these events also occurred on occasions when the accused was not present two alternative inferences could be drawn. Firstly, these events, although desperately sad and unfortunate, are not "suspicious" at all. Secondly, even if they were "suspicious" the causal connection to the accused is simply not made out.
This brings us back to the decision of the defence not to lead that evidence. Again, from experience, it seems unlikely that they would have made that choice had the evidence was indeed that these events were as likely to occur when the accused was not there as when she was. At best, they might have shown that not every occurrence of such an event took place when Letby was there but that a significant percentage of them did, something they might have considered to be unhelpful.
Please stop presenting legal issues in a factual and understandable-to-layman fashion.
This is politicalhysteria.com, after all. You might hurt someone’s ignorant prejudices feelings…
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Is this a new ban, or the one from 2023? Same excuse as Andy Burnham - "I didn't notice the sign".
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
That excuse (not seeing the sign) always seems to me to be an aggravation in that the driver is clearly driving without due care and attention, contrary to s3. Did he also fail to notice the mother and pram?
Or the Bridge or Police Car wearing Hi-Viz
(My photo quota. This van looks to be a couple of metres too tall).
LOL that’s not even in the right ballpark, let alone close.
Your average Luton van is 12’ tall, possibly 11’6” on a good day. How on Earth does it end up anywhere near a 9’ bridge in the first place? Would love to see the police report, and the driver’s subsequent discussions with his insurance company! I suspect he’ll be paying for his own repairs to the truck.
There’s a famous bridge in the US, called the 11’8” bridge for the obvious reason, where someone set up a webcam pointing at it because so many trucks thought they could squeeze under. They even put a height sensor up the road, with traffic lights and a flashing “over height, must turn” sign - yet STILL trucks hit the bridge on a regular basis. https://youtube.com/@11foot8plus8
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
Oh, I didn't realise he had a thing against Yousaf as well.
There have been a few murmurings in the press recently. Maybe things are coming to a head.
I thought that with Salmond, it was a question of who he *hand't* fallen out with, in Scottish politics?
Who doesn;t have a beef with that useless turd, how that second rate loser ever got to be FM is incredible. Useless coudl not run a bath and seems a nasty piece of work to boot.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Letby’s conviction is unsafe, says Boris Johnson’s former science adviser Evidence presented to the jury was so flawed as to make it not a fair trial, argues James Phillips ... “It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/ (£££)
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. People are complex and more than one thing at a time.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Anyone who puts people in space is cool in my book, even if he spends too much time trolling on Twitter.
Reading a bit about Jenrick (better late than never) I am now a huge fan.
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Is this a new ban, or the one from 2023? Same excuse as Andy Burnham - "I didn't notice the sign".
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
That excuse (not seeing the sign) always seems to me to be an aggravation in that the driver is clearly driving without due care and attention, contrary to s3. Did he also fail to notice the mother and pram?
Or the Bridge or Police Car wearing Hi-Viz
(My photo quota. This van looks to be a couple of metres too tall).
There but for the grace of god. In 52 years of driving I have been stopped by the police 3 times. On all 3 times justifiably so, but on all 3 occasions I have been let off at the scene. Twice I was just at fault and should have known better. Once I had complete brain failure.
In the case of brain failure the lights changed and I was the first car turning right at a major junction (3 lanes in each direction) so I just went straight across the 3 lanes of oncoming traffic (why I don't know). I wasn't being a boy racer. I just reacted to the lights changing and went, nice and calmly. On the inside lane of the oncoming traffic was a police car who naturally followed me and stopped me. He shouted at me for about 10 minutes, then probably realised he was dealing with a moron and let me go.
One of the other times I got stopped by a police car was for reading while driving. I was trying to find a house from the estate agents details and was lost and I occasionally glanced down at the details. He asked what would have happened if someone had been crossing the pelican crossing. I thought it wise not to say 'What pelican crossing?'.
The other instance was speeding, which I was because I was late.
The last 2 were deliberate and dangerous and I should have known better. I guess the brain failure is driving without due care and attention, but I am not sure any punishment can stop that happening, although I could easily have caused an accident. We all do daft things without thinking.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
Quite. It became fashionable to hate him when he moved in on party politics, when previously he was lauded, in the same way it became fashionable to hate Trump when he did the same. Prior to him getting involved with politics, he was the likeable mega rich celebrity/mogul who would turn up to things and be lauded by people.
Eck in a tizzy. I think plenty of indy supporters of whatever stripe would have told him not to touch this with a bargepole.
Alex Salmond @AlexSalmond For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
Oh, I didn't realise he had a thing against Yousaf as well.
There have been a few murmurings in the press recently. Maybe things are coming to a head.
I thought that with Salmond, it was a question of who he *hand't* fallen out with, in Scottish politics?
Who doesn;t have a beef with that useless turd, how that second rate loser ever got to be FM is incredible. Useless coudl not run a bath and seems a nasty piece of work to boot.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
Ah, so I’m not the first person to notice that “Vancouver is really nice with a lovely location, I could live here easily”?
Oh well
Some places are nice to visit.
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
Do you still consider Mansfield the exemplar of liveability?
To give you a half-serious reply to that, Chesterfield is far better; Mansfield was run by Captain Mainwaring and the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard for about 15 years in the form of the Mansfield Independents, and will take some time to even start to recover. Both have walkable town centres but with some crazy road infrastructure around.
It has a theatre, and an art college, a good town centre shopping precinct and other retail, decent sports centre, decent public transport, nice parks, good walking rail trails if nothing done recently, good adventure centre which is a county resource, Sherwood Pines outdoor centre, decent museum last time I was there, Light Rail after 25 years with no station, lots of new housing, some good businesses, decent routes to elsewhere, and various other facilities, but that controlling group had no imagination. For a town of 75k it is pithed. There is now some investment happening, but as I say it will take some time.
The town centre is walkable, but they put a blanket ban on cycling in a big part of the town centre in around 2017, and it took a High Court action from Cycling UK in support of 5 local complainants to make them back down even slightly, after afaics a single nothing incident - a couple of kids doing wheelies on normal cycles round the market on one Saturday afternoon.
So kids wanting to go to the Rebecca Adlington sports centre from half the town are get taken by motor vehicle, push your bike for 10-15 minutes through town, or go on the nasty urban ring road (like mini-Birmingham). Viable in winter when it gets dark early? No way.
Personally my only reason for going there would be for a bank branch which is the only one in the area. I think I have been twice in 5 years, and it is only 5 miles away.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Anyone who puts people in space is cool in my book, even if he spends too much time trolling on Twitter.
The bit that is fascinating is that, aside from the mind rot Twatter stuff, he figured out how to do business better than Boeing or LockMart. And they still haven’t woken up.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
I harangue him for being a fascist shit with a god complex. Turns out that when he called a caver a Paedo for knocking back his offer of help for the Thai cave rescue that it was an accurate reflection of his personal failings, rather than a one-off.
But he has done impressive work with Tesla and SpaceX.
A good biography would be interesting. Know anyone who might be interested?
RIP Schengen. Born 26th March 1995. Died 10th September 2024. No flowers.
If a bit of derogation from FoM could have been in place in 2016, just as it is possible to derogate from Schengen, Brexit would never have happened. It's quite possible that over the next 10 years the EU will become somethinbg like the thing we thought we had joined all those years ago.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
I doubt he'll offer to replace the reoffender in the dock, no. Surprised you'd even raise that as a possibility.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Anyone who puts people in space is cool in my book, even if he spends too much time trolling on Twitter.
The bit that is fascinating is that, aside from the mind rot Twatter stuff, he figured out how to do business better than Boeing or LockMart. And they still haven’t woken up.
Boeing are just happy they got that large piece of space junk back down in one piece from the ISS.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, is the clear winner in the latest ConservativeHome survey of Tory members into how well they think shadow cabinet ministers are peforming
Guardian blog
Membership are going to be pretty angry if Jenrick stitches this up so they dont have Kemi in the final two to vote for aren't they?
It isn't possible to stitch her up as long as 41 MPs solidly back her. If she doesn't have the 41, then she should not be in the frame for leader.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
I harangue him for being a fascist shit with a god complex. Turns out that when he called a caver a Paedo for knocking back his offer of help for the Thai cave rescue that it was an accurate reflection of his personal failings, rather than a one-off.
But he has done impressive work with Tesla and SpaceX.
A good biography would be interesting. Know anyone who might be interested?
"Elon Musk", by Walter Isaacson, maybe?
He has a slightly poor grasp of technical stuff and why stuff actually happened, but gives an overall picture.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
I harangue him for being a fascist shit with a god complex. Turns out that when he called a caver a Paedo for knocking back his offer of help for the Thai cave rescue that it was an accurate reflection of his personal failings, rather than a one-off.
But he has done impressive work with Tesla and SpaceX.
A good biography would be interesting. Know anyone who might be interested?
"Elon Musk", by Walter Isaacson, maybe?
He has a slightly poor grasp of technical stuff and why stuff actually happened, but gives an overall picture.
Or Ashle Vance's earlier book.
Though both are somewhat tainted by the need for access.
(Musk's reaction to the few criticisms in Vance's book were very telling. The hagiography wasn't hagiographical enough.)
Survation brings despair for Scottish independence
Researchers at Survation spoke to 1,021 people in Scotland eligible to vote in a survey commissioned by the campaign group Scotland in Union.
They were questioned between between August 27 and 29 and, according to the poll, both the SNP and Scottish Labour are on 28 per cent support in the constituency vote among likely voters.
Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour Party enjoys a one-point lead over John Swinney’s SNP at 25 per cent and 24 per cent respectively in the regional list vote.
The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, landed on 6 per cent support in constituencies and 9 per cent in the regional list, the Scottish Lib Dems had 9 per cent in both areas and Alba recorded 1 per cent in the constituencies and 2 per cent in the regions...
....the Tories would win just 11 per cent of votes on the proportional regional list, which is where most of their MSPs were returned in the 2021 Scottish parliament election.
Reform would win 8 per cent, which would result in the party gaining a handful of seats despite having next to no campaigning presence north of the border.
In constituency votes, the Conservative share would halve to 11 per cent while Reform would jump to 9 per cent....
The poll also sought to assess the level of support for Scottish independence as the ten-year anniversary of the referendum in 2014 approaches....
...The 2014 question asked was, “should Scotland be an independent country?” with 55 per cent answering “no” and 45 per cent “yes”.
According to today's Press and Journal among "decided voters" the figures are 59% "no" and 41% "yes". Wonder if they have got that right? Must be biggest margin for a long, long time if correct.
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Letby’s conviction is unsafe, says Boris Johnson’s former science adviser Evidence presented to the jury was so flawed as to make it not a fair trial, argues James Phillips ... “It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/ (£££)
Not in a position to read this. If anyone does, please let us know if the article contains anything that could properly be described as an argument based on the actual evidence.
Thanks. Nothing new. He even relies on the fact that there is no smoking gun, and that several cumulative threads of evidence are used as if that makes it unsafe. he assumes that scientists come to false conclusions quite easily and ignores the fact that the defence didn't call their own expert evidence. He is highly misleading on the statistics question. He claims there are several 'grounds' for an appeal, but cannot produce a sentence or short paragraph as an instance. All the critics fall down on the issue of focussing their points precisely.
But he's a neuroscientist, so presumably not a specialist statistician? As I understand it, statisticians are also unhappy. And it is a journalistic piece summarised and partly quoted rather than an op-ed essay.
In a journalistic piece you put, very simply, your best points. Your best points are the bulls eye objections, the ones which render it clear to the reader that you have a specific point or points in the face of a series of convictions after a 10 month trial. This is lacking, and is lacking generally in the ctirics I have read, including the oft cited New Yorker article.
Comments
- Oysters
- Cycle lanes
- Tank museum
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1287002/income-needed-to-buy-a-home-canada/#:~:text=Income needed to afford to,in Canada 2023, by city&text=Prospective homebuyers in Vancouver, British,was approximately 237,000 Canadian dollars.
You can have two of time, budget and features. Not all three.
I've been a listener to a large majority of them, and it has been consistently interesting and thought provoking.
I'm no Telegraph fan, as is clear. David Knowles will be desperately missed.
Short tribute video from the podcast team:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRJfQwlppa4
Oh well
The Letby rota evidence is merely evidence that she was in the relevant place at the relevant time. This is factual, not statistical. The trial is the place to argue about accuracy etc.
I'm a bit envious.
As an oddity check out Point Roberts. A tiny peninsula of the US stuck onto the southern suburbs of Vancouver. It's bizarre.
The train journey from Vancouver to Banff is one of the greatest in the world.
They do have a lot of homeless. It's the only city in Canada you can survive the winter on the streets, so it collects a huge number from far and wide.
The FBI agent in charge in NYC, was a traitor.
https://x.com/rr_edmonds/status/1833154329181855758
Pure coincidence, of course.
Like so many others, I also watched and listened to a lot of the Telegraph Ukraine podcasts over the past 30 months. Very informative.
I do enjoy cities that fulfil the stereotype. Particularly fun to discover that yes Tokyo is indeed full of sleep-deprived salarymen in suits trooping off to get drunk and sing karaoke before returning to their desks, Delhi does actually have brown dusty air and kids do play cricket on dusty patches of grass, Geneva is indeed reserved and unfriendly and full of adverts for watches, and you can’t move in Edinburgh in summer for bagpipers in kilts outside shops selling woollen clothing.
(there's also an island there, I think, a rather lush and affluent one where Harry and Meghan lived for a while)
But this evening gone I had a nice fruity IPA on the waterfront (where the seaplanes dock!) and the barman was an Irish guy. From cork. We got talking and I asked him if it was all as lovely as it looked and he said “YES! It really is! It’s fantastic”
He told me he’d been in the city a couple of years so he’d had time to become disenchanted. But he wasn’t
Perhaps this is one of the better achievements of the British empire. Protecting Vancouver and BC from covetous Americans. Thereby saving it from guns and persistent slavery, and making it one of the most liveable and desirable cities on earth
Some places are nice to live in.
Some places are neither.
Some places are both - this is the interesting group.
There are common features - nice restaurants, interesting museums, pretty countryside are advantages to both those who live there and those who visit.
But for a place to be liveable it really needs affordable housing, plentiful jobs and functioning public services.
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
They have the constraints that generally match - intellectually curious, financially usually somewhat constrained, very well-qualified academically, cultured, varied interests, exposed to a wide cross-section of life, often plan well in advance with the time to think about it.
In my area of North Notts / Derbys it tends to be Newark or Matlock afaics, rather than say Southwell.
How would others identify these places? I'd say housing and perhaps jobs are the tough criteria. I'd add Whitby but housing prices may have run away there by now.
Its also a LOT cheaper than the USA, presumably due to a weaker currency etc?
And yes as soon as I got out of my car in central Couver I thought “ahhh, safe”. You can tell these things instantly
Indeed there should be a special PB word for that as well: “the instant sense, on arrival, of detecting whether a particular place is safe or unsafe”
I have a quite a refined version of this sense (from all my travels, you gain it inevitably). I believe it might have saved me serious trouble a couple of times
Alex Salmond
@AlexSalmond
For any independence supporter to trust a single word the BBC, or associated organisation, say is one of the great mistakes in life. The BBC’s venomous and institutional bias against Scottish independence was demonstrated during the referendum and remains to this day (1/8)
https://x.com/AlexSalmond/status/1833430271313535352
https://x.com/spacex/status/1833358277805039800
This might look more familiar ?
There have been a few murmurings in the press recently. Maybe things are coming to a head.
Alex Salmond
@AlexSalmond
And so when I was invited to take part in a “blue chip” history of the rise of the SNP by Firecrest Films for the BBC, I should have smelled a rat immediately, instead of believing the assurances that they willingly gave, that they were intent on making serious programming (2/8)
10:00 am · 10 Sep 2024
'It'll be different this time' said every sucker born.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
Having been here all of 12 hours, and therefore entitled to speak with great authority, Vancouver feels like a North American version of Sydney or Melbourne
Born 26th March 1995.
Died 10th September 2024.
No flowers.
The only notable exception I can think of was Andrew Neil, a well-briefed working-class Scot not lacking in confidence , who in the one interview he secured did give Nicola a pretty torrid time.
That said, Eck may have a point with this documentary. But, let's face it, the Indy crowd are a bag of ferrets at the moment. So no wonder he isn't happy with the contributions of his rivals.
Guardian blog
Membership are going to be pretty angry if Jenrick stitches this up so they dont have Kemi in the final two to vote for aren't they?
If Badenoch could convince enough Tory MPs to support her I'm sure she'd be tempted to play a few games with lending support to other candidates to engineer her favoured match-up for the member's vote.
Alas, that crucial ingredient for winning a popularity contest - popularity - appears to be missing.
As Tory leadership contenders go, I have a bit more time for Badenoch than others because she's shown a few flashes of saying interesting things and having original thoughts. But no-one likes a whiny loser.
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
(My photo quota. This van looks to be a couple of metres too tall).
Hundreds of prisoners starting to be released early in England and Wales, as probation chief warns there are risks some will reoffend
It is easy to see how a jury might draw such an inference if that is all the evidence that they are given. If, on the other hand, evidence was led that showed that these events also occurred on occasions when the accused was not present two alternative inferences could be drawn. Firstly, these events, although desperately sad and unfortunate, are not "suspicious" at all. Secondly, even if they were "suspicious" the causal connection to the accused is simply not made out.
This brings us back to the decision of the defence not to lead that evidence. Again, from experience, it seems unlikely that they would have made that choice had the evidence was indeed that these events were as likely to occur when the accused was not there as when she was. At best, they might have shown that not every occurrence of such an event took place when Letby was there but that a significant percentage of them did, something they might have considered to be unhelpful.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/lithium-mining-boom-northeast-texas/
...Burba developed a third way, called direct lithium extraction, in 1995. In DLE, brine is pumped through cylinders made of a fiber-reinforced polymer and filled with crystalline granules slightly larger than grains of sand. Lithium ions get stuck, much like contaminants in an ordinary water filter, but the granules release the prized metal when the cylinder is flushed with fresh water. The process takes less than an hour to extract lithium that would otherwise take months or years to mine or to concentrate through evaporation, and it doesn’t ruin large stretches of land or pollute millions of gallons of water.
In the nineties, Burba designed and built the first DLE plant, in a place ominously called Hombre Muerto, in Argentina. The plant remains in operation today, although DLE didn’t immediately take off because global lithium demand at the time was satisfied by existing mines and evaporation ponds. But as the need for batteries has soared, so has interest in new lithium sources. Last year the financial giant Goldman Sachs called DLE “a potential game changing technology.”
Over the years, to test his invention, Burba has evaluated brine samples from fifty locations around the world. “Most are crap,” he says, relaxing in jeans and black alligator boots in a large house with vaulted ceilings outside Atlanta, a small town a thirty-minute drive south of Texarkana. The brine containing the most lithium he’s found in North America, rivaling the best in the world, lies beneath a one-hundred-mile swath of northeast Texas and southern Arkansas. It’s a mostly rural area of soaring pines and muddy bayous. Burba’s home, where he and Carol moved in 2021 to be nearer her aging parents, sits smack in the middle of it...
During the testing of the New Routemaster Bus, the driver drove until the diesel tank was dry. Ignoring several alarms. He then drove it until the battery ran down as well. Which set off another alarm as it drained.
He complained afterwards about the noise from the alarms….
It's much harder for them to go back, and the pressure for other countries to follow suit will be strong. The Dutch may be next.
I'm disappointed, but this is what happens when people don't advocate for freedoms. They get taken away.
This is politicalhysteria.com, after all. You might hurt someone’s ignorant prejudices feelings…
Your average Luton van is 12’ tall, possibly 11’6” on a good day. How on Earth does it end up anywhere near a 9’ bridge in the first place? Would love to see the police report, and the driver’s subsequent discussions with his insurance company! I suspect he’ll be paying for his own repairs to the truck.
There’s a famous bridge in the US, called the 11’8” bridge for the obvious reason, where someone set up a webcam pointing at it because so many trucks thought they could squeeze under. They even put a height sensor up the road, with traffic lights and a flashing “over height, must turn” sign - yet STILL trucks hit the bridge on a regular basis.
https://youtube.com/@11foot8plus8
Hence literature.
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often
“uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
In the case of brain failure the lights changed and I was the first car turning right at a major junction (3 lanes in each direction) so I just went straight across the 3 lanes of oncoming traffic (why I don't know). I wasn't being a boy racer. I just reacted to the lights changing and went, nice and calmly. On the inside lane of the oncoming traffic was a police car who naturally followed me and stopped me. He shouted at me for about 10 minutes, then probably realised he was dealing with a moron and let me go.
One of the other times I got stopped by a police car was for reading while driving. I was trying to find a house from the estate agents details and was lost and I occasionally glanced down at the details. He asked what would have happened if someone had been crossing the pelican crossing. I thought it wise not to say 'What pelican crossing?'.
The other instance was speeding, which I was because I was late.
The last 2 were deliberate and dangerous and I should have known better. I guess the brain failure is driving without due care and attention, but I am not sure any punishment can stop that happening, although I could easily have caused an accident. We all do daft things without thinking.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-july-2022-to-september-2022/proven-reoffending-statistics-july-to-september-2022
Did you bump in to Big G? (I've no idea which part of the northern part of the Big Country he resides in)
But it does have lower unemployment and more affordable housing than London.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/datasets/claimantcountbyparliamentaryconstituencyexperimental
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
It has a theatre, and an art college, a good town centre shopping precinct and other retail, decent sports centre, decent public transport, nice parks, good walking rail trails if nothing done recently, good adventure centre which is a county resource, Sherwood Pines outdoor centre, decent museum last time I was there, Light Rail after 25 years with no station, lots of new housing, some good businesses, decent routes to elsewhere, and various other facilities, but that controlling group had no imagination. For a town of 75k it is pithed. There is now some investment happening, but as I say it will take some time.
The town centre is walkable, but they put a blanket ban on cycling in a big part of the town centre in around 2017, and it took a High Court action from Cycling UK in support of 5 local complainants to make them back down even slightly, after afaics a single nothing incident - a couple of kids doing wheelies on normal cycles round the market on one Saturday afternoon.
So kids wanting to go to the Rebecca Adlington sports centre from half the town are get taken by motor vehicle, push your bike for 10-15 minutes through town, or go on the nasty urban ring road (like mini-Birmingham). Viable in winter when it gets dark early? No way.
Personally my only reason for going there would be for a bank branch which is the only one in the area. I think I have been twice in 5 years, and it is only 5 miles away.
But he has done impressive work with Tesla and SpaceX.
A good biography would be interesting. Know anyone who might be interested?
Us Lewis fans could dare to dream that he’d have ended up designing red cars next year. 🏎️
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/coed-felenrhyd-llennyrch/
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
He has a slightly poor grasp of technical stuff and why stuff actually happened, but gives an overall picture.
Though both are somewhat tainted by the need for access.
(Musk's reaction to the few criticisms in Vance's book were very telling. The hagiography wasn't hagiographical enough.)
Realisation dawned when I heard the rumour Alonso wanted to go to Red Bull. He's a great driver but horrendous when it comes to picking teams.
2026 could be interesting, and Alonso might just stick around.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.