Unlike the Grand Old Duke of York, President Trump marched his investors down to the bottom of the market and has now marched them back up again.
Apart from being a waste of time, money and effort as the markets will probably end up back where they started (no doubt some have made a right killing), has this been a demonstration of weakness or a display of power?
I suspect the answer is both and neither. Opponents and Supporters will no doubt argue ad nauseam the virtue of their side of the argument.
I’m not sure such periods of instability work to anyone’s benefit.
In any negotiation the real question is what does the counterparty think? MAGA can believe this was a display of power all they like. It doesn't matter to the counterparty (everyone who isn't America).
MAGA can think whatever it likes about the brilliance of their guy and their play. The counterparty thinks "these guys are crazy" and acts accordingly. What really winds Trump up is people laughing at him. Must be unfortunate to have so many counterparties doing precisely that.
Firstly, the crisis is not over, it s delayed. The world´s two largest trading powers are locked in an arm wrestle, and the Americans, by alienating their own allies, are in the weaker position. The stated policy goals of the Trump are unachievable, but even if they were, they are not desirable.
The core fundamentals of the American market have been damaged: stability, the rule of law, lack of corruption, executability of all contracts, even Dollar liquidity- all of these have been called into question over the past week. Then US soft power- the brands, innovation leadership- has also been weakened to the point that consumers around the world are boycotting American products. The rest of the planet now increasingly views the United States as a hostile power, not a leader of the "free world".
All of this has implications that last way beyond the result of one trading session, all of them imply a lower valuation for US assets across the board. The US has endured systemic threats before of course, but not at a time when the financial fundamentals were so weak, nor when there are so many credible alternatives to US financial and economic hegemony.
The most obvious problem in the short/medium term is that the market turmoil triggered a flight from the Dollar. The implications of that for the USD is that it is no longer considered an automatic safe haven. If Trump had not paused his policy yesterday, then the Treasury market would have faced a meltdown and the Dollar would have collapsed. As it is, I believe the "exorbitant privilege" is unsustainable, and increasingly contracts may be settled in EUR (or, to a limited extent in CNY, unless the Chinese move to convertibility).
This week of chaos has dramatically damaged the reputation of the Americans and, although there may be a pause, the reality is that a significant discount now needs to be priced in. That discount may now come in a somewhat more orderly fashion, than in a market crash, but asset allocation to the US will need to take account of the higher risks.
I pointed out the significant headwinds on several US tech valuations a few weeks ago, but the prices are still firmly a Sell. That seems true of the whole US industrial equity market, especially while the tariff position remains unclear. The US bond market should be in principle a hold/weak buy, but the Fed now faces huge problems with potential USD instability, so I would be reluctant to predict anything more than a weak rally there. Trump´s threats to the Fed have been damaged systemic confidence too and so scope for rate cuts is pretty limited.
In a way the US hit the iceberg this week. The fundamental damage is done, but the ship is settling rather than capsizing. Nevertheless at whatever speed, an increasing discount is now going to happen. The only question is the speed and the timing. More to the point, with Trump and his moronic cronies still on the bridge, the US could try to ram the iceberg for a second time.
It's not clear that the tariffs *have* been paused, by the way. Trump's word is not (yet) law and there's no published Executive Order amending the previous rates yet.
You'd assume that there probably will be, at some time today - presumably it was all so on-the-fly yesterday they didn't have time to draft it with sufficient rigour - but I wouldn't like to be an importer taking delivery of something at a dock right now. Indeed, I'd be inclined not to if legally the import duty is, say, 30%+ right now but will probably be 10% in a few hours.
But really, how is anyone supposed to be doing trade amid the constant yo-yo-ing of tariffs? Maybe that's part of the plan, although pretty daft if so. But then Trump is daft on this. Businesses need stability and assurance to have the confidence to invest and spend. There can be none in the US right now.
Trump is all about dominating the news and maximising his personal power amidst the ensuing chaos. There's no underlying geopolitical or foreign policy or macroeconomic strategy.
Saw my first hedgehog for a long time this morning (before dawn).
They are plentiful around here, Morris.
My dogs are fascinated by them, and like to pick them up by the prickles and give them a good shaking. This does neither much good.
Haven't seen one for a few years since we found one drowning in our fishpond. Got it out, tried to revive it and contacted the local Hedgehog Rescue people but it died.
Please tell me they came round in a hedgehog shaped van with prickles and blue lights going "nee-naw" that screeched to a halt outside the house?
I hope you appreciated the Star Trek reference in the header.
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
An uncle of mine lost a leg in Normandy in 1944 and was fitted with a prosthetic. He found he wore out shoes unequally and, IIRC, was directed by the British Legion to a firm in Northamptonshire which made shoes in threes for ex-soldiers like him. Bit of a nuisance having to use a firm 100 miles away, but he put up with it.
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
I would argue that journeys are fairly equally consisted of odd and even number of steps, but we generally start with the right, so the right shoe gets more wear. This is exacerbated by frequent short journeys, much less a factor in long walks.
If you consciously try to start with your left foot the problem should reverse.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
During the Coalition there was a remark in the Spectator (before it went insane) about how classic liberalism was too small for a separate party and would be better employed as a pressure group influencing nodes within other parties. I'm not sure it was wrong.
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
Reading the article about the Asylum seeker hotel in Windsor in The Times yesterday, it hit me that the small boats really are the crack cocaine of the immigration debate. They’re everything that people who are wary of mass immigration fear, crystallised into one short, sharp hit.
A decade ago, the bogeyman cliche of immigration was six Eastern European men sharing a suburban semi and working on a local building site. Not horrific, but no family really wants to live next to a revolving cast of temporary workers, the foreign element is low down on the list of complaints really. That is nothing compared to 50-60 men under 30, from war torn countries, with completely different cultural attitudes, living in a guest house & hanging around small villages day & night. Because it hasn’t happened where I live yet, I’d never really thought about it, but if a block of flats/hotel near here, a small family oriented village, were used for that purpose it would literally ruin people’s lives.
A PPB from Reform showing/re-enacting the Windsor Hotel case would be pretty effective I think
In my peregrinations around the UK I used to live near Slough so I've been to Datchet. It is full of upper-class, upper-middle-class and generally well-off people. The culture shock must have been pretty big.
I can imagine it was
The Tory MP has managed to get that one closed by the end of May, but it will only shift the problem onto some other unsuspecting town. I reckon most people think about ‘small boats’ as some kind of abstract problem, but when it hits their town or village it would consume them
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
I would argue that journeys are fairly equally consisted of odd and even number of steps, but we generally start with the right, so the right shoe gets more wear. This is exacerbated by frequent short journeys, much less a factor in long walks.
If you consciously try to start with your left foot the problem should reverse.
My oldest trainers are showing slightly more wear on the left. I would put it down to mechanics - differences in footfall/gait. It might not be general extra wear, but just a spot effect. It may be the rest of the "worn" shoe is actually experiencing less wear, but you won't notice that, just the small spot that is experiencing more wear so much so that it wears a hole.
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
I would argue that journeys are fairly equally consisted of odd and even number of steps, but we generally start with the right, so the right shoe gets more wear. This is exacerbated by frequent short journeys, much less a factor in long walks.
If you consciously try to start with your left foot the problem should reverse.
My oldest trainers are showing slightly more wear on the left. I would put it down to mechanics - differences in footfall/gait. It might not be general extra wear, but just a spot effect. It may be the rest of the "worn" shoe is actually experiencing less wear, but you won't notice that, just the small spot that is experiencing more wear so much so that it wears a hole.
And as I pointed out in a previous post, my left foot is slightly larger than my right, which will change how it fits in the shoe. As we will all have two different sized (and shaped) feet, it will change how each foot fits in and "uses" the shoe.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
During the Coalition there was a remark in the Spectator (before it went insane) about how classic liberalism was too small for a separate party and would be better employed as a pressure group influencing nodes within other parties. I'm not sure it was wrong.
Under FPTP certainly, only PR would make a classical liberal party viable enough to win significant numbers of MPs
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Partly fuelled by concerns over rugby injuries but state school educated pupils have dominated the top ranks of football in the UK so good to see private schools see a gap in the market in a high earning field for the best performers. The average Premier League footballer earns twenty times what the PM earns for instance and wages on a par with a FTSE 100 company CEO
The skyscraper boom in Manc shows no sign of slowing, the last 30 years of economic success in the city should be far bigger news and something that should be tried to be replicated elsewhere.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
During the Coalition there was a remark in the Spectator (before it went insane) about how classic liberalism was too small for a separate party and would be better employed as a pressure group influencing nodes within other parties. I'm not sure it was wrong.
Under FPTP certainly, only PR would make a classical liberal party viable enough to win significant numbers of MPs
This certainly seems to be the case in Germany, with the FDP getting ±5%
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
It is said that theft from the docks was once so bad that left shoes were exported through Hull and right shoes from Bristol. Move to Hull. (Though I've not been able to stand up this story, btw.)
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
What time will the market wake up to that reality??
People talk about meme stocks (like Tesla where the value appears completely disconnected from reality), but we seem to be seeing the emergence of a meme market, where what the value is meant to represent has become very hard to explain. "The market is up because only half of businesses will be destroyed not all of them."
The skyscraper boom in Manc shows no sign of slowing, the last 30 years of economic success in the city should be far bigger news and something that should be tried to be replicated elsewhere.
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
Are you right handed? Thinking more load on the right foot when walking if you're carrying something of moderate weight, e.g. bin bag, tools, watering can?
Reading the article about the Asylum seeker hotel in Windsor in The Times yesterday, it hit me that the small boats really are the crack cocaine of the immigration debate. They’re everything that people who are wary of mass immigration fear, crystallised into one short, sharp hit.
A decade ago, the bogeyman cliche of immigration was six Eastern European men sharing a suburban semi and working on a local building site. Not horrific, but no family really wants to live next to a revolving cast of temporary workers, the foreign element is low down on the list of complaints really. That is nothing compared to 50-60 men under 30, from war torn countries, with completely different cultural attitudes, living in a guest house & hanging around small villages day & night. Because it hasn’t happened where I live yet, I’d never really thought about it, but if a block of flats/hotel near here, a small family oriented village, were used for that purpose it would literally ruin people’s lives.
A PPB from Reform showing/re-enacting the Windsor Hotel case would be pretty effective I think
In my peregrinations around the UK I used to live near Slough so I've been to Datchet. It is full of upper-class, upper-middle-class and generally well-off people. The culture shock must have been pretty big.
I can imagine it was
The Tory MP has managed to get that one closed by the end of May, but it will only shift the problem onto some other unsuspecting town. I reckon most people think about ‘small boats’ as some kind of abstract problem, but when it hits their town or village it would consume them
I wonder how many of the residents quoted in the article as saying basically "They're different, aren't they? They're bad for social cohesion" have ever assumed the best about a Muslim asylum seeker standing in front of them and bid them good morning and said something like it's hot today, isn't it.
What they probably do is try not to catch their eye and then blame them for existing in locations where they have to make an effort not to catch their eye.
Also does the shopkeeper call the police when people come into his shop and steal? Did the reporter ask him? In most places, as we all know, the police would be little help, but this isn't Margate or Mansfield - it's Datchet. They'd probably show up within a few minutes. "Show us the video. Have you seen the guy before?" etc. Probably quite easy to catch him if they know what building he lives in.
I can't believe how many of you replied to my odd shoe post. Thank you. It was just posted for fun, but I found the replies interesting, particularly about sourcing odd shoes.
I can't believe it is because of the leading foot. It might be I suppose. I assumed it was due to uneven use of the legs e.g. like cycling where one leg puts in more effort than the other, although I am not aware that I walk particularly oddly.
The skyscraper boom in Manc shows no sign of slowing, the last 30 years of economic success in the city should be far bigger news and something that should be tried to be replicated elsewhere.
I’m in a three whore town looking for decent red wine. Locals in traditional mountain dress and embroidered silk hats gaze curiously at Grey Goose vodka
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
Reading the article about the Asylum seeker hotel in Windsor in The Times yesterday, it hit me that the small boats really are the crack cocaine of the immigration debate. They’re everything that people who are wary of mass immigration fear, crystallised into one short, sharp hit.
A decade ago, the bogeyman cliche of immigration was six Eastern European men sharing a suburban semi and working on a local building site. Not horrific, but no family really wants to live next to a revolving cast of temporary workers, the foreign element is low down on the list of complaints really. That is nothing compared to 50-60 men under 30, from war torn countries, with completely different cultural attitudes, living in a guest house & hanging around small villages day & night. Because it hasn’t happened where I live yet, I’d never really thought about it, but if a block of flats/hotel near here, a small family oriented village, were used for that purpose it would literally ruin people’s lives.
A PPB from Reform showing/re-enacting the Windsor Hotel case would be pretty effective I think
In my peregrinations around the UK I used to live near Slough so I've been to Datchet. It is full of upper-class, upper-middle-class and generally well-off people. The culture shock must have been pretty big.
I can imagine it was
The Tory MP has managed to get that one closed by the end of May, but it will only shift the problem onto some other unsuspecting town. I reckon most people think about ‘small boats’ as some kind of abstract problem, but when it hits their town or village it would consume them
I wonder how many of the residents quoted in the article as saying basically "They're different, aren't they? They're bad for social cohesion" have ever assumed the best about a Muslim asylum seeker standing in front of them and bid them good morning and said something like it's hot today, isn't it.
What they probably do is try not to catch their eye and then blame them for existing in locations where they have to make an effort not to catch their eye.
Also does the shopkeeper call the police when people come into his shop and steal? Did the reporter ask him? In most places, as we all know, the police would be little help, but this isn't Margate or Mansfield - it's Datchet. They'd probably show up within a few minutes. "Show us the video. Have you seen the guy before?" etc. Probably quite easy to catch him if they know what building he lives in.
You seem as blinkered as you think the people you are casting aspersions on are.
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
Are you right handed? Thinking more load on the right foot when walking if you're carrying something of moderate weight, e.g. bin bag, tools, watering can?
Left handed, although because it is a right handed world I do many things right handed.
Squash, writing, eating my pudding, wearing a watch (on right hand) I am left handed (and many things more)
Playing cards, scissors, peelers, eating my main course I am right handed.
Of course when I grew up left handed or ambidextrous playing cards, scissors, peelers didn't exist. They do today. If they had I would probably stayed left handed
Saw my first hedgehog for a long time this morning (before dawn).
They are plentiful around here, Morris.
My dogs are fascinated by them, and like to pick them up by the prickles and give them a good shaking. This does neither much good.
Haven't seen one for a few years since we found one drowning in our fishpond. Got it out, tried to revive it and contacted the local Hedgehog Rescue people but it died.
I saw a dead badger on the side of the road while I was out walking Tuesday evening.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
During the Coalition there was a remark in the Spectator (before it went insane) about how classic liberalism was too small for a separate party and would be better employed as a pressure group influencing nodes within other parties. I'm not sure it was wrong.
Under FPTP certainly, only PR would make a classical liberal party viable enough to win significant numbers of MPs
This certainly seems to be the case in Germany, with the FDP getting ±5%
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
For a marker, both LHA ROW teams and more active path checking groups for the Ramblers aim to cover every route in their areas once per annum.
For a single volunteer this might be all the paths in one or two parishes.
Here's an account from one of my favourite walking bloggers - "Campaigner Kate", who has been General Secretary (or whatever the job title is) of the Open Spaces Society since 1983 or so. Quite a character, with an interesting story of one of her early challenges to an obstruction being of having a go at a vendor who had put a marquee across a PROW at the Henley Regatta.
Here's a silly little question: I walked 6,000 miles on my coastal walk, clockwise.
How much further did my left foot walk than my right foot, given the 'circle' it walked would have been larger?
Pi times the distanced between your legs. Say three feet.
Well done to everyone who answered, who pretty much got it correct.
I have asked that question to people any times, and I've had loads of instinctive wrong answers, from zero to tens of miles. People instinctively seem to think it would be a massive distance, given the circle's perimeter is so large.
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
I have four grandchildren who have done A levels, and one who has done and another who is currently doing, IB. While the requirements for University entrance seem wider than in my day, and candidates seem to take a wider range of subjects, the IB with it's points system and General Essay seems to offer an opportunity for a wider thought.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Do you understand the vast majority of small businesses employing less than 10 people are seeing employer NI either falling or zero after the changes?
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Except that there has only been the odd local by-election since July 24 so we don't actually know. We surmise from opinion polls but that's about as far as we can go.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
Just for PB. I have numerous pairs of those plastic clogs which I use when gardening or just popping out the house, but not going anywhere eg emptying the bins.
I always wear out the right clog before the left clog (inevitably I find out when I get a wet foot). I'm not aware that I walk on one foot more than the other. Initially I kept the left clog hoping next time I would have a right clog to go with it, but all that happened was I found I had a huge collection of left clogs. The only solution would be if I could just buy right clogs (is there a business opportunity there) or find someone who has size 9 feet who wears their clogs out in the other order (again another business opportunity)
First world problems eh!
I would argue that journeys are fairly equally consisted of odd and even number of steps, but we generally start with the right, so the right shoe gets more wear. This is exacerbated by frequent short journeys, much less a factor in long walks.
If you consciously try to start with your left foot the problem should reverse.
It's more than that: many of us have very slight differences in leg length. It may be less than a centimeter, but the difference is there, and can effect gait and posture.
Also, people can have differently sized and shaped feet. Not enough to particularly notice, but which can make a difference with shoe sizing. And many of us supinate or pronate our feet.
Put all of this sort of thing together, and you get people favouring one side or the other when walking, slightly increasing wear. The 'limp' may not be noticeable, but is there.
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
My vague impression was that schools which had offered IB were switching back to A-levels.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
I have four grandchildren who have done A levels, and one who has done and another who is currently doing, IB. While the requirements for University entrance seem wider than in my day, and candidates seem to take a wider range of subjects, the IB with it's points system and General Essay seems to offer an opportunity for a wider thought.
It may well be a broader qualification and more taxing, but because it is tougher it is harder to get into University or Medical School with it.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
For a marker, both LHA ROW teams and more active path checking groups for the Ramblers aim to cover every route in their areas once per annum.
For a single volunteer this might be all the paths in one or two parishes.
Here's an account from one of my favourite walking bloggers - "Campaigner Kate", who has been General Secretary (or whatever the job title is) of the Open Spaces Society since 1983 or so. Quite a character, with an interesting story of one of her early challenges to an obstruction being of having a go at a vendor who had put a marquee across a PROW at the Henley Regatta.
That is seriously impressive! She showed far more backbone than East Sussex County Council. She must have been very brave to stand up to Hoogstraten.
Interestingly Hoogstraten connects with asylum seeker hotels. I see the Home Office's contract in respect of that hotel in Datchet is managed by Clearspring Homes, the contractor which is mentioned in this article too:
^ A much better article which talks about what goes on inside an asylum seeker hotel rather than only the experience of local residents who don't want one near them.
See also e.g. this on large numbers of children "vanishing" from an asylum hotel owned by what the Guardian describes as "a company that involves family members of the infamous (...)"
Ahmad Mamdouh Al Ibrahim, 16, was stabbed in the neck in the town centre – the second time he had been there – while being shown around by his cousin, his uncle told the Guardian.
A 20-year-old man, Alfie Franco, of Kirkburton, near Huddersfield, appeared in court on Friday charged with his murder and was remanded in custody before a further hearing next month.
Ahmad’s uncle, who he was living with in Huddersfield, said he had encouraged the boy to go out and make friends his own age after spending a lot of time with the family during Ramadan.
In the hours before his death, Ahmad had asked to see Kirklees College, where he had been enrolled, and his uncle had promised to take him later that day, he said. In the meantime his cousin offered to show him around Huddersfield town centre, including a new supermarket that sells Asian and Arabic food, and the market...
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Do you understand the vast majority of small businesses employing less than 10 people are seeing employer NI either falling or zero after the changes?
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
The median business in the UK employs more than 10 people and has been hit by the NI rise on employers and even some businesses with less than 10 people have more than £1 million in assets and will be hit by the IHT rise on family firms.
The minimum wage rise and extra employment regulations also hit very small businesses like pubs and newsagents
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
My vague impression was that schools which had offered IB were switching back to A-levels.
That was certainly the case at the school my children attended. When they joined it was a big selling point, by the time the younger one was thinking about 6th form (this was about 5 years ago now) they had stopped offering it because nobody in the outside world was really interested in it, only A-Levels mattered. Which is a shame because it is better in many ways by being less specialised.
The skyscraper boom in Manc shows no sign of slowing, the last 30 years of economic success in the city should be far bigger news and something that should be tried to be replicated elsewhere.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Do you understand the vast majority of small businesses employing less than 10 people are seeing employer NI either falling or zero after the changes?
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
The median business in the UK employs more than 10 people and has been hit by the NI rise on employers and even some businesses with less than 10 people have more than £1 million in assets and will be hit by the IHT rise on family firms.
The minimum wage rise and extra employment regulations also hit very small businesses like pubs and newsagents
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
I have four grandchildren who have done A levels, and one who has done and another who is currently doing, IB. While the requirements for University entrance seem wider than in my day, and candidates seem to take a wider range of subjects, the IB with it's points system and General Essay seems to offer an opportunity for a wider thought.
It may well be a broader qualification and more taxing, but because it is tougher it is harder to get into University or Medical School with it.
The grandchild who has done the IB is now reading Marine Biology at Melbourne. She has a couple of friends from school there, and, like all ex-sixth-formers (or year 13's) has school mates at a wide variety of Uni's. I don't think any are doing Medicine; I'll try and find out.
There are 4 local by-elections today. We have Lab defences in Haringey and Tameside, a LD defence in Sutton, and a PC defence in Gwynedd. There are peculiar features in each of them so expect surprises.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Do you understand the vast majority of small businesses employing less than 10 people are seeing employer NI either falling or zero after the changes?
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
The median business in the UK employs more than 10 people and has been hit by the NI rise on employers and even some businesses with less than 10 people have more than £1 million in assets and will be hit by the IHT rise on family firms.
The minimum wage rise and extra employment regulations also hit very small businesses like pubs and newsagents
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
The "done" mentality to tourism is truly awful.
Do they actually mark off with a red pen in their Rough Guides?
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
If I ever escape the Flatlands long enough to finish the Munros I wouldn't expect anyone to be impressed.
That's not the point, is it? I'm not doing it for anyone else.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
For a marker, both LHA ROW teams and more active path checking groups for the Ramblers aim to cover every route in their areas once per annum.
For a single volunteer this might be all the paths in one or two parishes.
Here's an account from one of my favourite walking bloggers - "Campaigner Kate", who has been General Secretary (or whatever the job title is) of the Open Spaces Society since 1983 or so. Quite a character, with an interesting story of one of her early challenges to an obstruction being of having a go at a vendor who had put a marquee across a PROW at the Henley Regatta.
That is seriously impressive! She showed far more backbone than East Sussex County Council. She must have been very brave to stand up to Hoogstraten.
Interestingly Hoogstraten connects with asylum seeker hotels. I see the Home Office's contract in respect of that hotel in Datchet is managed by Clearspring Homes, the contractor which is mentioned in this article too:
^ A much better article which talks about what goes on inside an asylum seeker hotel rather than only the experience of local residents who don't want one near them.
See also e.g. this on large numbers of children "vanishing" from an asylum hotel owned by what the Guardian describes as "a company that involves family members of the infamous (...)"
OSS are probably my second favourite charity. They are the brainboxes of access law (Ramblers are the foot soldiers), and some of their former peeps were involved in starting up the NT. They will eg find a Planning Permission from 46 or a Court Precedent from 146 years ago that means they can make a public body do something they want to forget about.
They only have 2000 members, so I'd encourage anyone to join, and a real old style termly magazine.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
The "done" mentality to tourism is truly awful.
Do they actually mark off with a red pen in their Rough Guides?
I think it depends on why you do it. If you're just ticking off the list, then that's fine, but a little boring. If you do it to go places and see things, that's another matter.
An acquaintance is a multiple-times Parkrun alphabeteer: he has done multiple parkruns beginning with every letter of the alphabet (excluding, I think X). He goes as far afield as the USA and New Zealand to do them, and the list is an *excuse* to go travelling: something he had not done much of before. He's quite a guy.
Another problem with lists is that they can vary in quality. I have not done many, but some Munros are boring, when there are much more attractive, but lower, summits or hills nearby that do not get as many visitors because they are not on the Munro list.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
The "done" mentality to tourism is truly awful.
Do they actually mark off with a red pen in their Rough Guides?
The people who I find awful are those who take a toy of some sort and insist on photographing it in situ, just to prove they've been there. One tour we were on someone insisted on placing a teddy bear in Nelson Mandela's one-time cell on Robben Island.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
If I ever escape the Flatlands long enough to finish the Munros I wouldn't expect anyone to be impressed.
That's not the point, is it? I'm not doing it for anyone else.
Quite. It's a mammoth undertaking, which thousands of other people have already achieved. Some people do it over half a century, others in just a few weeks.
The benefit of ticking things off is it brings you to parts of the UK that you wouldn't visit otherwise. I've now moved onto Corbetts and the National Cycle Network and continue to find pockets of beauty and peace.
In the next few years I hope to complete the Furths. I've done relatively little walking in Wales and Ireland, yet this simple goal will provide me the structure to do so.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
The "done" mentality to tourism is truly awful.
Do they actually mark off with a red pen in their Rough Guides?
The people who I find awful are those who take a toy of some sort and insist on photographing it in situ, just to prove they've been there. One tour we were on someone insisted on placing a teddy bear in Nelson Mandela's one-time cell on Robben Island.
It can sometimes be fun. There was a woman who had a foot amputated, had the skin and tissue removed, and takes the skeleton of her foot on her travels with her. I also know of a man who goes on long walks, taking a little capsule containing his first wife's ashes with him, so she can visit the places she never got the opportunity to go. He sends photos to their kids and grandkids.
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Do you understand the vast majority of small businesses employing less than 10 people are seeing employer NI either falling or zero after the changes?
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
The median business in the UK employs more than 10 people and has been hit by the NI rise on employers and even some businesses with less than 10 people have more than £1 million in assets and will be hit by the IHT rise on family firms.
The minimum wage rise and extra employment regulations also hit very small businesses like pubs and newsagents
5.5m businesses with 0-9 employees 350k businesses with 10+ employees
Which is the larger voting bloc of business owners.....
No business owner is immune from the NI rise for employers and as I said even the smallest business is hit by the rising minimum wage costs and extra employment regulations
The EU has just made its choice: they will suspend the retaliatory tariffs that were approved yesterday - by 90 days.
But let's be clear here: the 25% 🇺🇸steel/aluminium tariffs that these 🇪🇺tariffs were retaliating against are *not* being paused. They're already being levied.
The EU will therefor accept the 25% tariff on steel-aluminium exports to the US that started in March and will not retaliate. The reason is because they are afraid the White House will misconstrue yesterday's retaliatory tariff vote as being about the 'Liberation Day' extra 10% of tariffs on the EU which he has paused. The fault lies with national EU governments who delayed the steel/aluminium response for so long that the vote coincidentally (and unhelpfully) fell on the day that the Liberation Day tariffs took effect.
So this is how things stand right now:
🇺🇸👊🇪🇺 tariffs: 25% on steel/aluminium 25% on automobiles 10% on everything else
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
I have four grandchildren who have done A levels, and one who has done and another who is currently doing, IB. While the requirements for University entrance seem wider than in my day, and candidates seem to take a wider range of subjects, the IB with it's points system and General Essay seems to offer an opportunity for a wider thought.
It may well be a broader qualification and more taxing, but because it is tougher it is harder to get into University or Medical School with it.
The grandchild who has done the IB is now reading Marine Biology at Melbourne. She has a couple of friends from school there, and, like all ex-sixth-formers (or year 13's) has school mates at a wide variety of Uni's. I don't think any are doing Medicine; I'll try and find out.
While I think off-topic thoughts, the crime writer A A Dhand is the guest on Countdown this week and said his new book will be about a pharmacist.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
"Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions"
You mean the cross-over from the fast lines to the slow lines?
Now you are getting desperate with your yellow pen!
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to walk England's entire Public Footpath network?
It'd be next to impossible. There are apparently 140,000 miles or RoW (fp's and bridleways) in E&W. In a year's solid walking, I did 6,000 miles with only a handful of days off. So you're talking a couple of decades of solid walking. But the worse thing is it'd be more than that, as there are loads of dead-ends or paths where there is no economic routes you can take without 'wasting' loads of miles. Then there are sections of paths that are not actually accessible, like the one through Alton Towers I mentioned yesterday, or the old flood banks to the east of Snape Maltings in Suffolk.
I've walked nearly 20,000 miles in the UK (from memory...) and there are entire cities I have yet to visit.
Locally, I have run nearly every path and road in a diamond between Cambridge, Royston, Sandy and Huntingdon - excepting the M11 and stretches of dual carriageway with no pavement. There was a vast amount of road running in that, but there are many, many paths and bridleways in an area that is not exactly famed for access.
I thought the same in terms of the near impossibility of walking the whole footpath network.
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Thanks. And not bad considering, when I was thirteen or so, I was told I'd never walk properly again!
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
I make it 30k steps per day for 50 years. Assuming 100% efficiency.
(Snip)
The problem is that you also knacker your body. I walked, on average, 18 miles a day, and after a year I had a series of niggles that really needed a period of rest. I could have walked on - we considered my walking down to Hull and getting a ferry across to Holland to do the European coast, but I was in need of a rest. I was also mentally exhausted.
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
As a fomer chairman of a National Park Authority I suspect it might just about be manageable to walk the entire Rights of Way network within a single national park. No doubt someone will now say they have "done" all the UK National Parks. And "done" them is all they would have done. It is like the people who tick off all the Monroes in Scotland and are surprised others are not impressed.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
The "done" mentality to tourism is truly awful.
Do they actually mark off with a red pen in their Rough Guides?
The people who I find awful are those who take a toy of some sort and insist on photographing it in situ, just to prove they've been there. One tour we were on someone insisted on placing a teddy bear in Nelson Mandela's one-time cell on Robben Island.
It can sometimes be fun. There was a woman who had a foot amputated, had the skin and tissue removed, and takes the skeleton of her foot on her travels with her. I also know of a man who goes on long walks, taking a little capsule containing his first wife's ashes with him, so she can visit the places she never got the opportunity to go. He sends photos to their kids and grandkids.
Max Dowman of Arsenal, supposedly the next big thing, is at Brentwood private school
Brentwood is infested with fee-paying schools. Makes getting into the town at 8.30am and 4pm in term-time a nightmare. Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
I only know of the one. At senior level anyway. My kids are likely to go to… the Anglo European!!
Excellent reputation, or at least always used to have. Easier to get in and out of Ingatestone, too.
Also does the International Baccalaureate which seems to me a better bet than A levels, which can be too restrictive.
Yes, a lot of people think offering the IB is a big bonus for the school.
I have four grandchildren who have done A levels, and one who has done and another who is currently doing, IB. While the requirements for University entrance seem wider than in my day, and candidates seem to take a wider range of subjects, the IB with it's points system and General Essay seems to offer an opportunity for a wider thought.
It may well be a broader qualification and more taxing, but because it is tougher it is harder to get into University or Medical School with it.
The grandchild who has done the IB is now reading Marine Biology at Melbourne. She has a couple of friends from school there, and, like all ex-sixth-formers (or year 13's) has school mates at a wide variety of Uni's. I don't think any are doing Medicine; I'll try and find out.
While I think off-topic thoughts, the crime writer A A Dhand is the guest on Countdown this week and said his new book will be about a pharmacist.
I wonder if he'll (possibly incorrect assumption) be the hero or villain! I have an acquaintance who would automatically assume the latter.
The EU has just made its choice: they will suspend the retaliatory tariffs that were approved yesterday - by 90 days.
But let's be clear here: the 25% 🇺🇸steel/aluminium tariffs that these 🇪🇺tariffs were retaliating against are *not* being paused. They're already being levied.
The EU will therefor accept the 25% tariff on steel-aluminium exports to the US that started in March and will not retaliate. The reason is because they are afraid the White House will misconstrue yesterday's retaliatory tariff vote as being about the 'Liberation Day' extra 10% of tariffs on the EU which he has paused. The fault lies with national EU governments who delayed the steel/aluminium response for so long that the vote coincidentally (and unhelpfully) fell on the day that the Liberation Day tariffs took effect.
So this is how things stand right now:
🇺🇸👊🇪🇺 tariffs: 25% on steel/aluminium 25% on automobiles 10% on everything else
She’s coming across as very angry and irritated on BBC Breakfast.
Isn't that just her being awake? She's always angry and irritated when asked questions. Don't they know who She is? Don't they know how brilliant She is?
I think very few are giving attention to the Tories at the moment. One Nationers are either in despair or hoping for something from Lab/LD, the less thoughtful are either for Reform or have given up on politics altogether in favour of something more sensible like daytime television or growing potatoes.
What the Tories need to do is rethink themselves. They can't out Reform Reform, what they can do is command attention by the top quality of their contribution to public policy, attention to underlying principle. They need 15-20 people who are both extremely intelligent and presentable prepared to do this on the media for years so that when the centre ground voter is ready to receive them again, they are in place.
So far, the populists are useless, and the thoughtful are invisible or dull. So the field is clear for a new generation.
Yup. I'm not a conservative and even I can see a gaping hole for a pro-business pro-capitalism give people responsibility and more freedom political platform. Its astonishing that the Tories can't.
In what way aren't they? Kemi opposed the tax rises on business owners and farmers and wants to reduce regulation and spend less.
Though of course your platform sounds remarkably like Clegg's LDs in 2015 who got a resounding 8% of the vote, so don't overestimate the support for pro business, small state, socially liberal parties either
Deluded.
No factual, elections have proved that parties which are pro business, pro small state, socially liberal and pro immigration have a ceiling of about 10% of the vote. As they are too rightwing economically for the left and too liberal socially for the traditional right
It was directed at your lack of comprehension of what the Conservative party represents to business owners, especially given you dedicate so much of your time supporting the party, rather than your view on the LD ceiling.
Most larger business owners still vote Tory, small business owners increasingly vote Reform, unless they are very anti Brexit in which case they will vote LD.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
Do you understand the vast majority of small businesses employing less than 10 people are seeing employer NI either falling or zero after the changes?
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
The median business in the UK employs more than 10 people and has been hit by the NI rise on employers and even some businesses with less than 10 people have more than £1 million in assets and will be hit by the IHT rise on family firms.
The minimum wage rise and extra employment regulations also hit very small businesses like pubs and newsagents
5.5m businesses with 0-9 employees 350k businesses with 10+ employees
Which is the larger voting bloc of business owners.....
No business owner is immune from the NI rise for employers and as I said even the smallest business is hit by the rising minimum wage costs and extra employment regulations
Although Rachel didn't announce them on social media with immediate effect and with 25 different rates depending on which county your business is in. We have it so easy over here.
In the morning, checked out the brand new Silvertown Tunnel via the equally brand new London bus route SL4, then went into town to check out the new entrance to Knightsbridge tube at Hoopers Court, not quite done but nearly there, and then caught the 1702 from St Pancras to traverse two bits of rare rail track way up north, Clay Cross South to Clay Cross North junctions, and Chesterfield platform 3 to Woodhouse via Beighton. Of course, ended up in TSE-Land (ie. Sheffield), but was there less than 20 minutes before returning to London.
On topic sort of, here's a nice new (Chinese!) BYD bus used on the SL4:
Have you had a go at riding all the way round on the various superloop buses? I did it about 4 months ago. Interesting experience.
My contrarian opinion is that the cuts won't be politically damaging at all, to Labour, in the long run.
The usual attack by conservative parties against centre-left parties is that the centre-left wastes money on tax-and-spend policies.
The Democrats lost the election partly because of these types of attacks. The spending on CHIPS Act, Build Back Better, Ukraine assistance etc was used to portray the Democrats as being excessively wasteful & spendthrift. The Democrats added to the potency of these attacks by constantly touting the billions of dollars they were spending on these initiatives.
If a centre-left party demonstrates that it is aggressively cutting spending, then it is actually building valuable political capital to neutralise these types of attacks.
Labour might become unpopular now because of the cuts, but this can be very helpful in the future to build the perception that they are responsible stewards of public finances.
The Dems weren't helped by the coastal liberal lawyer Harris not bothering to visit those new factories the investment had funded.
Kamala Harris tours computer chip factory in Michigan
So your defence of Harris is that she visited a factory on 28th October ?
Ever heard of the phrase 'too little and too late' ?
Harris should have been at one of those new factories every single day for three months.
What the Dems, and Dem supporters, need to do is to stop denying and defending their mistakes but to accept them and learn from them.
The fact is that Harris was thrown a hospital pass, at the last minute. She ran an at least average, and I'd argue pretty good campaign, in the circumstances.
After Biden waited as long as he did to thrown in the towel, it doesn't now seem likely that anyone else would have done much better.
That's the way I see it. Biden should have been told more than a year before the election that his time was up and he was not fit. Getting him to stand down in favour of Harris would have been even more effective. Hanging on meant Harris did not have enough time to make herself distinctive, to ease herself away from the more problematical parts of the Biden legacy and to reset the party. She was constantly asked why she tolerated the country being run by someone not fit too.
Despite all that I think she spoke well, demolished Trump in the debate, generated huge sums of money, chose a reasonable VP (although Shapiro would probably have been better) and did her best in circumstances which were extremely hostile to incumbents as was seen around the world.
Comments
Bit of a nuisance having to use a firm 100 miles away, but he put up with it.
If you consciously try to start with your left foot the problem should reverse.
Or used to when I had to go there. Parents ferrying their children in from all over mid and south Essex.
Anyway, it was nice to see one, been years since the last (and that was one that was troubled, wandering about in daylight).
The Tory MP has managed to get that one closed by the end of May, but it will only shift the problem onto some other unsuspecting town. I reckon most people think about ‘small boats’ as some kind of abstract problem, but when it hits their town or village it would consume them
But just to say what you've done is a pretty fantastic achievement.
Chris Giles @chrisgiles.ft.com
·
44m
It's almost impossible to calculate the effective US tariff rate now...
On 2024 trading patterns, the 125% China tariff raises the US effective rate 14 percentage points alone...
... that won't happen
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgiles.ft.com/post/3lmh6o3uaus2i
The Ruling in FWS v Scottish Ministers will be handed down next Weds 16th April at 9.45am
It will also be streamed via the UKSC website, so you can watch live.
What time will the market wake up to that reality??
This will be approved today...
https://www.cityam.com/tallest-uk-skyscraper-outside-london-to-be-approved/
(To which a friend says: "You don't walk properly. You walk stupid distances...")
How much further did my left foot walk than my right foot, given the 'circle' it walked would have been larger?
https://www.ft.com/content/ede5b41d-4b97-494f-b8ce-4f13b11f9ad1
Yes I noticed when I headed out over the Pennines it does seem to be doing well economically.
What they probably do is try not to catch their eye and then blame them for existing in locations where they have to make an effort not to catch their eye.
Also does the shopkeeper call the police when people come into his shop and steal? Did the reporter ask him? In most places, as we all know, the police would be little help, but this isn't Margate or Mansfield - it's Datchet. They'd probably show up within a few minutes. "Show us the video. Have you seen the guy before?" etc. Probably quite easy to catch him if they know what building he lives in.
I can't believe it is because of the leading foot. It might be I suppose. I assumed it was due to uneven use of the legs e.g. like cycling where one leg puts in more effort than the other, although I am not aware that I walk particularly oddly.
Squash, writing, eating my pudding, wearing a watch (on right hand) I am left handed (and many things more)
Playing cards, scissors, peelers, eating my main course I am right handed.
Of course when I grew up left handed or ambidextrous playing cards, scissors, peelers didn't exist. They do today. If they had I would probably stayed left handed
Salem!
So answer is about 2 ft.
It's 2 pi * (radius 1 - radius 2), where the term in the brackets is the step width.
After the NI employers rise, minimum wage rise and new employment regulations and IHT changes for family businesses barely any vote Labour
For a marker, both LHA ROW teams and more active path checking groups for the Ramblers aim to cover every route in their areas once per annum.
For a single volunteer this might be all the paths in one or two parishes.
Here's an account from one of my favourite walking bloggers - "Campaigner Kate", who has been General Secretary (or whatever the job title is) of the Open Spaces Society since 1983 or so. Quite a character, with an interesting story of one of her early challenges to an obstruction being of having a go at a vendor who had put a marquee across a PROW at the Henley Regatta.
She was the one who cleared out Von Hoogstraten.
https://campaignerkate.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/piddington-path-check/
I have asked that question to people any times, and I've had loads of instinctive wrong answers, from zero to tens of miles. People instinctively seem to think it would be a massive distance, given the circle's perimeter is so large.
While the requirements for University entrance seem wider than in my day, and candidates seem to take a wider range of subjects, the IB with it's points system and General Essay seems to offer an opportunity for a wider thought.
It is probably not a good line to use to convince us you understand our needs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/c1lmmy6q5r4o
In fact, IME doing a walk like that is 80% mental effort, 20% physical. It is mentally hard, despite the per-day distances being easy. But doing it day after day *is* mentally tough, especially when you are passing through areas you don't know. Even finding accommodation can be difficult - and I had a motorhome to support me.
Another odd thing is that time becomes a geographical constant: you start thinking not of "last Wednesday", but of "Grimsby"; i.e. where you were. Also, the day of the week often becomes unimportant.
"Newsflash: The European Union has paused its new tariffs against the US for 90 days, to allow time for negotiations with Donald Trump."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_leg_length
Also, people can have differently sized and shaped feet. Not enough to particularly notice, but which can make a difference with shoe sizing. And many of us supinate or pronate our feet.
Put all of this sort of thing together, and you get people favouring one side or the other when walking, slightly increasing wear. The 'limp' may not be noticeable, but is there.
My cousin had the pleasure of taking a relative from across the globe to Hadrian's Wall, who insisted they went via Kirkstone Pass. Got there, did they want to go to Housesteads or Vindolanda - no Tan Hill was next on the list. Then they wondered why I didn't want to tick off all the places in NZ when I visited them. Could not understand why I wanted to help with the sheep and cattle on their farm rather than go to Hobbiton. Mind you I did go to a lot of touristy places, but the market at Te Kuiti and a shearing competition near Oranui were much more to my taste.
Interestingly Hoogstraten connects with asylum seeker hotels. I see the Home Office's contract in respect of that hotel in Datchet is managed by Clearspring Homes, the contractor which is mentioned in this article too:
https://archive.is/vcf00
^ A much better article which talks about what goes on inside an asylum seeker hotel rather than only the experience of local residents who don't want one near them.
See also e.g. this on large numbers of children "vanishing" from an asylum hotel owned by what the Guardian describes as "a company that involves family members of the infamous (...)"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/21/they-just-vanish-whistleblowers-met-by-wall-of-complacency-over-missing-migrant-children
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/10/boy-killed-huddersfield-stabbing-ahmad-mamdouh-al-ibrahim
...A teenage Syrian refugee who was stabbed to death in Huddersfield last Thursday had lived in the town for only two weeks before the attack and was out making friends on the day he was killed, his family has said.
Ahmad Mamdouh Al Ibrahim, 16, was stabbed in the neck in the town centre – the second time he had been there – while being shown around by his cousin, his uncle told the Guardian.
A 20-year-old man, Alfie Franco, of Kirkburton, near Huddersfield, appeared in court on Friday charged with his murder and was remanded in custody before a further hearing next month.
Ahmad’s uncle, who he was living with in Huddersfield, said he had encouraged the boy to go out and make friends his own age after spending a lot of time with the family during Ramadan.
In the hours before his death, Ahmad had asked to see Kirklees College, where he had been enrolled, and his uncle had promised to take him later that day, he said. In the meantime his cousin offered to show him around Huddersfield town centre, including a new supermarket that sells Asian and Arabic food, and the market...
The minimum wage rise and extra employment regulations also hit very small businesses like pubs and newsagents
So about a metre.
I don't think any are doing Medicine; I'll try and find out.
5.5m businesses with 0-9 employees
350k businesses with 10+ employees
Which is the larger voting bloc of business owners.....
Do they actually mark off with a red pen in their Rough Guides?
That's not the point, is it? I'm not doing it for anyone else.
(Edited for accuracy)
https://campaignerkate.wordpress.com/the-framfield-footpath-story/
OSS are probably my second favourite charity. They are the brainboxes of access law (Ramblers are the foot soldiers), and some of their former peeps were involved in starting up the NT. They will eg find a Planning Permission from 46 or a Court Precedent from 146 years ago that means they can make a public body do something they want to forget about.
They only have 2000 members, so I'd encourage anyone to join, and a real old style termly magazine.
An acquaintance is a multiple-times Parkrun alphabeteer: he has done multiple parkruns beginning with every letter of the alphabet (excluding, I think X). He goes as far afield as the USA and New Zealand to do them, and the list is an *excuse* to go travelling: something he had not done much of before. He's quite a guy.
Another problem with lists is that they can vary in quality. I have not done many, but some Munros are boring, when there are much more attractive, but lower, summits or hills nearby that do not get as many visitors because they are not on the Munro list.
One tour we were on someone insisted on placing a teddy bear in Nelson Mandela's one-time cell on Robben Island.
The benefit of ticking things off is it brings you to parts of the UK that you wouldn't visit otherwise. I've now moved onto Corbetts and the National Cycle Network and continue to find pockets of beauty and peace.
In the next few years I hope to complete the Furths. I've done relatively little walking in Wales and Ireland, yet this simple goal will provide me the structure to do so.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-38621920
Riverway Law sound more like political propagandists than a firm of solicitors.
https://x.com/davekeating/status/1910292153969889741
The EU has just made its choice: they will suspend the retaliatory tariffs that were approved yesterday - by 90 days.
But let's be clear here: the 25% 🇺🇸steel/aluminium tariffs that these 🇪🇺tariffs were retaliating against are *not* being paused. They're already being levied.
The EU will therefor accept the 25% tariff on steel-aluminium exports to the US that started in March and will not retaliate. The reason is because they are afraid the White House will misconstrue yesterday's retaliatory tariff vote as being about the 'Liberation Day' extra 10% of tariffs on the EU which he has paused. The fault lies with national EU governments who delayed the steel/aluminium response for so long that the vote coincidentally (and unhelpfully) fell on the day that the Liberation Day tariffs took effect.
So this is how things stand right now:
🇺🇸👊🇪🇺 tariffs:
25% on steel/aluminium
25% on automobiles
10% on everything else
🇪🇺👊🇺🇸 retaliatory tariffs:
0%
😶😬
(meanwhile in another account, I keep on buying)
Despite all that I think she spoke well, demolished Trump in the debate, generated huge sums of money, chose a reasonable VP (although Shapiro would probably have been better) and did her best in circumstances which were extremely hostile to incumbents as was seen around the world.
the market remains well down from where it was a month ago.