Your last paragraph is an old argument by anti-HS2 people that is utterly wrong. Those towns 'benefit' because they may well end up getting more services on their existing railway lines, on… (View Post)

In other news, the ruble is back down to about 100 to the dollar, on a slow but steady decline. This is about the level where the Russian government intervened a year ago. It'll be interesting t… (View Post)

Oh, and another thing I should mention about the HK contingent: lots of them are going to various churches. I've no idea how religious they were before; whether this is an attempt to integrate; … (View Post)

We have lots of new arrivals from HK in our village. And I mean lots. A couple of anecdotes from some I have chatted to, with different aspects on integration. *) One is not sending their kid to the … (View Post)

I don't know if this has been reported on here, but the French are upgrading some Mirage fighters to allow better ground attack. And then donating them to Ukraine, to arrive early next year. I h… (View Post)