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Post by mercian on Oct 1, 2023 22:58:25 GMT
peterbellI give you Blackpool. www.liveblackpool.info/about/seafront/There are many other resorts in the UK. Admittedly usually a bit colder than the Costa del Sol. š. Shame about Newcastle but it's not known as a holiday resort is it?
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on Oct 1, 2023 23:05:04 GMT
Is Labour in England also constantly repeating this "Fresh Start" slogan, as they are in R&HW? Utterly meaningless, unless it's an advert for a deodorant to cover up BO. Political slogans seem to be increasingly vacuous.
I prefer to have a Fresh Start by showering in the morning.
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Post by mercian on Oct 1, 2023 23:10:23 GMT
I think poor old Mark's in a difficult situation. If he endorses the rogue new thread I'll use it, but if he doesn't I'll stay here until he starts a new one. I don't know what a moderator's powers are. For instance is it possible to stop someone starting a new thread in 'General Discussion' without also stopping them from starting a thread in 'Issue Specific'. If not, and a member was prevented from starting any new threads it could be seen to be unfair. I expect he's waiting to see where majority sympathy lies. I'm glad I'm not the moderator but will abide by whatever he says. He seems to be a good egg (if I'm still allowed to say that in case it offends bad eggs). š¤£ |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on Oct 1, 2023 23:18:24 GMT
I think poor old Mark 's in a difficult situation. If he endorses the rogue new thread I'll use it, but if he doesn't I'll stay here until he starts a new one. I don't know what a moderator's powers are. For instance is it possible to stop someone starting a new thread in 'General Discussion' without also stopping them from starting a thread in 'Issue Specific'. If not, and a member was prevented from starting any new threads it could be seen to be unfair. I expect he's waiting to see where majority sympathy lies. I'm glad I'm not the moderator but will abide by whatever he says. He seems to be a good egg (if I'm still allowed to say that in case it offends bad eggs). š¤£ |
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Post by EmCat on Oct 2, 2023 0:21:10 GMT
I don't know what a moderator's powers are. For instance is it possible to stop someone starting a new thread As a moderator for an entirely unrelated board (though running on a different platform), and the options tend to be along the "everything" or "nothing" level. Hence, it is entirely possible that anything that stops people creating threads also tends to stop them posting (making the board more of an announcement board than an interactive forum). One way round it is to have some loose rules on what people can and can't do, and trust them to be adult enough to abide by those rules, rather than trying to push boundaries of what they can get away with. In the near 18 years of that board's existence (with a peak of around 3,000 users browsing, if not all posting) and the number of infractions for wrongly creating threads was in single figures. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Oct 2, 2023 4:24:07 GMT
The Tories are holding their wake in the store room behind Arbuthnots abattoir in Ardwick Green which appears to consist of the remnants of the walking dead who think somehow they can reanimate themselves by advertising the Labour party.
It's difficult to see what this reserve team of economic and social luddites could actually positively say to the country.
Other than good bye.
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steve
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Post by steve on Oct 2, 2023 4:43:41 GMT
peterbellWhen we lived in Spain and I was assisting the Spanish police with their enquiries ( professionally) we lived in Fuengirola, while there we used to regularly pop down to Gib the journey was stunning new and low rise attractive urbanisations were springing up all along the coast interspersed with traditional Spanish towns and villages. I think at one point Estepona , beloved of British retirees even had a British mayor. I haven't actually been back to this part of Spain for a number of years but you've given me an idea for a road trip.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 5:33:57 GMT
In short, the end to another idyllic retirement day in Spain. Currently on vacation in the Costa Del Sol and would totally concur with Somerjohn. Visited Estepona yesterday and was very impressed with the seafront, pedestrianised, excellent attractive promenade with frequent seating and metallic sunshades. This is just one example but we have observed many more. Excellent flower arrangements all over the place in Puerto Banus where we are staying. In Newcastle, the flower beds and displays are mainly empty due to shortage of cash Living as I do in a seaside town, I wondered what is the situation regarding parking in Spain? Bexhill town is barely surviving and had the acolade a few years ago of being declared the charity shop capital of the south (or of somewewhere, I forget exactly). But then the council decided to impose street parking charges, probably because they saw it as an overlooked opportunity to make money. While there is the obvious issue of correlation or causation, since then the banks have left the town. Or maybe lockdown was the last straw. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Oct 2, 2023 5:45:03 GMT
In addition to the local by-elections we have the Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election on Thursday,
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Oct 2, 2023 5:49:56 GMT
A day ago the Defence British secretary Grant Shapps said that he wanted to deploy military instructors to Ukraine
Sunak now says there are no plans to do this
Still it's not as if it's important that the Defence Secretary and Prime Minister are on the same page...
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 5:52:54 GMT
This morning another advertisment for modular nuclear power. Spokesperson explained that the idea is to build 70% of a new plant in a factory, instead of 70% onsite, so that the equipment needed for manufacture is already in place to build another one. Bascially, economies of scale.
I seem to to remember that 'economies of scale' was also a live issue back in the day when we were building the first wave of nuclear reactors. In that case though the problem was not where they were built, but the design changing regularly with what I presume were improvements as they went along.
So anyway, it would seem the claim how these would be cheaper than other currently available options for nuclear, is that many of them would be built and so provided these economies. Which rather confirms that the whole nuclear program is essentially an intention to abandon the drive to renewables and instead use the much more expensive nuclear option.
Nuclear is not compatible with renewable energy. Renewables are very cheap when the wind blows (etc) but dont work at all if it doesnt. Nuclear is a massive up front cost (however you do it, because of safety issues and complex technology) with very low operating costs, so choosing to turn it off is just throwing away money with a marginal cost even less then using a wind turbine. If you built nuclear to fill in when the wind doesnt blow, then there is no reason to have any wind. The years go by, but no one has solved how you bridge the wind-not-blowing gap. Which means massive government investment, which aint going to happen under con.
The spokesperson also said that the new/proposed/something underground nuclear waste storage facility would be sufficient for all waste generated up to 2050. I thought that if these plants have a working life something like 50 years as per the previous ones, then his timeframe wasnt very reassuring since the massive problem of decomissioning any of them would fall well after this date.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 5:54:39 GMT
Report that NHS doctors are being paid a lot more for shifts to cover strike action.
Seems the doctors have found a way to resolve their pay and conditions demands. Go on strike, and get paid more for less work than if they werent on strike.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 6:04:23 GMT
And another crisis issue this morning. Water companies announce a new scheme for renewing all their failing infrastructure. Suggestion this would mean Ā£150 extra on the average water bill. So I checked, and saw the average bill is curently Ā£400. So thats about 40%
Last time I heard it discussed, utilities such as this are statutorially controlled and are allowed essentially a percentage profit on their turnover.
So the plan amounts to asking the billpayer for a 40% increase in water company profits.
No one should forget that all these similar companies have an incentive to do a bad job in maintaining their networks and deliver water as expensively as they can, because the more they can spend on this, then the more money they make. Railways were similarly calculated to cost was it twice as much as when the network was managed by BR (real terms corrected of course).
Anti water company spokesperson noted water companies have spirited away Ā£72 billion in dividends paid to share holders, and many of the companies are now very close to bankruptcy because of the sheer amount of assets removed from the businesses. The issue is why were these companies allowed to extract all this money, leaving a wholly asset stripped system, when the promise of privatisation was to boost investment and create a better system. The question is whether attempts should now be made to recover the assets removed from the companies.
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Post by moby on Oct 2, 2023 6:14:30 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 6:16:04 GMT
If the truth wont serve to achieve your aim, then obviously - lie. There is no penalty for politicians who lie in a campaign, but there should be. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 6:26:21 GMT
Nationwide just released its latest house price index. Average, no change on the latest month. But down 5% on a year. Volume of sales down 30% compared to 2019.
Of course, in a country where the only way to maintain levels of public services is to increase taxation, it would make a lot of sense to ensure a national supply of cheap housing, so at least families would see a big fall in this cost to compensate for rising taxes. It could be seen as a win-win to say half housing costs and the difference to be used for national services. The country has NOTHING to show for the vast increase in the real cost of housing since Thatcher introduced the policy of expensive housing back in the 1980s.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 7:10:25 GMT
News item from refugee council, that the terms of the recent anti refugees act in effect violate the terms in treaties with various countries about returning their citizens to them if they are refused permission to stay here. So we cannot send them back where they originated!
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Post by wb61 on Oct 2, 2023 7:12:18 GMT
A day ago the Defence British secretary Grant Shapps said that he wanted to deploy military instructors to Ukraine Sunak now says there are no plans to do this Still it's not as if it's important that the Defence Secretary and Prime Minister are on the same page... I just occurred to me that the USA's involvement in Vietnam began with military "advisors". |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Oct 2, 2023 7:17:08 GMT
I just occurred to me that the USA's involvement in Vietnam began with military "advisors". Didnt they also found the Taliban? Before they switched sides? |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Oct 2, 2023 7:28:52 GMT
I don't know what a moderator's powers are. For instance is it possible to stop someone starting a new thread As a moderator for an entirely unrelated board (though running on a different platform), and the options tend to be along the "everything" or "nothing" level. Hence, it is entirely possible that anything that stops people creating threads also tends to stop them posting (making the board more of an announcement board than an interactive forum). One way round it is to have some loose rules on what people can and can't do, and trust them to be adult enough to abide by those rules, rather than trying to push boundaries of what they can get away with. In the near 18 years of that board's existence (with a peak of around 3,000 users browsing, if not all posting) and the number of infractions for wrongly creating threads was in single figures. And there you identify the problem ... |
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Oct 2, 2023 7:29:51 GMT
I think poor old Mark 's in a difficult situation. If he endorses the rogue new thread I'll use it, but if he doesn't I'll stay here until he starts a new one. I don't know what a moderator's powers are. For instance is it possible to stop someone starting a new thread in 'General Discussion' without also stopping them from starting a thread in 'Issue Specific'. If not, and a member was prevented from starting any new threads it could be seen to be unfair. I expect he's waiting to see where majority sympathy lies. I'm glad I'm not the moderator but will abide by whatever he says. He seems to be a good egg (if I'm still allowed to say that in case it offends bad eggs). š¤£ Toady!  |
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Oct 2, 2023 7:37:37 GMT
Is Labour in England also constantly repeating this "Fresh Start" slogan, as they are in R&HW? Utterly meaningless, unless it's an advert for a deodorant to cover up BO. Political slogans seem to be increasingly vacuous.
I prefer to have a Fresh Start by showering in the morning. To answer your question, I've not seen that one before. I thought modern slogans had to be three words/phrases, so clearly lacking. Having said that, British politics has been stinking to high heaven over the last decade, so a spot of deoderant is probably needed. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Oct 2, 2023 7:43:37 GMT
I think Trevor is sulking on his Billy no mates thread
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steve
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Post by steve on Oct 2, 2023 7:50:45 GMT
wb61It's a bit more nuanced than that American military were in Vietnam from 1950 onwards primarily to supervise the use of the military equipment they had provided to the French in their colonial war this morphed into a" military advisory group"to the Vietnamese army in 1955 after the French lost. So technically the U.S. lost the Vietnam war twice!
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Post by somerjohn on Oct 2, 2023 8:23:26 GMT
Danny: "Living as I do in a seaside town, I wondered what is the situation regarding parking in Spain?"
The seaside town where we have our flat in Spain, which like many has grown enormously since it was a fishing harbour with nearby hill town back in the 1960s, has an absolutely thriving town centre. I think there are several reasons for this. The first and most important is that residential and commercial space is integrated. The typicaL pattern is of medium-rise (7 or 8 stories) apartment blocks with shops and offices on the ground floor, underground parking below, and flats above. There are large supermarkets in the town centre as well as on the periphery, and they too have underground parking (and sometimes above the sales floor too). There is on-street parking which is metered but low cost (20c for 20 minutes) but discounted for residents and free afternoons and overnight).
That set-up supports hundreds of independent shops, restaurants and bars, and just outside the central area there's a surprising amount of small-scale manufacturing and hands-on stuff in mixed residential areas - carpentry, window-making, laundries, repair shops etc. There are virtually no empty premises and few 'fill-ins' like charity shops. A few vape stores, though. Despite the huge disparity in peak seasonal population (maybe a 20,000 winter core, swelling to 100k in summer), the town remains busy off-season with most shops etc open year-round, helped by the town's usefulness as a commercial hub for surrounding villages and urbanizaciones.
Summer visitor peak parking is rationed by charging for Jul-Aug on-street parking behind the sea front and the availability of several large, free overspill surface carparks further back (unsurfaced and unmarked) for those who prefer to walk a few hundred metres to the beach.
All in all, it works remarkably well. Of course, it helps that all this activity generates plenty of council income. And it's abundantly clear how this revenue is spent - not only loads of street cleaners, gardeners and refuse collectors, but constant pro-active maintenance. For instance, last year the entire road network in the town centre was resurfaced. Not just surface-dressed, but scoured to the base, thickly re-tarmacked, kerbs repaired and re-aligned, manhole covers re-levelled. It took about six weeks, with a large workforce, loads of specialised equipment and immaculate planning of street-by-street work. Not only must the costs of doing it that way, averaged over the years, be much lower than UK-style minimal patch-up, but the result is a town that looks and feels on top of things.
In short, it's the antithesis of austerity. Which is why I wish our brexit apologists could come, see and learn.
(Apologies for what is probably my longest ever post).
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Post by expatr on Oct 2, 2023 8:45:50 GMT
I think Trevor is sulking on his Billy no mates thread Let's be honest, if everyone just ignores the silly sausage we will all be happier |
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Post by thylacine on Oct 2, 2023 8:51:28 GMT
The last time Trevor started a new thread didn't Mark say that it was OK for anyone to start a new thread when required and allowed that thread to stand? I must admit I was rather surprised as if we can all start new threads whenever we like surely anarchy will ensue.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Oct 2, 2023 9:05:00 GMT
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Post by athena on Oct 2, 2023 9:26:48 GMT
The run-in to the Tory party conference went OK: a modest flurry of policy announcements that gave Tory-inclined optimists grounds to believe that Sunak had decided what he was trying to do as PM, even if to the unsympathetic voter it looks as if he's decided that since nothing else is working out, he might as well take advantage of being PM to indulge all his pet hates. But it seems to have gone pear-shaped over the weekend. If the press pack wasn't sure whether the theme was going to be 'Rishi resets, takes charge, sets new blue agenda' or 'Tory divisions, Sunak flounders, still heading for electoral defeat' it now seems they've plumped for the latter. The credit Sunak got for announcing some policies that please some people has been wiped out by his inability to answer obvious questions about his plans, which makes him look lightweight, indecisive, ill-prepared and gives the impression that his earlier announcements were nothing more than soundbites, sticking plasters over the suppurating wounds of the country's multiple crises. On HS2 it seems Sunak has marched everyone up to the top of the hill... and is standing around wondering whether he's in the right place or not. I agree with moby that it's really bad for Sunak that Truss is still garnering headlines and publicity and - incredibly - still seems to have an audience in the Tory party. Did Corbyn or McDonnell manage to rain on Starmer's parade during the Lab conference? - not that I noticed. Perhaps the continuing publicity for Truss and her ideas is, for the Tories, the fly in the ointment of having predominantly rightwing print media? At the moment the biggest contrast between the two main party leaders is their party management. |
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Post by pete on Oct 2, 2023 9:41:34 GMT
Around here we call that doing a Trev. |
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