chrisp65

I don’t understand what voters want sometimes.

If you phone emergency services there is a decent chance they will not turn up. Hospitals are failing, schools are failing, they are passing the cost of local government on to us, so the swimming pools are closing and the sports fields are being sold for housing without amenity.

They’ve just put some extra money in the pockets of people that earn £55k by increasing tax on people that earn £21k.

Yet voters still aren’t happy.

A fickle bunch.

I always thought it was very moving the way she almost met the residents of Grenfell and then almost got something done about Grenfell.

Lord Snooty confirmed the other day that our arms sales to Israel were so comparatively small it wasn’t worth stopping them. Even though we are very very close to becoming concerned about all the dead children.

Well, in some late night negotiations, we’ve just agreed that our house can be a location for the local Uni to do some filming for the masters film / screenwriting course end of year piece.

They get the house for a couple of days. We get a cake.

They’ve verbally promised it’s not a porno.

4 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Blimey, someone put an awful lot work into the bleedin' obvious there.

Apparently tomorrow they’ve got an exclusive on where bears shit.

It is a strange conflict indeed.

Lord Snooty Cameron had words with the visiting Israeli delegation yesterday, where apparently he warned them that we were getting very close to needing to start thinking about possibly warning them that we were approaching the end of our tolerance of recent events. Stern stuff indeed.

The guy from the BBC asked if this meant we would stop supplying arms. He was told that our arms sales to our trusted and valued long term Israeli friend and ally were very minor in comparison with what the U.S. sold them, so no. 

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

I thought the 8,000 houses were specifically for Barking Riverside? Genuine question btw I've probably just assumed this

I ask the question because they've already built the station at the end of the DLR but haven't yet built the homes and I wouldn't put it past this govt to announce something that was already announced

Also there is currently a new consultation underway to extend the DLR via a tunnel under the Thames to Thamesmead, yes Thamesmead doesn't have a rail connection currently but it is literally down the road from Abbey Wood which is already on the shiny new Elizabeth line and the distance from Thamesmead to Abbey Wood is much less than an awful lot of people in the UK have to travel to a 2 trains a day station. Abbey Wood to Canary Wharf, -> minutes. Why build a tunnel at the cost of over a Billion quid

Yep, there’s 8,000 residences in Barking as part of it. All part of an overall package with lots of national strategic infrastructure size works such as a new tunnel to extend the rail system, new housing estates, science parks. It’s every sector is being mobilised, every pool of funding being used. A new 23 storey building for Canary Wharf itself, alongside the one that will be without a tenant in 2027. A Canary Wharf life sciences park. All to coincide with the change in the planning laws where conversion of office to residential will be classed as permitted development and not require planning.

Hunt has shown he wants to redirect levelling up funding to London, Cambridge, Surrey, and Buckinghamshire. 

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

Why is London getting any money is my question. Levelling up was for the UK outside of the south east to get investment to “level it up” to the facilities and infrastructure of the London region.

Not only is London getting money, it’s getting more than the entirety of Wales. It’s madness. They couldn’t even be arsed to disguise the Canary Wharf investment by saying it’s from another fund, they are calling it levelling up. What is it levelling up with? 

It would be like the PL giving out money to PL clubs to level up with the big 4 of 5, but then giving Man City more money than the entire bottom half of the table combined.

It’s fascinating, HSBC have announced they are not renewing their lease in 2027. So in advance of that there is development money to attract science projects to the area and new housing to the area to make the transition as seamless as possible. Years in advance of a building being vacated.

Imagine a similar level of forward planning and investment for steel workers or car makers or ship builders.

4 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

I think it fits the definition of rehypothecation; which is to say, the Government is using collateral they do not own (public money) to finance future assets, that is to say, party donations.

All my usual sarcasm to the side.

I’d be quite sure that within sight of the big shiny silver windowed financial towers of Canary Wharf there are still pockets of deprivation hanging on trying not to be pushed out by the aggressive ‘gentrifcation’ of everything and anything touched by lots of money. There will be people that obviously don’t want to be poor, but also can’t engage with the financial jobs on offer and the creep of the £5 takeaway coffee shop and the artisan baker. 

But to put it in to context, from my own personal point of interest, the money for Canary Wharf is £242 million. The money for all Wales, three and a half million people, is £170 million.

We really do need these awful tories and tory copyists out of office for a very very long time.

If the story is legit, and that’s a sizeable if, then perhaps it’s an illustration of ‘our’ news versus news around the world. We would think it crazy to go to Russia on our holibobs because we see pictures from the frontline and magnakarl’s kill stats. 

But perhaps the news in India isn’t quite so involved and the seven guys aren’t that interested and there are lots of places that aren’t as poorly rated on trip advisor as Kharkiv.

So I guess it’s just as possible some Indians could go to Russia, as some English guys could accidentally go to Colima in Mexico with a murder rate of 2%.

28 minutes ago, blandy said:

Here’s a talking point. I was musing a few years ago, while sat in a huge stationary traffic jam on the motorway. The jam, it turned out was because someone was threatening to jump off a bridge. I was on my way to a Fall gig and had some leeway, but I wondered what’s the calculation? Motorway closed both directions. Thousands of people stuck. Is one of them gonna beat their wife/ plunge into depression/ insert terrible outcome here/ whatever? Because of the actions of a disturbed person?  At what point is the greater good/ least harm caused by just either grabbing the “jumper” or they jump?

It’s a philosophical question, not a point of view.

Yep, it’s unquantifiable, other than knowing that the person on the bridge is definitely at risk of harm, all the other scenarios are just that, scenarios. I do know for a fact that statistically, social services are always in a spike of activity after a significant football or rugby event. If the event goes the wrong way, plenty of people get boozed up and knock their partner about. But would the greater good be to stop competitive sport and just have medals for taking part? 

I’ve had similar thought, I was on a train to London, there was a diversion up around Gloucester and Cheltenham, then we were stopped for that same reason, a person sat on a bridge. I was going to a business meeting, I was going to pitch for some work at a time when there wasn’t that much work around. It could have been that the business meeting was make or break for 20 jobs, so twenty families and their mortgages and their plans.

Unless we invest in public services to a point they can give out questionnaires and assess possible risks, I guess they’ve got to deal with the actual risks, one at a time in a linear fashion. 

I guess someone else in that traffic jam or on that train could be a paramedic, now late for a shift, and the unknown person having a heart attack or stroke now doesn’t get the assistance they need in a timely manner. But we’re talking about a butterfly effect. It could equally be a case that a lorry driver now isn’t doing 55mph with his head in the footwell looking for his dropped phone.

Lastly, I guess society has decided that minimal investment in mental health provision has saved us all £1.37, but the inconvenience of the traffic jamb has caused £4 of inconvenience to a couple of hundred people, so that’s clearly the way forward.

Celebrating 45 years of Sparks asking Giorgio Moroder to have a dabble with No1 Song In Heaven.

24 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I don’t think it’s (generally) the generation struggling to get on the housing ladder who have second (or third etc) homes, if I’m honest, but there’s certainly something that people have aspired to with “passive income”.

AirBnB has a lot to answer for. 

I suspect there is some irony in that some of the generation that can’t afford homes are consoling themselves with weekends away in an air BnB which creates demand for more air BnB and puts house prices up.

There are something like 600,000 air BnB in the UK, now a large number of those will be tents and novelty helicopter experiences. But a few hundred thousand will be houses and apartments. Imagine a drop in demand and a hike in costs resulting in a quarter of a million more homes for living in becoming available. 

Just now, tonyh29 said:

I did a repeat prescription  last night via the NHS App , has your nominated chemist on it where you go and pick it up from and just a couple of clicks ... I'd guess that's available to everyone  ?

presumably 28 days is so you don't get 6 months worth in one go and flog them on E-Bay 

Yeah, I had 6 months supply from the hospital no problem, just handed me a carrier bag full.

There is an app, and there’s a section of the GP’s website specific for repeat prescriptions, but it hasn’t been working. Except, it clearly was working to some extent because when they eventually produced a prescription for what I wanted, it was exactly what I’d submitted via the app.. The whole experience just felt like they were being a bit crap about doing some basic admin and coming out with the classic ‘i.t. Problems’.

The one thing I am grateful for, prescriptions are free. I’d be clocking up some costs if they weren’t.

31 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

My doctor is dreadful. He has prescribed shrugs and isn't willing to try anything. After badgering I had a CT scan yesterday but am months away from a neurologist. 

6 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

yeah I was thinking about your experience as in some ways its similar to mine ( all be it different symptoms)  .. it took me my third doctor before I got someone to take it seriously  ( second one asked me if I was after a sick note for time off work ) .. 

Don't know how many doctors there are at your local surgery , but maybe work your way through all of them until you get one that comes up with a thorough plan to investigate your symptoms 

It’s definitely a very mixed experience the GP visit.

I’ve had some where they clearly weren’t paying attention and I failed to even gain eye contact, others where it was clearly a subject that interested them and I was their pet project.

Most recently, I’m having to micro manage my GP, I’ve had 6 months of meds from the hospital and these are now at an end. Getting the subsequent follow up repeat prescription from my GP has taken 2 weeks, and that’s when I’d told them I only had 1 week supply of medicine left. As it happened, I had more than that, and just as well I did. It needed me to take time out of work yesterday and basically stand at the GP Reception desk until I had a physical copy of a correct prescription in my hand. Not a lie that they’d sent it to the pharmacy, that their I.T. was down, that they hadn’t received my hospital notes, or even a prescription but for some un requested rash cream. I was perfectly polite, but had to stress a number of times I had run out of meds and was standing there until I got the correct prescription, having been fobbed off with multiple excuses for 2 weeks.

Even then, what I got was a prescription for 28 tablets for something I’ve been told I’ll be on for life. So I guess I go through all that again in a couple of weeks.

One of my previous fave experiences with the GP was a few years ago when I was getting what’s easiest described as sex migraines. I’d get to the magic moment and instead of it being a pleasant experience, it was like being hit over the head with a baseball bat. First doctor clearly too embarrassed to talk about it. Second doctor loved it! Had a colleague in another practise doing a paper on it, so I was seconded to the other doctor and had a surprisingly detailed few months of trying a few different things and reporting back! Mad times, basically had a note from the doctor for trying out different ‘techniques’ all in the name of medical science.

Have to say, that remains my all time favourite medical problem by quite some margin.

Looking like Londoners are going to hand London to the guy that has handed London it to the islamists.

The meet n greet outside the prison gates is a daily occurrence.

All sorts of people in all sorts of cars will be out there. This will include friends, family, enemies, and of course the police. The number of people arrested on release is really quite high. The police know where they are, and it prevents one sentence being run parallel with another.

I think since the Winston Kodogo episode, policing these days has expanded beyond just exclusively shaking down black kids in flash cars. Although I’m sure Bianca Williams would have some comment on that.

We all hate Bangor

We all hate Bangor

That’s all I can think of, the longer he leaves it, the more chance of Argentina invading the Isle of Wight and every month is another £7,200 payslip for even the most invisible insipid back bench MP.

2 minutes ago, MCU said:

Not sure if this is the correct topic to ask but I overheard a conversation at work last week talking about when Sunak is likely to call a GE. Person A predicts his egotistical 'insert swear word here' won't call it until he's had 2 years as PM, which would be what - November? Surely they would want to campaign before that, no? But then on the other hand I'm thinking, they must know they're **** either way and will just end up dragging it on for as long as possible?

The absolute latest it could be, would be late January next year. That would involve campaigning over Christmas and nobody will fancy that and the electorate will punish the party that delays the strictly final with a party political broadcast.

It would be equally daft to ask people to stay sober to vote in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

May and June have a couple of Westminster recess weeks in there. July and August MP’s will be on their hols as will much of the electorate that has the money for holidays so that would be a bad choice.

Would they have the kids back in school in September and then give them all a Thursday off?

By a process of elimination you start to think its October / November as a likely date. But October 31st is a Thursday and he surely wouldn’t call a GE on Halloween, would he?

What we’re trying to do here, is guess the thought process of a trapped tory when none of the options are flash your cock or grab the money.

A little closer to ‘rock’ than ‘alt’ in their alt rock description but still half decent for yet another new to me local band from up them valleys.

11 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

I guess it's about time I grew up and become a fat middle aged depressed alcoholic like everyone else.

It might be worth investigating walking football.

There are teams all around the place, and it sounds like it’s pretty much for you.

Walking Football

Quote

The threat of pain, discomfort and injury is reduced due to the combination of a slower pace and reduced contact. This allows people who have loved the sport all their lives to once again safely get back to playing

22 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

So none of you had parents who sat grumbling watching top of the pops and saying it's all noise. I stress you have all turned into your parents. 

Oh my parents, or more specifically my dad definitely did. Repeatedly. 

There was nothing about my choice of music that my dad liked and that was just how I liked it.

I don’t think there’s anything my kids have played that I’ve been particularly interested in, but I’ve got no problem with them playing it, usually in my bloody car. They don’t come to my gigs, I certainly don’t go to theirs.