New series tonight (Tuesday) BBC2 at 8.00 pm

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lwqw

Ostriches? Oh yes.

Cracking bit of TV. Thanks for the PSA CG.

Caught most of it – lovely telly.

The Manchester property programme afterwards was pretty amazing as well

It was good. Interesting diversification from one family and those ostriches gave me the creeps to be honest especially when the woman jumped out of skin when the incubating egg cracked! Didn’t like seeing the deer in that field either. Love the Highlands and Belted Galloways, wouldn’t mind tasting them either.

What was the Manchester programme MoreCash?

Manctopia – about the Manchester property boom, from the perspective of s developer, high end estate agent, homeless people, a normal single parent.

Really interesting how the world’s overlap. Like the musical Rent but with a worse soundtrack.

Think it’s a 3 part series

Thanks MoreCash, will take a look.

Manctopia – about the Manchester property boom, from the perspective of s developer, high end estate agent, homeless people, a normal single parent.

Really interesting how the world’s overlap. Like the musical Rent but with a worse soundtrack.

Think it’s a 3 part series

Wasn’t sure whether to watch this @MoreCashThanDash but I did and found it pretty depressing. Never been to Manc so does it really need so many high rise buildings for folk to call home? Quite a pertinent q in current times, wonder if they will all sell.

Felt so sorry for the mum and kids, bringing up kids in a tower block is not ideal. There didn’t appear to be much in the way of greenery and open spaces. As regards the developer, he’s clearly not stupid but fundraising to ease his conscience cos of driving around in a £250K wagon? Jeez, he’s got a lot to learn about life and money.

Homelessness is so sad to see, don’t what the solution is but a different type of government would be a start followed by major reformation of state services and asking ourselves what type of world we want to live in.

Shall watch the next episode … with dread I suspect.

Felt so sorry for the mum and kids, bringing up kids in a tower block is not ideal.

That’s not necessarily true – tower blocks are much maligned in the British imagination, but they’re perfectly normal around here in Spain. What they do need are maintained common spaces, at which point instead of your kids playing on their own in the garden they’re now playing with mates in the park, which I’d argue is an improvement. It’s also good for younger parents as it helps develop a support network, in our case for example chatting to the other parents at the playground is how we learned which nursery was worth sending our daughter to, what the local schools were like, etc.

Of course if you’re just dumping problematic families with 5 kids into 50m2 flats then tower blocks aren’t going to work, but to say they’re all 100% crap is wrong.

I think the show raised more questions than it answers. Flats are fine if they are big enough and have appropriate outside space.

The developer was odd – he was slagging off the guy in the £250k car from his £50k car, making millions from property development but seemed to have some grasp of the implications in terms of deprived areas and the homeless, hence the charity work. But didn’t seem to see that he had the power and opportunity to do something about it by creating affordable housing.

Reinforced my belief from what MrsMC and I deal with at work that affordable social housing to rent is the only solution to our housing – and by extension, quite a few other social – problems.