Crossrail was originally proposed in the 1940s. The need for Crossrail 1 (& 2 &3!) was identified in the London Rail Study in the 1970s, so it’s only taken 75 years to get sorted. It is also already the busiest rail line in the entire country, and still London commuters have to deal with the majority of the most overcrowded rail services in the UK.

However none of this means that there shouldn’t be proper funding for rail in the north and Scotland. Or that HS2 shouldn’t be completed properly, from London Euston to Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and on to Edinburgh, plus a proper link to HS1 and the continent.

Unfortunately all of that relies on a government brave enough to actually try and explain the benefits of appropriate infrastructure spending, and public transport, as well as to contextualise how much we’ve spent over the years building roads and subsidising motorists. It’s much easier to just stir up resentment and try and divide people by making out that some other group is getting it much better than them.

Presumably they could remove the capability for a third party to locate/disable on those they’re building into a VanMoof? After all, it’s fairly unlikely that someone’s going to slip an eBike into your handbag without you noticing.

Boris cycling 7 miles from home makes the news – it’ll be interesting to see if this results in any clarifications:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-cycle-7-miles-downing-street-olympic-park-b827961.html

The Museum of London is worth a visit, although due to move/expand in the next couple of years. If you do also go to the Barbican, then book a (free) ticket to visit the conservatory:

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2020/event/visit-the-conservatory

There’s also a free show on in the curve gallery.

Our ‘National Cycle Network’ is a bit of national embarrassment. A lot of the off road sections should really also be removed from the network until they’ve been brought up to standard.

I sometimes wonder what European cycle tourists think when they roll off the ferry at Dover and on to NCN1 (theoretically our contribution to EuroVelo 12) and have to overcome numerous gates and chicanes that you can’t fit a loaded bike through, poor signage, 17% gradients on muddy, potholed rural roads, numerous farm tracks, rough single track around field margins, a section that is underwater for 2 months of the year, and narrow stretches hemmed in by barbed wire and covered in broken glass round the back of industrial estates. All before they even make it to London!

To be slightly fairer to Sustrans, they’ve never had the funding or the powers necessary to deliver such an ambitious network, and have to rely on volunteers, existing rights of way and the goodwill of landowners and local authorities. It means that one unhelpful farmer can result in a 5 mile detour, and local authorities concerns about anti social behaviour can result in routes that are unusable by cargo bikes, trailers and anything with wide handlebars or panniers. Really, Sustrans, or whoever else is going to be responsible for a National Cycle Network needs to be a properly funded part of the DfT with the power to CPO land, and to impose routes and standards on local authorities. They should also be consulted on every major highways improvement and road building project to assess whether these should also include a separated cycle way. Unfortunately I can see that happening any time soon in this country.

Should have just got on the waiting list for August ages ago

In the meantime you can get pretty good results with a very hot cast iron pan on the hob, followed by a few minutes under the grill.

No-one much lives in central London, most office workers are still working from home, and there aren’t any tourists. Most people are also avoiding public transport, so aren’t heading into the centre. If you head to a more residential area you’ll likely find it much busier.

Or a 4 bedroom chalet in Transylvania and pocket the spare £130,000. Why stop at Machynlleth if you’re just looking for somewhere cheaper than London.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas-property/property-89899232.html?currencyCode=GBP

My understanding (which may be wrong) is that it’s 80% of GROSS pay up to £2500 for employed people. So assuming that no furloughed workers will actually see £2500 a month in their bank accounts, that’s just the max. cost to the government of what they will actually pay out PLUS tax and NI income that they’ll lose (but arguably would have lost anyway as people became unemployed).

If they don’t tax the self employed on the £1700 payment then it’ll be much the same I guess?

If 100 people show enough symptons to convince 3 tiers of health professionals that they have Corona Virus , and upon testing only 9 of them test positive, and 91 are clear then there has to be a reason why

The patient is psycoshematic and has conjured up the symptons in their head (doubtful)

There is another virus doing the rounds that presents identically to C19 , but clearly isn’t
and this isnt being tested for either ( eg. seasonal flu )

I think it’s probably a combination of these things. Seasonal flu and common colds won’t have gone away, and because everyone is hyper aware of COVID-19, which has symptoms almost identical to many colds & flu’s, everyone who has anything resembling it at the moment is assuming it’s COVID-19.

The test results just suggest that 9 out of 10 times it isn’t actually COVID-19, just a ‘regular’ cold/flu etc.

self-employed construction workers for instance cant afford to have time off as they wont be re-imbursed (or just get a pittance).
so….to them its essential work, even tho theyre not key workers. this is where i thought the speech was a bit woolly, and facebook as expected is full of arguments about this (well, my feed is anyway) with the self-employed arguing the fact that they have to go to work still for financial reasons and others giving them abuse.

The published advice is pretty clear, it doesn’t matter whether it’s essential or not, if it’s work, and they can’t do it from home, then they can travel to do it.

And I know it’s been posted several times already, but as people still don’t seem to have read it, here is the advice in full:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874714/Full_guidance_on_staying_at_home_and_away_from_others.pdf

St John do a pretty decent own label Bag in Box red from their own vineyards. £38 for the equivalent of four bottles, and better for the environment. Unless you’re in London it only makes sense if you buy three boxes to get free delivery, but they do white / rose too.

St. JOHN Rouge 2017 (3L BIB)

Reconditioned units with some big discounts on Wahoo’s UK website.

Tiles aren’t actually waterproof. If you’re replacing the floor it’s probably worth adding a waterproof decoupling membrane below the tiles to protect the boards. Wedi subliner or Schluter Kerdi or similar.

Decathlon Helium pillows are great. Inflatable, pack down small and come with a soft removable cover that you can wash, and that stops them feeling too much like an inflatable pillow. Valve is well designed too, easy to adjust the pressure to your preferences.

They work fine with BB7s, but do use compressionless cables. Shifters work with 9/10 speed road rear derailleurs (but not the new Tiagra 10 speed), and I think also with 8/9 (but not 10) speed Shimsno MTB stuff.

As above the cable run isn’t great. Had a few sets and have never worn out the plastic groove as described above, but shift cable inners do seem to get worn through at the shifter once a year or so.

46/36 is a bit of a strange choice if you’re not racing cross? A 50/34 compact will give you a lower gear if that’s what you’re wanting…

Just be aware that looking further out often isn’t as much of a saving for a renter as it is for a buyer.

Also, factor in commuting costs. A monthly travelcard is £135 for Zone 2, £160 Z3, £190 Z4 etc. Big savings there if he can find somewhere he’s happy to cycle to/from.

If he doesn’t have friends moving to London to live with, then spareroom.co.uk is the place to look for flatshares. It’s worth starting to look on there a couple of months before he needs to move, but most stuff is put up with a month to go.

At an architecture practice he’ll probably be doing a few late nights, so schlepping back to Croydon won’t be much fun, so only do that if he really can’t afford elsewhere.

Hackney / Victoria Park is pretty expensive as it’s so trendy. He could probably find cheaper places closer by looking at less desirable areas like Holloway Road, Caledonian Road or up towards Finsbury Park. You can find rooms for about £650 a month within 15-20 minutes cycle of Farringdon.

It pretty much comes down to cars. Everybody in this country outside of some select urban areas drive everywhere anyway, and most attempts to change their minds either fail, or attract huge outrage and then get changed back.

Everyone drives to the supermarket for most of their shopping, or into the nearest town for dinner or drinks. This means that you need a much higher population to support a shop or pub on an estate than when everybody just walked to the local every time. And because everybody wants a detached 3-5 bed with garage and a driveway out front and a garden, and new estates have a much lower population density than traditional terraced housing. And fewer people per room than historically too. It’s rare that one developer will have enough connected land to build an estate large enough to support a shop, and even if they do, the size of it will probably mean that the shops too far away from the houses on the edge for them to bother walking to it anyway.

You can build walkable developments in areas where the amenities are already in place, ie city centres, but land values mean flats, and lots of people choose a garden, garage and a driveway over walking to the shops.

VAT is 20% and Import Duty is 4.70%, then there’s going to be a handling fee with whoever you use. So it sounds fairly reasonable…

Assuming that the work is notifiable under the Party Wall Act, which sounds very likely, then yes, you have to give the neighbour access to your property to carry out the work if he has served a Party Wall notice and given the appropriate notice of requirement for access. Your father can agree with the neighbour to only provide access at certain times if he has reason,  but if there is a dispute then a Party Wall surveyor can be appointed to decide on the award.

He can’t ask for £1000 a day for access (well he could, but the neighbour wouldn’t agree to it and a surveyor would find that his demands were unreasonable, so he wouldn’t get it and it would be a waste of time).

The neighbour has the responsibility under the act to make good any damage he does to your fathers property under the act.

He can be difficult about it if he wants, but he can’t stop it, and being difficult about it will likely cost both time and money, as well as reducing his chances of getting an agreement that he’s happy with.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/523010/Party_Wall_etc__Act_1996_-_Explanatory_Booklet.pdf

Intensively reared grain fed beef in the US – bad for the planet.

British hill farmed lamb on marginal land? Not so bad.

I can eat lamb raised on grass a few miles from my house. I can’t eat lentils grown in the same country.

Unfortunately the evidence says otherwise. You could fly lentils or soybeans many times around the world before their carbon footprint even comes close to the most efficiently produced meat.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919212000942

And it’s really not as simple as intensive & distant = bad, natural & local = good. The vast majority of meat’s carbon footprint is produced on the farm, transport is negligible in comparison. And animals that live for longer, eat less digestible foods, and move around more (those on British farms for example), will produce more carbon dioxide and methane per kg of meat than those that grow quicker, move less and are fed more calorific foodstuffs.

Obviously intensive animal farming has a lot of other problems too – pollution from pesticides and fertilisers, runoff of animal waste, over-reliance on antibiotics etc.

Is eating that much red meat bad for you? Maybe.

Is it bad for the planet? Definitely

Do you need to eat that much red meat everyday? No.

Interesting to see how many people are relying on being mortgage free or downsizing to free up cash, while many have still been enrolled for at least parts of their career on the more generous pension schemes of the past.

It’s pretty clear that the next few generations are likely to be totally screwed as home ownership plummets. Having to pay rent throughout retirement is going to make a massive difference to people who are likely to be on much lower pensions than today’s retirees, however much they contribute throughout their lives.

This is worth a listen:

CyclingTips Podcast, Episode 9: Rethinking road bike tire sizes and pressures

only reason for that is that none of the rest want to take the blame for brexit.

It’s not that, it’s because if they replace her with an ‘unelected’ leader then it will be much harder for them to resist calls for a new general election, and they know that Corbyn has the momentum at the moment.

Remainers don’t have the option of Remaining

It only needs a swing of a couple of percentage points for the nation to be backing remain. A harsh winter could take care of that.

If the conservatives can squeak over the line with 316 seats, which looks possible, then a coalition with the DUP is just enough to run a government.

Labour cannot realistically form a coalition, they’d need every other party to back them.

Ironically, a situation in which FPTP has arguably given us a weaker government than a PR system would have done!

Meat is a huge one, cut that down to once or twice a week or less and you’ll be making a big difference. After that, but rather more difficult these days would be reducing food miles.

And don’t get a cat/dog!

At 95kg, unless you are 6’8″ then the cheapest weight saving and biggest improvement to your riding would be to drop 10-15kg off you.

Alpkit do a set.

You’ll need some flat bar road shifters and brake levers. Cable pull is different for MTB. Shimano SL-RS700 should work, assuming that’s 11 speed.

Nothing any other party does with the economy can possibly compete with the disaster for business that is Brexit.

May knows she’ll get an election, you cannot credibly vote against one as an opposition party, it’s basically surrendering.

She’s clearly called it for a stronger mandate on Brexit. No-one will be able to say that she’s an unelected leader anymore, and she will use that mandate to drive through a hard Brexit.

With no credible opposition she knows that she’ll win, unless EVERYBODY who voted remain votes for the Lib Dems, which is unfortunately not going to happen.

Find a small side road that joins onto the course, if you’re aiming to get there around 12 then accept that you’ll be on the lower slopes somewhere, and may have to do a bit of walking. You’re unlikely to get a car onto the climb at all on the day, but the rest of the route should be open until a few hours before it comes through. The campers at the top will probably have been there for a couple of nights already.

If vans really are this unsafe to drive maybe we need some new legislation that demands a better field of view for the drivers of all road going vehicles? I’m sure cars and vans could be redesigned with larger mirrors, increased areas of glass etc. much like some of the prototype HGVs that are being developed?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/29/german-neuroscientist-told-to-leave-uk-residency-application-rejected-monique-hawkins

Royal Mail vans are undoubtedly the worst around here, followed by white vans, then minicabs, then taxis.

You are aware that it is also officially the first day of winter right? We’re just done with autumn, winter has started and summer is still 6 months away!

If you know your height to fractions of an inch you’re not 6 foot.