Everyone knew for my last interview and there’s already talk around my next, even though the post has not come up yet and the holder doesn’t officially know they are leaving yet (once the fiscal decides to prosecute they’ll be out quick enough). Actually I only know that last bit due to the teaching rumour network.

Jesus, you fire them before the trial? Or the GTC fitness to practice hearing?  And the rumour mill is allowed to spread that message before the PF has even decided if there is enough evidence and it is in the public interest to prosecute?  And having unofficially obtained such a heads up you thought it was ok the refer to it on the internet (albeit under a pseudonym).

I hope one of the interview questions is not, “can you give us an example of how you use sensitive information” or “can you give us an example of how in a society full of “fake news” you assess the credibility and reliability of source information?”

@ThePinkster: you almost got some of that right!

If the application was made electronically the school she applied to is definitely in breach of data protection

the data that has allegedly been breached is personal data regardless of whether it is stored electronically or not.

and could potentially face a massive fine.

scaremongering nonsense, fines are based on turnover – no idea how that is calculated for a school but it almost certainly isn’t going to get fined anything even if the ICO decided their practice was shoddy.

It is then the DPO’s job to report it to the Information Commissioner,

the organisation only needs to report data breaches where there is a risk to the rights and freedoms of an individual.   I might take some convincing that this would result in such a risk.

who will then decide if any further action needs taking.

This is a legal obligation if the organisation not the ICO – in exceptional circumstances the ICO may intervene but in a case like this it will be very unlikely.

Is this not happening anyway?

it can always get worse!  Never underestimate the ability of a manager to get upset over the wrong things – especially if news of your desire to leave reached them from above rather than you!

@northernremedy – I think it depends – I’ve seen that sort of thing happen in private sector too… but bad managers are found in all sectors and often take personal offence at anyone saying the want to leave (especially if the reason is management!).  If the expectation is you tell your own head first, they may not be so happy to have been blind sided.  Of course it’s possible that senior management really want to keep her (or can’t be arsed to replace her).

Finally there no such thing as a bad reference anymore, there all standard, “yes they worked here”, or they can refuse, but most won’t even be that passive agressive

but there very much is such a thing as a good reference, either written or a phone call!   I bet in the incestuos world of teaching it’s not hard to find someone who will tell you what they really think of Mrs S qualities as a teacher, supporting children’s learning, managing parents expectations, delivering SLT expectations and working with colleagues.

I’d wager that’s unlikely.  It’s not a data processing issue, for all anyone can prove, someone saw her going in as they were walking past.

except she hasn’t been for the interview… her application is personal data and should have been treated as such.  In reality the sanctions for the breach will be nothing more than – a telling off.

I would suggest that your wife brings it up in the interview & asks for an explaination?

I wouldn’t – two similar candidates and one starts trying to demand explanations for stuff which at least 1/2 of which was nothing to do with the people on the interview – the other candidate would suddenly seem easier to get along with!  If I was offered the job I might well make sure that the knew of the weakness.  If I was not offered the job I might point out how awkward it was given they leaked my application!

2) Her current employer now knows she’s job seeking. So what? They can’t stop her. Worst case is she can’t have a surprise attack of food poisoning next Wednesday.

3) She’s leaving. Who cares what they think, she’ll be gone soon.

that’s where it gets messy – let’s say she doesn’t get the job but there are a limited number of suitable roles in the locality, she’s “stuck” where she is with a manager who knows she wants to leave.  That is at best awkward and worst case means she’ll get all the crap jobs / non of the interesting career development stuff because she is not planning to stay.

I just think it’s a bit out of order that everyone knows before anything has officially happened.

Probably true, but also naïve if she didn’t realise that school staff rooms are fuelled by gossip!    The bigger issue would actually be is she applied for the job and didn’t get an interview because of the quiet entirely off the record conversations that happen in almost every sector.

Are any of you married? We’re a team obviously!

My first thought is to see if they new school has broken any GDPR laws. Then write them a letter to say that she won’t be attending the interview because they’ve been a bunch of rat bastards.

1. Does she want to work at the new place?

2. Does she want to leave the old place?

How will any of YOUR proposed actions help achieve either of those objectives.   It is wrong, I once had a very awkward conversation with a previous boss because somewhere I had applied to was run by the husband of someone he knew well!  My wife did not feel the need to get irate on my behalf, nor to write officious letters.  I did not throw my toys out the pram – because not only would I have made life harder where I was, but also at the potential new place and in a relatively small world in every other potential employer who knew either of them!

I suspect this sort of thing is even more common in areas like teaching, NHS etc where “everyone knows everyone”.  In fact I would not be surprised if you need agreement from management to apply for other roles in the same organisation (up here 99% of teachers are employed by the local authority).

What’s free?

i assumed he really meant, “they don’t buy them in my shop and I don’t stock the spare parts”… there may actually be a real issue there is essentially these become disposable.

In this age range, I used to go everywhere by bike and still do.

you were not the norm. The more people in personal e-transport the more people expect to see small vulnerable road users with different speeds, and the fewer cars on the road – therefore the roads become safer for real cycling too.  And as the roads become safer there will be more cyclists.  They are not “our enemy”.

that said the only place I’ve regularly seen e-scooters (no official trials in Scotland) were on a housing estate where I’m pretty sure they were being used for drug deliveries!

Must have been a low news day – surely this is not that unusual?

On a similar note how do people with young children handle them cycling when they are young?  For me once they are 5 ish they are best on the road if possible but then the question is behind or in front of you?  I see lots of people with children behind them but then you have no idea what they are doing or if they are following properly.  I much prefer them in front where you can persuade them to take a good road position or alert them to risky situations so they can learn what to look for.  It might come with an increased risk though and it really does depend on where you live

I found (10-15 years ago) that you need to be able to do both!   Sometimes you want to be behind and slightly out from them as a blocker for traffic, sometimes alongside, sometimes in front where the “threat” might be from that direction, where you want to guide them to follow a particular “route” etc.  Most drivers are very courteous around young kids – so sometimes once you know the car behind has seem you and them its better to pass the kid and protect from the front or make sure they understand where to stop at a junction etc.

 But people aren’t interested in who made the first successful ascent. They are interested in who made the first ascent.

I can’t say it’s been troubling me!  But Netflix presumably are poised with a documentary…

Who makes the money from this?  The “cultural curiosity” on the producer?

It also needs to be something that is available to all not just those who work in companies that will do it.

I work for the government FFS and my employer won’t do it. I would guess this is more likely if you are low paid too.

Most government depts do seem to offer it – perhaps your union should lobby for it.  There’s probably a bike hater somewhere in senior management – the sort of person who will find 15 reasons why having a shower on site is going to result in the company getting sued!  Actually if they really wanted to incentivise CTW they would make schemes available to companies for adding showers, bike storage etc.

At a previous employer we had a nasty CFO who hated cyclists and begrudgingly lost the battle with HR director to offer it – but with the shittiest possible implementation.  When he left the new CFO happened to be a roady… and the scheme improved a lot, no limit etc!  He could still be a c*n* but when someone raised the issue that the warehouse staff couldn’t use the scheme because of the minimum wage rule*, he just went and bought 4 bikes on his company credit card and told them they could use them FOC, no need to repay at all… they weren’t silly money but not BSO either – it was during covid (the issue arose because people didn’t want to use public transport).

*they weren’t even on minimum wage – but salary sacrifice on pension scheme put them low enough that a bike on top would be an issue.

And what consequences should there be to an employee expressing his frustration at the relatively lenient sentences secured by his employer

The sentences aren’t “secured by” his employer, the conviction might be, but the Post Office Scandal shows its a dangerous game when the organisational culture views winning prosecutions and robust sentences as its priority.  If he’s involved in fraud investigation his job is to ensure there is good evidence available, not to worry about the outcome of the cases.  If he’s not invovled in fraud he perhaps just needs the process explained to him – unless the person he was talkign to actually had any useful influence over anything then perhaps he needs to learn who or where its worth his employer’s time venting at.  HOWEVER that is separate from whether he’s seemingly condoning inciting racial hatred on social media by calling it hurty words.

The number of liars on this thread has actually increased since I last posted. If folk tell you that they weren’t aware of this phrase and its connotations then you could do worse than simply believe them.

But that’s not what I’m saying.  I fully believe that there are people who have never heard the phrase “hurty words” since they left the playground.  What I find hard to accept is that anyone with the intelligence to engage in debate on this forum, hears a statement that you get longer in prison for “hurty words” than tax fraud and doesn’t apply ANY thought to what those hurty words or circumstances must have been?

If I said “you get longer in prison for a traffic offence than rape” I think anyone with a modicum of common sense would say, hold on, what was the traffic offence.  If you then repeat this phrase without either questioning it or knowing its a gross distortion of the facts then you are either an idiot or trying to intentionally distort perceptions.   Anyone here saying they don’t understand the connotation of the phrase and therefore its ok to repeat it without thought (its not like its actually normal english that could coincidentally have been used) is either talking crap or creating an alternative reality to justify their lack of thinking.

I don’t see what an accountant has to do with this. These are not business accounts outside of PAYE etc.

I don’t think you understand what all accountants do!  Certainly some will primarily deal with business accounts but plenty have private clients and advise on tax issues and will even represent you to HMRC.

This is a matter of financial advice. IFA.

But beware… a lot of IFAs are glorified mortage/insurance salesmen – some are genuinely experts in this sort of stuff but some make out to be and then hide behind enagement letters saying “we don’t provide tax advice”.

Thanks, this is helping me get my head around this.

I paid the fine on 2nd May.

There has been no refund.

“You do not have any penalties and disqualifications.” – https://www.viewdrivingrecord.service.gov.uk/view_driving_licence/view_licence?locale=en#Endorsements

so no endorsements applied.

Ok so if I was in your shoes I would be highlighting s76 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act.  IF you have complied with the terms of the fixed penalty (and in particular since the issue appears to relate to your driving license I would want to ensure that I had evidence I had met the requirements of s75(8B)).

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/body

How much time and fight you can be bothered with would depend on how certain you are that you did your side of the deal right, but the law on fixed penalties is there to protect people like your from the administrative incompetence of the state.  If you don’t want to argue the point on principle – then you can highlight this section of the sentencing guidelines: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/overarching-guides/magistrates-court/item/general-guideline-overarching-principles/ :

where a penalty notice could not be offered or taken up for reasons unconnected with the offence itself, such as administrative difficulties outside the control of the offender, the starting point should be a fine equivalent to the amount of the penalty and no order of costs should be imposed. The offender should not be disadvantaged by the unavailability of the penalty notice in these circumstances.

1. I don’t think captcha is being used for training AI the way you think it is.

2. I haven’t noticed a particular increase in Capcha use – are you doing something that triggers it to be shown (like browsing with unusual browser/privacy settings?)

3. Unless the captcha is on some sort of mandatory service, if you don’t want to do them – don’t use that product.  If these tools are too intrusive in our lives product owners will identify other ways to reduce their bot risk.

4. Captcha probably does more to block ai than help develop it.

Does anyone understand why this has anything to do with me, and who I can get in touch with to get it stopped?

I had to confirm my licence details in order to pay the FPN?

1. it sounds like you paid the fine and provided your license details?  They’ve definitely not refunded you?  Does your DVLA record show the three points?  You have copies of everything you sent and there are no mistakes?

2. Is this 100% definitely for the same offence?  Sometimes people get confused by two similar cases around about the same time.

3. IF you have paid and got the points then it would obviously be wrong to be taken through the courts.  I would expect that you should not specifically reply pleading G or NG but rather ask the court for a hearing to raise a preliminary issue in bar of prosecution.  That would be easier with a lawyer – do you have insurance that covers that?  If not, you can do it yourself but you need to be clued up, calm and prepared to go back and forth to prove your point!

4. IF you paid the fine but they didn’t process the license for some reason (probably the most common “hiccup” with the system) then you should have had the fine refunded – you could try arguing the preliminary point as per 3; but that invites all sorts of discussion about why it wasn’t processed (was it your typo / bad handwriting etc).  More commonly this is resolved by accepting your guilt, but asking the magistrate (on the single justice form) to reimpose the equivalent of the fixed penalty.  You should refer to the relevant section of the magistrates sentencing guidelines or the high court case law to make sure that they don’t gloss over the point.  I would explicitly suggest that a fine of £71+ victim surcharge with no costs = £100 is the correct approach rather than fining you £100+ surcharge.    Be polite – remember the magistrate has done nothing wrong for this to get to the situation you are in.

It can only be “a first offence” if it was deliberately offensive.

no need for an action to be deliberate for it to cause offence, and no need for it to be deliberately offensive to become an Offence either.

Unless you aware of the phrases apparent new meaning then it is irrelevant. I hadn’t got a clue and would object strongly to be told that I was living on the moon.

Actually I still don’t know what the OP has a problem with as I can’t be bothered to find out but I suspect that it is really just a matter of opinion anyway.

any person with even a slightly inquiring mind would think, “oh that is odd, that a perhaps minor level of rudeness has attracted a sanction more serious than tax fraud” that might then cause them to pause for a moment and wonder which stories they have heard recently of people being imprisoned for social media posts.  It will not have escaped any vaguely attentive party’s notice that those cases have mostly been in relation to inciting violence on race/religious hate grounds.  The offenders (who have been sentenced so far) have all plead guilty suggesting that it’s not really a matter of opinion.  On the other hand those who seek to excuse or diminish their offences are using language like “hurty words” or “expressing an opinion”.

So either the original claim is bollocks – and “hurty words” don’t result in prison sentence or it’s a euphemism for inciting racial hatred.  Now I appreciate that some of those using that language might not actually have the brain power to realise what the soundbites that are repeating means, but that doesn’t really apply to anyone I’ve met on STW – all of whom are intelligent enough to apply their own thought to who or what is being repeated.

for what it’s worth in my opinion anyone thinking it is ok to use the word “hurty” in an adult context was probably a school bully who thought it was funny to upset others then too.

Personally I would get use to properly rugging up but the reality is if you don’t heat the house then mould and then freezing pipes will come knocking. You can’t not heat a house and expect things to be ok

but they are planning to heat it – for two hrs a day, and presumably there will be cooker, toaster, oven, kettle, light bulbs, tv?, fridge, laptops, phone chargers etc all pumping out passive low levels of background heat.  If she’s got a dormer presumably there are floors below leaking heat upstairs.  There will be no burst pipes (it’s likely that any heating has a frost stat anyway).   All those things they tell us to turn off to save power are actually slowly warming the environment – she might actually be better with old school lightbulbs rather than LEDs!

Buy her jumpers and an old lady shawl/throw thing to put over her legs.  That approach served my wife well 30 yrs ago in similar situation and son in Glasgow tenement recently.  Make sure she understands about curtains etc (or even invest in better ones).   We could all do with acclimatising to living slightly colder.

The link is that parenting skills really aren’t taught anywhere. It actually seems a bit pointless doing it at high school as parenthood is a long time away for most high school pupils then once that opportunity to teach it is gone there really isn’t another one

i seem to remember our school did have some element of parenting classes (but more how to keep them alive than actually raise them well)… but then we did have quite a few who were parents by the time they left!  That actually seems to be something where there has been a “positive” shift.

Spin – if it is shit parenting then you would expect this to be a gradual effect before Covid and since Covid,  if it’s a Covid effect (I mean social consequence rather than direct impact of the virus on brain) We should see a spike.

Anecdotally I hear that those who transitioned from p7 so s1 in 2020 and 2021 (current s4/s5) are particularly bad.  I can rationalise that – they had very odd social experiences at a key stage in life.  My daughter is in that age group – it’s difficult to compare to my son (who transitioned to Uni in that time) because of differences between genders, oldest/youngest child etc.  There was a massive (positive) difference in her when she got involved in the local scout (explorer) group.  That would be consistent with your hypothesis.   Presumably the p1s of 2020 would also be a bit “weird”.

it can’t be anything to do with teachers striking as that’s been happening on and off since I was at school, although various extra curricular activities being killed by work to rule, budget cuts, covid etc has almost certainly not helped.  Getting those in power to realise that teachers are more than classroom drones is hard.

none of it surprises me – the people making key decisions really don’t seem to have any understanding of normal childhood.

no idea of toilets issue – that may be related (they were labelled as rooms of death!) but it could be some sort of social stigma / bullying problem – at “our” school they have become the place people go to vape and hide from adult view, so are generally avoided by most kids (the local GP actually uses this as a measure of how urgent and gastric / bladder problems are!).

I think Tom Pidcock flying down Alp d’Huez makes good telly.  I think races with multiple ascents descents and therefore attacking opportunities make good telly.

Actually it makes mediocre telly that is of interest only to people who are vaguely interested in bikes.  Its not love island / celebrity rot my brain stuff!  But you are correct, challenging terrain clearly makes better TV, but if its for TV there’s camera crews watching the action.  Your objection is these crashes went unnoticed.  How then is their danger caused by making better TV.   Perhaps its the style of course, but I don’t think they are particularly different from before TV?   A better solution might be MORE TV so every rider / corner is caught!

I think anything that increases the chances of disruption and chaos makes good telly but it also increases the risks.

Actually a neutralised race is crap TV.   A little bit like motorsport – a red flag and even safety cars are not good for spectators – except in weird strategy games.  People do like to see incidents, but actually small incidents make for better TV!  Either way though presumably if TV has expected crashes there – they would have been filming.  The organisers didn’t expect it, the commissaires didn’t expect it, the TV producers didn’t expect it.

Off the top of my head, radios.

How would radios have PREVENTED the crashes you are most concerned about?  At best, they might have alerted someone to a crash – but that assumes the rider is conscious and the radio survives the crash.  Perhaps silence from a rider would be a warning but it might not.  Here’s the flip side though – could radios actually make things worse – could pressure from the team, or feedback that other riders were managing to handle the course well actually drive a rider to/beyond their limits.  People have been riding bikes much longer than small lightweight radios have been viable options.

You are right that even someone not at the front is potentially fighting for a contract for next season etc.  Crashing is probably not a good way to impress the scouts – but getting badly injured is a sure fire way to write off your chances of a contract.  I don’t want to see people hurt or killed, especially young riders trying to prove themselves, but part of being a winner is knowing when to push and when to back off, whether that’s for injury, mechanical, tactical or other reasons.  It becomes the organisers’ responsibility when its something the rider can’t be expect to foresee – e.g. oil on the road, poor road surface round a blind bend, difficult lighting, a massive group riding where individuals have less freedom to move, etc.  Clearly these incidents have happened when someone has got it wrong (rider or organiser) – but several dozen other riders made it safety past the same hazard so do we really believe that the unlucky ones were trying harder?    We will likely never know exactly why, but no technical solution or rule change being advocated would have stopped at the very least major injuries.

My guess is that life changing / career ending / fatal accidents are more common in training than in competition?

I would be amazed if the UCI don’t have a major incident review after every life threatening crash.  Without sight of these we don’t know if the root cause is really being found and action taken to mitigate at future events.  It may be tempting to simply chalk them up to “rider error”, especially if there are lawyers hovering to attack but it would be just as stupid to knee jerk a bandaid to look like they are doing something.

It’s one thing to say competitors know the risks but you also have to take into account the fact a governing body can change the rules any time it wants to make the sport more risky in the name of increasing the spectacle.

which rule did the UCI change (not leave unchanged) to make the sport riskier and more of a spectacle?

I’ve dealt with commissaires for “local events”.  Assuming their culture continues up the grades I’m really not sure they are interested in the spectacle.     I’m not sure if at the top of the sport commissaires are “paid” or volunteers, or perhaps given a small sum for turning up / travel expenses.  In many sports these sort of officials are neither funded nor valued properly.

This means that the focus is always on increasing the drama and the spectacle (no doubt with half an eye on how it’s going to play out on the next Netflix series).

I think there is a flaw with your fundamental premise.  Your implication is that these accidents happen because they make good telly, but then you say nobody saw them happen.

No competitor in any sport can never be held responsible for their own safety.

is that what you meant to type?  The rest of the para sounds like you meant ever rather than never.

A competitor’s job is to do everything in their power to win.  They have to push every rule to the limit and common sense simply cannot come into it.  Competitor safety begins and ends with the governing body.  Riders are going to push the rules and so the rules have to be enforced in such a way that the risk reward ratio of breaking safety rules means that breaking the rules simply isn’t worth it.

i think you’ve got that fundamentally wrong.  Certainly organisers have a huge burden to bear for rider safety but the idea that left unchecked riders will simply push before safe operating envelopes to win is frankly a bit bizzare to me.   If I understand correctly none of the crashes you are talking about were win or loose situations?  Living to see another opportunity to win is surely essential – even a minor crash has potential to end a season.  A ruined season can end a career.  Which of the current rules were being pushed by the riders?

adding tracking technology so that you can spot someone had just had a potentially fatal accident won’t stop the accidents.  At best it will alert you quicker and perhaps save a life – but if it saves a life it is because of a serious injury which we should be keen to avoid.  More likely it will actually make for better telly and drama around crashes – exactly what you want to stamp out.  If you want to stop crashes then even barriers or marshalls are probably a poor UCI intervention.  But the idea that we ride down steep wet roads on slick tyres seems worthy of a raised eyebrow.  I don’t know if better grip would have prevented it but it would be fairly simple to require minimum tread when the surface is wet.

@poly you are deliberatley hugely misrepresenting, and wildly exaggerating, what I am saying, for whatever reason I don’t know. So in the interests of balance two can play at that game……

well, I’m trying to stimulate your mind to consider the possibility that your immediate reaction (which will also be the immediate reaction of many others) may not necessarily be seeing the full picture.  Ecconomic development does not need to mean fast food, ski resorts etc.

Scotroutes thinks 4G improvements won’t be on the locals wish list.  I don’t know how he knows that, he might be right, and presumably Highland Council’s local development plan does have their input but if it’s like round here then the vocal locals aren’t necessarily that good as seeing a big picture.

Apart from his seeming inability to update his phone keyboard to automatically capitalise the first letter of each sentence. Cmon poly, it’s not that hard

I need to update the standard iOS keyboard to get that? I think it is just sometimes a bit flaky – particularly if you cut n paste quotes on this site or apply formatting?  I’m always just happy that I manage to get to submit without the page auto refreshing and wiping out my content.

Related question: Do people actually pay to get their boiler serviced yearly?

in the past – no

then I had a dead boiler to replace – since then I’ve paid the extortionate sum of £80 to my gas safe installer who comes out, checks everything is hunky dory, gives me a bit of paper that I can use to show it’s being maintained if there is a warranty claim etc.   he’s spotted a few problems over it’s 10ish year life, from a leaking heat exchanger (would have been £450+fitting if out of warranty) and some small washer/seals.

i don’t grudge it at all.  He does ride a bike though… so obviously not to be trusted.

Being outside established event norms and not being a staffed event also created questions for insurers. “What are you actually doing / insuring?”  “Just riding our bikes self-supported from a group start…?” “Is that an event?” .. and hence me thinking that somewhere in all this is a format and guidelines for an event that is not really an event.

Do you have times/results?  I know of one insurer (Howden) who treat competitions quite differently from activities that don’t have published results.

I thought the Jacobites were the good guys???

Depends which side you are on!  I mean not many today would argue that a religious war that believe god appoints the monarch and Parliament should be subservient is a greate cause… but it does depend how you spin the version of history…

Lib Dems are kicking at the heels of Tory. Might not look like traditional left/right Gov/opposition but why the hell not? If that is how people want to vote then great.

no that’s who you WANT to fill the vacuum but I’m guessing you were not a classic blue rosette wearer!

possibilities: Tories move to the right of Farage, Farage fills the vacuum, even as leader of the opposition that is a horendous thought.

with the tories moved significantly to the right Starmer becomes more right of centre and basically become a new Cameron, could the opposition then end up being left of the “Labour” government?  Could a vacuum on centre right cause a party split?

This could kill the tories in Scotland again, Starmer may fail to deliver the dream and snp might work out what they are doing you could end up with a load of smaller parties on the opposition benches (to some extent we have) meaning there’s little opposition coordination and less meaningful scrutiny

or it might be the libdems moment – but unfortunately they are a rather unknown entity and I suspect 90% of the population would struggle to remember any of them except Ed Davy

Every Amazon order is available to see forever.  It’s a bit of a faff to get to each invoice but just a couple of clicks per item.  Occasionally Amazon wasn’t actually the supplier and to get the invoice you need to ask the supplier but I think you can still see the total anyway.

But if you look in Amazon help for transaction history every credit card payment is listed – not so obvious what it’s for but you can reconcile against order numbers if you need to check something.

Why not redesign the phone mast into some kind of attraction in itself?

or will it work if placed horizontally? (there’s probably somewhere close that could benefit from a new footbridge).

it’s an interesting idea but:

– masts are generally to get height for more range the map included in the application shows an area of many Kms where no/poor coverage would be improved for all four networks.

– whilst concerns people had 30 yrs ago about radiation are mostly proven to be wrong – you really don’t want to be THAT close to a transmitter, and humans will block the signal (and even in torridon potentially be liable to vandalism)

– but it is an interesting question, there were masts in Dunblane or bridge of Allan 20+ yrs ago which were “disguised”, not perfectly big enough to be less obtrusive.  People built stone folly’s and monuments 150 ish yrs ago around the place which now are considered landmarks – perhaps the aesthetics could be designed in such a way to be more “Victorian” and get less abuse!  Actually I’d welcome an art installation but I suspect Kenny and others would find such a thing even more offensive.

Absolutely not. You are, for whatever reason, taking my views on (part of) the Torridon area and extrapolating them to suggest they are my views on the entire Highlands area. I’m quite happy for people to be able to make a living in the vast majority of the Highlands.

ah so it’s just the people of torridon who must live your digitally limited way so that when you come up from the city you can enjoy a version of highland life you believe is better?

What I am suggesting is that some parts of it (covering a very small amount of the total area) should be left largely untouched. That would benefit local people, people who live in cities and people who come from abroad to visit Scotland.

Your implication is that this is some sort of vast network of destruction.  It’s one mast for all 4 networks and an access track.  I’m sure it will be noticeable – I am also sure that such features are so common we almost don’t notice them around the country

At no point have I tried to suggest that the Highlands should be “cleared”. I am talking about the preservation of fairly small parts of land.

but that effectively will be the consequence if we leave places isolated – nobody will want to or be able to afford to live their permanently.  Torridon Primary School has either already closed or is ear marked for closure.  I’m not saying a cell tower would prevent that but we have a choice – invest in rural infrastructure or accept that it’s just a slow decline.

Look at what the Canadians and Americans do with their wilderness areas and national parks. I’m not even suggesting we go that far.

i don’t know how they assign National Park status, but here there are lengthy consultations.  They don’t preclude investment in infrastructure and indeed if Torridon was in a National Park it would probably increase demand for coverage!

I’d be very surprised if the extra coverage this mast would supply is aimed at residents, not visitors.

the two are not mutually exclusive.  It doesn’t need to service people’s homes to be useful to visitors – many people in an always connected society benefit from instant messages, emails, stw when they are on the go – if a villager has signal at home but not when travelling to the next village they are at a disadvantage over others.  As more and more stuff like banks, health services, education etc move to digital connections having to find a location with a signal is an inconvenience that might just be the difference between living in Torridon and living elsewhere (despite its selling points – you’ve stayed in civilised connected, tourist infested Edinburgh for some reason). Even if it actually directly benefits visitors more – if that means more visitors then economically that may be good for the area.

I love my mobile phone but when I’m somewhere like Torridon I’m happy for it to live in my rucksack for a few hours. I’d rather look at the scenery than a screen.

nobody is forcing you to use your phone any more than a Torridon resident is compelled to use their phone when down visiting Edinburgh.  BUT I have a concern when people choose to live in cities but then tell rural communities that they must remain more primitive so that they can use those area as their playgrounds.  To me that is just like an absentee landlord popping in for a few weeks of grouse shooting in the summer!

After ten months?  I’d be setting a fire under the arse of the insurer, saying “see you in court then, bitch” to the claimant and filing a counter-suit for harassment.

definitely don’t do that.  If the other party had been a cyclist and the insurance companies were taking this long over a small claim you lot would be saying – stop waiting for them just issue court proceedings!

this is the other drivers insurer/lawyer putting a rocket up your insurer for taking too long.   Whilst someone 10 months ago said just pass to insurer do not respond – I would still strongly recommend that you do pass to your insurer but write to the court to inform them that you have done so and that you previously did so in response to other correspondence.  She doesn’t want to end up in a bigger mess because the court think this document has been ignored (if the insurer don’t get their finger out).  Courts do not like having their time wasted by parties who should have settled out of court, but they really don’t like parties who ignore official correspondence.

I agree with you; it’s no different from the letter she received 10 months ago.

it is – it’s the next step when her insurer are no further towards settling

They are just hoping she will pay. It would never get to court,

it absolutely will unless her insurer settle it or scare the claimant off; legal costs for fighting a baseless claim could easily run to £5k so it’s surprising that the insurer have not managed to settle it.

and if it did, that is why she has insurance.

correct – you are 100% sure she was insured at the time, for that vehicle and the purpose it was being used for?  There is no dispute from her own insurer about their liability if there is an award made?

so Kenny to get this clear – you think people who want economic security/prosperity (at even a moderate level) should leave the highlands and move to the cities so that city dwellers can go to the highlands to digitally detox?

im being intentionally provocative but thats the eventual conclusion of your thinking.    I get that you think torridon is the last wilderness – in reality it’s just a particularly remote estate in a tough landscape.   There’s a risk that all the Highlands and Islands have a second highland clearances because there’s no employment for young people, no schools for their children, nobody who can afford to live there to provide services to an aging population and a tourist economy that disappears in summer.  Economic development doesn’t mean industrialisation, just as phone towers don’t just mean easier instagramming.

i don’t know that they’ve necessarily got the “not spot” policy right but I’m certain that treating rugged wild areas as human and digital deserts is neither the best way to let many people enjoy them nor to protect the landscape you want.

Interesting, I’ve organised a fair number of events but never had an isolated policy for one event, rather a policy covering all our activities.   I wonder if another side benefit of Ltd co would be a general “public liability policy” which is aware of your general activities but doesn’t drill into every detail?  But all my events have alway been managed under the auspices of a “sport governing body” so they just expected us to follow their good practice guides.  I’m not sure how they would feel if your main event is outside the UK – certainly my company combined liability insurance covers product liability risks globally, it’s not cheap but is not actually as expensive as I expected.  I don’t know if it would, or would not, solve your EU rep problem.

However Torridon is one of our few remaining fairly pristine environments. Bulldozing an unnecessary track that will be visible from all around is an act of environmental vandalism.

Presumably you live in a yurt in the middle of the wilderness with no infrastructure to serve you, right?  I have no strong view on whether this is necessary or any benefit outweighs the negatives but I think those of us living in “civilisation” need to be careful before deciding that other areas should be protected and essentially held back from economic development.   Objectors are almost always more vocal than supporters and it’s easy to find emotive words like vandalism.

we don’t want pylons because they blight the landscape;  then we question why there’s no infrastructure to make use of our natural resources, and complain politicians are short sighted.  We say we don’t want rural areas to be depopulated and only used as second homes, I wonder in 10 yrs time if we will complain that there was a lack of foresight in getting communications infrastructure into rural areas driving everyone to the cities…

the bike routes are great but that also means more people = more demand for connection.  Even if other masts have coverage they may not have capacity for projected growth.

The locals opinions do matter but whether for or against shouldn’t necessarily be definitive.   I would however put relatively little weight on voices arguing this is an idea rural isolation for mountain bikers – people who drive 5h there and back a couple of times a year at most.

I’m all in for this absolute car crash of a leadership election. It all helps in the agenda of punting Conservatives to to the far back benches as the third party and a footnote of horrible history for a generation.

Who fills the vacuum?

 Really, libraries, I suspect you’d be pointed to the photocopier if I asked at mine.

yes – West Lothian libraries have 3d printers too…  not particularly well publicised.  Its the sort of service that could actually save community libraries – making them “hubs” of helpfulness rather than just about books.

^ organising, encouraging, allowing to happen..? But yes, pretty much as you say. There will be a legal line so it may be just a case of finding out where it is (cost/will to do so is another q)

I’ve seen similar sorts of pseudo legal arguments at club level for “events” – if we don’t call it an event we don’t need to do the same level of admin/dilligence etc.  I think it’s nonsense – the law (in U.K. jurisdictions) doesn’t have definitions of “organiser” or “event” – the question is simply did you owe a duty of care.  If you did you can’t really get away with saying “I encouraged but didn’t organise; or I knew all about it and didn’t raise concerns”.   I think it would be difficult to go to court, where this thread might be evidence and say “I had absolutely no belief that I had any duty of care”, because the fact you opened the thread is basically saying you do want some influence on timing/course etc.    Now France and Italy’s legal systems are very different from here so they may define an event or an organiser.

if Cycling UK is not the answer, is there a French equivalent?