Duck House Duck HouseTaken June 9, 2010 at 4:17 pm Canal Boat Isabella Kennet & Avon Canal Canal Boat Isabella Kennet & Avon CanalTaken June 10, 2010 at 2:24 pm Pumping Station Pumping StationTaken June 11, 2010 at 12:56 pm Hungerford Fete Hungerford FeteTaken June 12, 2010 at 1:00 pm Small Pond Lilly Small Pond LillyTaken June 18, 2010 at 3:53 pm via posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogtime capsule June 8th to June 22nd, 2010Related posts:Photo time capsule from May 8th to May 22nd 2010time capsule from May 25th to June 8th, 2010Canal Boat Holidays
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
time capsule June 8th to June 22nd, 2010
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/06/15/time-capsule-june-8th-to-june-22nd-2010
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June 15 2011, 5:01am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Never has London’s atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme
Geographically, never mind socially, we are not all in this together. Life in London feels different to anywhere outside. By London, though, we are only talking about a small area of central, west and north london. Out in the banlieu, you might as well be in Bradford.
This article titled “Never has London’s atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme” was written by Ian Jack, for The Guardian on Saturday 16th April 2011 07.30 UTC In Bradford on a winter’s night 25 years ago, I stood in front of an estate agent’s window and made a calculation. For the price of our terrace house in north London – two up and two down and a bit of garden at the back – I could buy 10 similar houses in Bradford. This month I read that Burnley has the lowest property prices in England, and made another calculation. For the price of our London house I could buy 40 houses in Burnley that were averagely cheap and 80 of the very cheapest. This doesn’t mean that the differential in house prices between London and northern England has grown by more than 400% since 1986. I live in a bigger house now, and Burnley isn’t Bradford. But the gap is certainly widening: according to Halifax figures, houses in Newcastle-on-Tyne cost on average 28.8% less than they did in 2007, while in Islington they’ve risen 9.7% in the past year after changing very little – up or down – in the previous two. I look at pictures of the cheap houses in Burnley. They’re Victorian terraces. Their doors open straight on to the street, but they look solidly built from Pennine stone, no frills, but handsome. I imagine workers came home to them from cotton mills. Our house is certainly more imposing, three floors rather than two, with bow windows and ornamental red brick. But it has shallow foundations in London clay, so whether it’s sturdier is doubtful. I imagine someone who earned money in a suit, a senior clerk or a shopkeeper, first moved in when the terrace was completed in 1890. Without substantial inherited wealth, not even two-income families in the modern equivalent of those jobs could move in now. Newspapers sometimes write that the coalition cabinet contains “18 millionaires” as though it were a peculiar outrage, but everybody who’s paid off their mortgage in my street is a millionaire, if property is counted among their assets. And I stress that this is an ordinary street; until 30 or 40 years ago, a schoolteacher or a Fleet Street sub-editor could have afforded a house here. What explains my good fortune? To some extent many of my generation share it, especially if they worked in a trade or profession that blossomed in the 1980s (better, on the whole, to have been a national-newspaper journalist than a mechanical engineer). Most people I know have grander homes than their parents, no matter where they live in the United Kingdom. If they live in favoured parts of cities such as Edinburgh and Leeds, their homes are often enviable for their architecture and space. Only the very grandest of them, however, could be swapped for 40 cheap houses in Burnley. Above every other consideration – career, age – the combination of judgement and happenstance that made me a London house-owner is what explains my relative wealth. To a certain degree, this is an old story, and common to every metropolis. Moving to London four decades ago, I discovered one-bedroom flats were double the price of those I’d left behind in Glasgow. But then the 1980s arrived and the British economy’s centre of gravity shifted sharply (and to date, permanently) south. Between 1979 and 1986, jobs in manufacturing industry declined by almost two million; 94% of jobs lost in every sector in those years were north of a line drawn between the Wash and the Bristol Channel. The traditional idea of Britain – one taught in school geography books – was a country that made its money in the midlands and the north (including Scotland, and not forgetting Wales) and spent the profits mainly in the south. But now both the generation and consumption of wealth grew concentrated in the same place, and the north-south divide suddenly marked something more fundamental than dialects and traditions. It was during this time, soon after the miners’ strike, that I stood with a notebook in a Bradford street and worked out the house price ratio. I wondered then if it could last. It didn’t seem possible that it could get worse – and for several years around the turn of the century it didn’t. Public spending financed by European grants and taxes raised in the City of London secured for many northern towns at least the suggestion of a viable future, if viability is measured in warehouse conversions, art galleries, warm cappuccino and rising property costs. The crash has since jeopardised all these simulacra of metropolitan living. The odd thing – the unfair thing, considering where the crash originated – is that the metropolis itself is immune. Geographically, never mind socially, we are not all in this together. Life in London now feels different to anywhere outside, as though you leave through city gates at turn-offs on the M25. Never has its atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme. “Revenues have bounced back and we are again seeing strong sales growth. The outlook for the UK as a whole may be gloomy but I think the long-term prospects for London, especially with the Olympics, are very good.” These are the words of Des Gunewardena, who runs a chain of expensive restaurants (Le Pont de la Tour, Quaglino’s) and I read them last week in the Evening Standard, underneath the headline, “Surge in dining out feeds a flurry of restaurant launches”, next to a picture of Sienna Miller arriving at Sheekey’s. Each in the list of a dozen new restaurants still to open has the name of a chef attached. One of those already opened, the Pollen Street Social in Mayfair, took 5,000 calls looking for reservations in its first day. Beyond the hope that manufacturing industry can rebalance the economy, and the faraway prospect of a high-speed rail line to Birmingham, no government strategy exists to spread this wealth further north. The political tone is southern – look at the party leaders, or many of the Labour candidates parachuted to northern seats. It has been left to the BBC to do a little social engineering by – bravely or foolishly – relocating departments to Salford, Cardiff and Glasgow, so that half of its output will be produced outside London by 2016. Will better programmes result? Very few BBC staff seem to think so; on the evidence of BBC2′s Review Show, now made in Glasgow, extra expense in travel and hotel costs looks the likeliest difference. But three formerly great industrial cities will have BBC budgets and salaries added to their troubled economies; there will be job opportunities; the middle class in each place should grow a little larger. The staff who refuse to go are easily mocked. Haven’t they heard about the better quality of life, the Lowry, the easily accessed countryside, the “creative buzz” that’s now reported along the banks of the Clyde and the Manchester ship canal? Their reluctance to move is usually expressed in personal and professional terms: of not wanting to interrupt their children’s education, or being too far away from their show’s guests. But perhaps among their worries there’s something less easy to define; that by quitting London they’re removing themselves from its cultural, political and economic heft, which has grown so remorselessly and, whether or not BBC Breakfast gets done in Salford, will carry on regardless. The country’s centrifuge: both awful and interesting.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogNever has London’s atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme
Related posts:Compensation is only for the rich To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century Arc Royal to extend London City Airport
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April 16 2011, 11:21am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Jets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/18/jets-prepare-to-deploy-despite-libya-ceasefire
Warplanes head for Mediterranean in attempt to increase prussere on Gaddafi as Nato envoys meet to back no-fly zone
This article titled “Jets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire” was written by Richard Norton-Taylor, Nick Hopkins and Robert Booth, for The Guardian on Friday 18th March 2011 20.20 UTC British Tornado and Typhoon ground attack aircraft are expected to fly to bases in the Mediterranean as Britain, France and the US step up military pressure on Colonel Gaddafi despite his announcement of a ceasefire. The UK is also expected to set up a joint command centre with the US and France to co-ordinate operations that will be supported by a number of other countries, including Canada and Denmark. In further evidence of mounting determination to confront Gaddafi, ambassadors from Nato’s 28 member countries are due to meet to lend added support to the UN-backed plans for a no-fly zone. Nato also emphasised humanitarian operations, but suggestions that ground troops from Britain and other countries could be deployed in Libya were dismissed last night. “The absolute priority is to enforce the no-fly zone, and to secure maritime supply routes,” said a defence source. “Nothing else is in the mix at this stage.” Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen said the UN resolution sent “a strong and clear message from the entire international community” to the Gaddafi regime to stop his “systematic violence against the people of Libya immediately”. To this end, an array of other British military assets, including reconnaissance aircraft and air-refuelling tankers, will be deployed to bases in the Mediterranean. Military commanders in the UK have called the entire effort Operation Ellamy. Though the MoD never talks about special forces operations, it is understood that SAS and SBS soldiers are already on the ground in Libya, providing information on likely first targets for any bombing raids. They could include airfields, supply routes and Libya’s anti-aircraft defence batteries. “Any operations will be highly targeted to ensure that civilian casualties are avoided,” said the source. It became clear that the complexity of co-ordinating joint operations with so many countries would stymie any immediate plans for air strikes to help the rebels. One strategic priority was to find a way of binding in Arab help for any attacks, even though this is likely only to be at a logistical and support level. The prime minister told the Commons that British Tornado and Typhoon aircraft were within hours of being deployed. However, Whitehall sources later admitted that no planes had left the UK, and nor were they likely to until the weekend. The day began with no clarity over the command structure for any operations – and whether they would be led or supported by Nato. These details were being frantically developed in the hours after the UN resolution was passed. General Sir David Richards, chief of the defence staff, worked through Thursday night trying to secure agreement over who would do what and when, before attending the Cabinet meeting in Downing Street. He has been liaising closely with Air Marshall Sir Stuart Peach, chief of joint operations, who is based at the permanent joint headquarters of the three services in Northwood, to the north-west of London.The most likely scenario is that British fighters will be stationed at the British sovereign base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, where the RAF already has E3-D long-range air surveillance aircraft that are monitoring Libyan airspace. Nato is also operating 24-hour surveillance of Libya with Awacs reconnaissance aircraft based in Germany. British fighters may also be stationed at the Nato airbase at Sigonella in Sicily – Canada is sending six fighters there. “Once the decision has been taken about where they go, it won’t take the aircraft long to get there,” said the source. The Royal Navy still has two ships in international waters off Libya – the frigates HMS Cumberland and HMS Westminster. There are no plans to increase the number at this stage. However, the navy is working up a response force task group, which will include up to six different support and warships. That may be deployed in the weeks to come, sources said. The US already has a strong naval presence in the Mediterranean: a battle group of five vessels led by the ageing aircraft carrier USS Enterprise includes the nuclear-powered submarine USS Providence and the destroyer USS Mason, which both entered via the Suez canal last Saturday from the Red Sea. The USS Kearsarge is also in the area with a contingent of US marines on board while the USS Mason, a guided missile destroyer, was in port in Haifa, northern Israel on Wednesday. “Surveillance will be 60% of the strategy if the plan is to dissuade Libyan aircraft from taking off,” said Professor Trevor Taylor, head of the centre for defence management and leadership at Cranfield University. “And ground surveillance will be much more important still if the Libyans start using armoured vehicles because that will multiply the number of targets.” Barak Seener, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, added: “Symbolically it’s very important to include an Arab element in any attacks. “Logistically they cannot provide very much, but it is important as a way of countering the accusation that this is an intervention which is colonialist and imperialist in nature.” Diplomats have said Arab countries that could participate in possible strikes might include Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Arab League Agency from another era Hillary Clinton claims it was the Arab League’s recent statement on Libya that persuaded her the time was right to back military action in the country – the implication being that, unlike the invasion of Iraq in 2003, western intervention against Gaddafi has been legitimised by regional support. But do the 22 delegates who make up the league – almost exclusively ageing, male and appointed by autocratic governments that enjoy mixed support at best from their people – really represent 360 million Arabs, at a time when power relations in the Middle East are being radically reshaped? When the League of Arab States was founded in 1945, King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, the then Saudi ruler, grandly declared that it would “enshrine the fondest hopes of the Arab people”. But today the high walls and carefully manicured gardens of the League’s Cairo headquarters feels like an anachronism, especially when contrasted with the grassroots energy that exploded around the corner in Tahrir Square as Egyptians toppled their president. Many are asking whether an institution originally designed to make the lives of British diplomats easier (they preferred dealing with a single Arab agency rather than multiple heads of state), and dominated through the decades by conservative political elites, has any role to play in articulating a unified voice of the Arab people on to to the world stage. At present all 22 Arab countries (alongside the four observer nations of Brazil, India, Venezuela and Eritrea) send one delegate each to the League. In the aftermath of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, their individual delegates from each nation stayed in place – shifting their allegiances overnight from a government of dictatorship to a government of the people, with no personnel change deemed necessary. The Libyan delegation has entered more murky waters; at the start of the crisis, Tripoli’s permanent ambassador to the League, Abdel Moneim al-Huny, tendered his resignation in protest at his leader’s “massacres”, and then promptly announced he had been reappointed by the people’s government in Benghazi to represent the Libyan population inside the League. Meanwhile, the Gaddafi regime appointed its own new representative, leaving the institution’s secretary general Amr Moussa with an HR headache. For now, neither of the rival delegates can attend Arab League meetings because Libya’s membership has been suspended, the first such action in the League’s history, although behind the scenes unofficial dialogue is being maintained with both men. The rest of the Arab world areis left with delegates appointed by their own undemocratic regimes, – who appear happy to deploy deploying the language of humanitarian concern in the case of Libya, but are noticeably quieter on brutal crackdowns against protesters in the Gulf and elsewhere. The League’s Chief of Staff, Hisham Youssef, believes that the winds of change blowing through this part of the world will strengthen his institution, not undermine it. “We’re moving in a direction that will hopefully lead to a more democratic region, and that in turn means a more democratic and representative Arab League,” he told the Guardian. Whether he’s right remains to be seen.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogJets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire
Related posts:Libya unrest: Allies assemble arsenal for possible strike against Gaddafi Libya uprising continues – live updates Libya protests: ‘Now we’ve seen the blood our fears have gone’
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March 18 2011, 5:32pm | Comments »
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I posted to hubpages.com
Canal Boating Holidays
http://hubpages.com/hub/CanalBoatingHolidays
I'm interested in canal boats, barges and narrowboats on the UK canals and rivers or England Wales Scotland and N. Ireland, collectively known as the UK Inland Waterways. Canal boating holidays seem to be the...
- Tags:
- boat
- holiday
- thames
- canal
- navigation
- waterways
- barge
- short break
- canal boating
- narrowboat
- broads
- canal boat holidays
July 10 2010, 5:04am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Canal Boat Holidays
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2010/06/27/canal-boat-holidays
Previous Canal Boat Holidays I’ve been going on canal boat holidays since a child, but none in the last few years and it has been long overdue to do something about that. The first trip I went on was a little Thames cruiser boat with my parents, before the locks were all manned. Then I went on a narrow boat with a youth club and years later took my own children on narrowboats and Norfolk broads cruisers. Ideally, I would like to spend spend summer months continuous cruising around the inland waterways of England and Wales. That’s part of the Location Independent Living idea but there are several steps which need to be taken first, and one of them was to take a gentle introduction to the joys of boating by way of a short canal boat holiday on the Kennet & Avon canal in rural Wiltshire, perfect for weekend breaks, on board the hotel boat Isabella Canal Boat Holiday Weekend Pictures
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- weekend breaks
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June 27 2010, 2:11am | Comments »
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I posted to youtube.com
Canal boat holidays - Kennet and Avon canal - Bruce Tunnel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUXBwjPT4gc&feature=youtube_gdata
June 15 2010, 4:26am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4696195458/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:15am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4696191882/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:14am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695555695/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:13am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695552933/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:12am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695551735/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:11am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695549135/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:10am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695546161/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:09am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695543321/
AndyRob posted a video:
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 8:08am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4695522977/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 7:59am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4696156590/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 7:58am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/4696153572/
AndyRob
Canal Boat Isobella Kennet & Avon Canal
June 13 2010, 7:57am | Comments »
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