Castle Aching

[Skinnylinny]

Well, with the rate and frequency with which I dig holes I've managed to replicate the Inner Circle...

London or Glasgow?

[nick_bastable]

London or Glasgow?

Dante's more like

 

Nick

[TheQ]

My remarks earlier, about the Greater London council dumping Londoners in MK, are being repeated. Today 19/12/18 every council authority in Essex has written to all the London councils and the London mayor.

Telling them to stop shipping people out of London and dumping them in Essex. London councils are hiring houses in Essex on six months rent, putting Londoners into them then abandoning them for the people of Essex to support.

[Hroth]

Dante's more like

 

Nick

The ticket office is the pit under the Devils tail, where the monks and friars live...

[Caley Jim]

Immobilising one is dead simple: stand it on bricks, so that it’s wheels don’t touch the ground, stick a silly hat on it, and send all your mates the photo via Instagram.

In certain areas of Glasgow vehicles are found on bricks because someone has removed the wheels (and probably sold them down the pub by the time the owner finds out!).

 

Jim

Edited December 19, 2018 by Caley Jim

[brack]

Good to know that, in the vanishingly improbable circumstances in which I deem it necessary to call into question the mental powers of any individual female member of this forum, I can simply refer to her as a "stupid people".

 

Those Parliamentarians; clearly far brighter than I am to have come up with that!

I'm waiting for the first Allo Allo themed cartoon in tomorrow's papers.

[sem34090]

London or Glasgow?

Glasgow of course, my friend - Narrow gauge is automatically more interesting!

[sem34090]

Good to know that, in the vanishingly improbable circumstances in which I deem it necessary to call into question the mental powers of any individual female member of this forum, I can simply refer to her as a "stupid people".

 

Those Parliamentarians; clearly far brighter than I am to have come up with that!

"When I first read that I was very worried about how you may be describing some of our esteemed contributors around here, for stupid they most certainly are not!

 

Then I read the news from the Westernminster Front..."

 

Missenden returned to his seat.

 

 

This is what, out the news report, stuck out to me as demonstrating how I feel about this Country currently.

 

 

Tory MPs and ministers seek to show the speaker the clip on their phones

It's not a major event, but for me it signifies something of a low that we have reached, where MP's are essentially mimicking teenagers.

 

Reminds me of something my former rather public-schoolmaster-emulating deputy headmaster once said to a group of us who were shouting at one another, insulting each other and having a major shouting match...

 

Deputy-Headmaster: "Boys, now that you've all calmed down, can you tell me if you see members of parliament behaving like that? NO! You don't!"

 

Me (Because I'm a gobshite who doesn't know when to shut up!): "Erm... Sir..."

 

Deputy-Headmaster: "What is it?"

 

Me: "Well, you do see MP's behaving like that."

 

*Cue me getting a detention each lunchtime for three days.*

 

Well this got rather political rather quickly, my apologies to you all...

Think of something to return to topic... Quick!!! Get back on topic... erm... Railways... Pre-Grouping... Jenny Agutter...

Edited December 19, 2018 by sem34090

[Hando]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 

                                                                                   Let's derail (if you pardon the pun) that part of the discussion!

Edited December 19, 2018 by Narrowgaugebeginner

[Edwardian]

I just think the World is insane.

 

The older I get, the clearer that seems to me.

 

Or are things actually becoming increasingly bizarre?

[Compound2632]

I just think the World is insane.

 

The older I get, the clearer that seems to me.

 

Or are things actually becoming increasingly bizarre?

 

The most bizzare part of it is that folk of our generation, who in the natural course of things would be drifting from radical youth towards reactionary old age, are mostly heading in the other direction...

[RedGemAlchemist]

My remarks earlier, about the Greater London council dumping Londoners in MK, are being repeated. Today 19/12/18 every council authority in Essex has written to all the London councils and the London mayor.

Telling them to stop shipping people out of London and dumping them in Essex. London councils are hiring houses in Essex on six months rent, putting Londoners into them then abandoning them for the people of Essex to support.

Same with Thetford over here in Norfolk.

[sem34090]

I just think the World is insane.

 

The older I get, the clearer that seems to me.

 

Or are things actually becoming increasingly bizarre?

Well, you know the extent of my tender years, Mr D'wardian, and quite frankly I would suggest that the latter is indeed true. Though some will argue that is because in many respects I'm a grumpy old git in the body of a teenager...

 

In recent years some things have changed for the better, even if that has meant the disruption of several traditional norms and perceptions of the world. But now, in some quarters, it seems that those traditional norms and perceptions are being disrupted for the sheer sake of 'progress'. Some people are trying to turn the world on its head for no apparent reason, and what I find sad is that the people who are trying to get elements of the world turned on their heads for good reason then get bundled in with the progressives as what I like to call 'Authoritarian Liberals' - these being the people who promote the values of freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of [insert something else here], freedom of everything just so long as it's their beliefs. If you don't hold those same beliefs then in their eyes you're a fascist and deserve to die. Bigotry isn't one-sided. 

 

And another thought - It's very interesting to be studying Orwellian literature (specifically Nineteen Eighty-Four) at the moment. A society that has been turned on its head, with traditional values swept away. Where no citizen is truly allowed freedom of thought, less so expression, and is potentially monitored at all hours of the day, where the intrusion of the media is constant. Where modern values and beliefs are applied to the past. Where beliefs must align with those of the majority (or, rather, those in power) and where language itself has become warped and misused. Orwell's vision of the future is rather darker, perhaps, than our own present but the world described above is not a million miles away from the world of our present. When Orwell is read and studied alongside Huxley's Brave New World the world begins to look that much darker.

 

I think, perhaps, Orwell summed up the modern world quite nicely in Animal Farm, though perhaps the word 'equal' could be swapped with 'free' or a few other words.

 

All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.

 

P.S. The Square Root of 25 = 2+2.

Edited December 19, 2018 by sem34090

[sem34090]

You know, I could almost be a politician, the amount of bullsh*t I speak! I believed and could make sense of it as I wrote it, but quite how much sense it makes now is debatable!

 

My apologies to you all, once again.

[Hando]

You know, I could almost be a politician, the amount of bullsh*t I speak! I believed and could make sense of it as I wrote it, but quite how much sense it makes now is debatable!

 

My apologies to you all, once again.

 

My goodness, I think we need a government inquest into sem's response!

Edited December 19, 2018 by Narrowgaugebeginner

[Hando]

I'm starting to worry that I look like the Forum Police or the Met -one of the two.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Narrowgaugebeginner

[sem34090]

We need someone to enforce law and order round here old chap!

[robmcg]

You know, I could almost be a politician, the amount of bullsh*t I speak! I believed and could make sense of it as I wrote it, but quite how much sense it makes now is debatable!

 

My apologies to you all, once again.

 

Not at all.

 

I couldn't have written it better myself.  I am looking at it all through my Google-approved augmented reality glasses...

[robmcg]

We need someone to enforce law and order round here old chap!

 

Only inasmuch some such as me model post-Edwardian trains and are thus to be curbed.

[Nearholmer]

Q et al,

 

I do think there is a considerable difference between the post-war model of tax-funded, planned new towns to provide half-decent housing for Londoners living in pretty b awful housing, and the post-millennium model of desperately renting houses anywhere cheaper than price-inflated-by-parked-foreign-money London, and shipping people out in dribs and drabs, while spending barely a bean to create affordable housing anywhere.

 

K

Edited December 19, 2018 by Nearholmer

[robmcg]

Can we talk about block chain technology perhaps?  Whenever someone tries to explain it I experience a disappearance of the will to live.

 

ah, no, sorry, off-thread. 

 

Best to all.  I will solve issues of tax-funded housing tomorrow,  or after Jan 14,  or within one year.    Or two....

Edited December 19, 2018 by robmcg

[sem34090]

That reminds me of a slighty humorous occurrence recently, Rob - Whilst watching the 1984 film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four (and being skint I was having to watch it online), the second advert was for an in-home CCTV monitoring system!!!

That much I think Orwell got wrong - He didn't predict that we'd be buying the monitoring systems with our own money and at our own choice!

Edited December 19, 2018 by sem34090

[RedGemAlchemist]

That reminds me of a slighty humorous occurrence recently, Rob - Whilst watching the 1984 film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four (and being skint I was having to watch it online), the second advert was for an in-home CCTV monitoring system!!!

That much I think Orwell got wrong - He didn't predict that we'd be buying the monitoring systems with our own money and at our own choice!

Apparently the Internet understands irony.

[sem34090]

Well if that be true...

[St Enodoc]

But he's only hugging your leg to show how much he likes you!

 

Anyhow, thats preferable to over-familiar Labradors and Cocker Spaniels at airports....

 

You DID mean hugging? 

I rather fear that Annie might have been referring to an activity akin to a widely-practiced form of gravity-assisted shunting in major marshalling yards...