Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Johnson044]

When life's a crock of s**t and you don't know what tomorrow's going to bring a takeaway makes you feel better for a little while.

 

A curious thing about some of the customers though is that they park their rather expensive cars on the pavement outside the takeaways so it's hard to get past without being run over.

 

A curious thing about some of the customers is also that they chuck all the packaging out of the car window and chuck their fag ends at me and my dog.

[rocor]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Of course there are.

 

There is a great deal of talk at the moment about people who are struggling to make ends meet, only rightly so, and about time too, but there is also a substantial constituency of people who still have plenty of money, and evidence of that is everywhere to be seen, if you simply look.

 

Referencing the 1970s again, one very big difference between then and now is the polarisation of prosperity. With minor ups and downs along the way, the U.K. has spent pretty much the entire period since 3rd May 1979 becoming more unequal.

 

I could take you on an hour bike ride circuit, shorter even, and show you if not the extremes of prosperity then at least 5th to 95th percentiles, and those two look very, very different indeed.

 

Mixed-in with outrage about partygate, one of the reasons that some of the more right-leaning Tory MPs are keen to be shot of BJ and RS is that they have been doing faintly re-distributive, tax-and-spend, things which threaten that inequality, the very inequality which their constituents elected them to uphold and increase. Read the Daily Telegraph to get a flavour of the clinging on to inequality with clenched fingers that is going on right now.

 

 

 

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, our current prime minister, is showing a limpet like tendency to cling on to power regardless of all efforts to dislodge him. The current plan of action, to bribe the electorate with their own money (with a degree of redistribution) to see them through hard times, is making some ideologues on the right of his party (no, not that sex and cheese and red wine party) uneasy. 

 

Maybe they would prefer no relief to be given, resulting in a Winter of discontent, then a state of emergency could be declared allowing parliament to be “temporally” suspended. This would save the PMs hide and the parties hold on to power, which could well be obliterated in an impending election. Now that will have been indefinitely postponed until a state of normality can be established.

[Nearholmer]

9 minutes ago, rocor said:

Maybe they would prefer no relief to be given, resulting in a Winter of discontent, then a state of emergency could be declared allowing parliament to be “temporally” suspended.

My instinct is that few, if any, have thought it through in those terms, and that it is more a case of them seeing their party begin to do something (downward redistribution) that is so at odds with their deeply held beliefs, their ideology, that they just can’t tolerate it; it’s like having bamboo splinters shoved under their fingernails.

 

Presumably the next move is for the PM to change the rules about how his party can de-select it’s leader, so that it is necessary for every sitting MP, every member of  their entire extended family, their family pets, the entire population of The Isle of Wight, and the preceding ten party leaders, several of whom must be dead by now, to submit a secret letter to Sir Graham Brady expressing no confidence in him.

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I could take you on an hour bike ride circuit, shorter even, and show you if not the extremes of prosperity then at least 5th to 95th percentiles, and those two look very, very different indeed.

Even easier, get off a train at Liverpool Street (in “The City”, and walk a hundred yards or so into Tower Hamlets.

you can go from top to bottom very quickly.

[Johnson044]

7 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Even easier, get off a train at Liverpool Street (in “The City”, and walk a hundred yards or so into Tower Hamlets.

you can go from top to bottom very quickly.

You sure can. It doesn't take much to tip someone into poverty.

[Johnson044]

If we're on this forum then we have many blessings. Full stop.

 

[lanchester]

4 hours ago, Johnson044 said:

 

The curious thing is that a recognized indicator of a poor area is the large number of fast food places on the High St. The more hard up people are the tendency is to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself and It doesn't help with tv advertising promoting all the rubbish food.

Didn't Dickens have Sam Weller say something similar about poverty and oysters?

[alastairq]

Surely, poverty is also  a state of mind?

 

How does one truly define 'poverty?'

[Nearholmer]

When you can’t afford to look after your children adequately would be a clear one to me. House, keep warm, feed, clothe etc. 

 

A mature adult living alone can, to some degree, set their own level and live cheaply, provided they’ve got a dry, warm-at-an-affordable-cost home, but bringing-up children is a different matter.

 

There are plenty of people in this country who were “bumping along, just about OK”, working in low-waged jobs, who now find themselves really struggling to bring up a couple of children.

[monkeysarefun]

For a change in pace from  Winter  of Discontent 2, I've been checking out some proposals the NRA released  in a 2018 report in response to shootings in schools.

Now obviously when teenagers  keep popping into schools with assault rifles and killing  and wounding dozens, something must be done so its nice to know the NRA and conservative politicians have been onto it.

Now lesser countries than the self described greatest country in the history of the world ever have had to fall back on  tired old gun control legislation to either ban, restrict, or age limit access to semi-automatics, but according to the Texas attorney general gun control JUST DOES NOT WORK ANYWHERE ITS BEEN PROVEN so the boffins at the NRA laboratory put their heads together and came up with these proposals instead.

 

And as a bonus, this way all the littlies  are safe AND the bigger littlies get to keep their semi automatic shooting irons.

 

A big fence

The report identifies perimeter fencing, made with material that “clearly demonstrates territorial ownership,” as the “first physical and psychological barrier that a violent individual must overcome.” According to the report, the fences should not send a psychological message that the school is vulnerable.

No trees

 

Research shows that students learn better and are less stressed when they can see some greenery outside the classroom window. But according to the task force, trees and bushes on school grounds should instead be viewed as major security threats. They supposedly provide too many opportunities for a shooter to stash weapons and hide from surveillance cameras. Shrubbery, according to the report, is particularly bad if positioned next to the aforementioned fence, lest all that foliage provide cover to someone cutting through the fence or climbing over it.

If a school insists on landscaping, the NRA recommends very kid-friendly “thorn-bearing and sharp-leaved plant species to create natural physical barriers to deter aggressors.” The report does urge school leaders to keep in mind that such prickly barriers might also prevent people from escaping a mad shooter.

Putting a whole new spin on The Giving Tree, the report notes that trees may have one upside. A stately maple may provide a level of “blast shielding in the event that an offender attempts to utilize explosive devices in an assault on school property.”

 

No parking lots

 

The NRA report grudgingly acknowledges that having a place for people and students to park at school is convenient. But that convenience comes at a steep price: “[V]ehicles can provide potential attackers with a means of concealing and transporting weapons, can be used as a tool in overpowering physical security infrastructure, and can even serve as weapons in and of themselves,” the report notes. If a school must allow employees and students to park near the building, the report says, the parking lot should be closely surveilled and ideally patrolled by armed guards.

 

Entrapment areas

 

The school receptionist is apparently the first line of defense against any active shooter. Thus the task force recommends that school front offices be protected with two sets of automatically locking doors, preferably constructed with “ballistic protective glass” like the neighborhood liquor store. Such a set up will allow the front office staff to safely trap a potential shooter like a bug in a window screen until help arrives. The report recommends reinforcing the front desk and side wall with “ballistic steel plating” that employees could hide behind should the shooter get past the entrapment area.

 

No windows

 

According to the task force report, schools should be designed with an eye toward 1970s-era post-riots urban architecture. Windows, if allowed at all, should be designed solely with surveillance in mind. They should be only large enough to peep out of to assess ongoing threats. “Design windows, framing, and anchoring systems to minimize the effects of explosive blasts, gunfire, and forced entry,” the report urges. The authors do acknowledge that this advice may conflict with the school’s need to provide people fleeing a shooter with a secondary escape route, noting that many people survived the Virginia Tech shooting by climbing out windows. Interior windows, particularly those in classrooms, should be fitted with ballistic glass, if at all feasible.

 

Armed Security Guards

 

Either police officers or armed trained security guards should be placed permanently in every school to monitor the single point of entry and respond with deadly force if an intruder with an assault rifle attempted entry to the school.

NRA head Wayne Lapierre added his wisdom with:

 

“In every community in America, school districts, PTAs, teachers unions, local law enforcement, moms and dads,” LaPierre said, “they all must come together to implement the very best strategy to harden their schools, including effective, trained, armed security that will absolutely protect every innocent child in this country. And that has to happen now.”

 

(The arming of teachers was not mentioned in the report but has subsequently been added to the list of proposals, I guess as soon as they can train teachers to keep one eye for teaching the class, the other eye on the door, one hand writing on the blackboard the other hovering above the loaded gun in holster, ready to whip it out and head shot any  body-armour clad intruder brandishing 2 AR-15s before he has the chance to return fire. )

 

If only... if only...... these measures had been in place in the Uvalde Elementary School last Tuesday, think what a difference they would have made....

 

The gunman would have gone to the local church or shops and shot them up instead.

 

Fair dinkum it really is the worlds largest  open air asylum.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[Compound2632]

Perhaps defending schools from rogue gunmen would be an appropriate task for the "well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" of which the Second Amendment speaks?

[Regularity]

41 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Perhaps defending schools from rogue gunmen would be an appropriate task for the "well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" of which the Second Amendment speaks?

Where is the NRA when needed, eh?

 

Perhaps that should be the argument put to them?

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Where is the NRA when needed, eh?

 

Perhaps that should be the argument put to them?

I think its a winner. Every AR15 owner must do say 10 hours a week guard duty outside a local school. That way schools get free security, the AR15 blokes get to stand around in public holding their mighty weapon and everyone else gets to see who the local clowns are.

 

[Edwardian]

9 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

For a change in pace from  Winter  of Discontent 2, I've been checking out some proposals the NRA released  in a 2018 report in response to shootings in schools.

Now obviously when teenagers  keep popping into schools with assault rifles and killing  and wounding dozens, something must be done so its nice to know the NRA and conservative politicians have been onto it.

Now lesser countries than the self described greatest country in the history of the world ever have had to fall back on  tired old gun control legislation to either ban, restrict, or age limit access to semi-automatics, but according to the Texas attorney general gun control JUST DOES NOT WORK ANYWHERE ITS BEEN PROVEN so the boffins at the NRA laboratory put their heads together and came up with these proposals instead.

 

And as a bonus, this way all the littlies  are safe AND the bigger littlies get to keep their semi automatic shooting irons.

 

A big fence

The report identifies perimeter fencing, made with material that “clearly demonstrates territorial ownership,” as the “first physical and psychological barrier that a violent individual must overcome.” According to the report, the fences should not send a psychological message that the school is vulnerable.

No trees

 

Research shows that students learn better and are less stressed when they can see some greenery outside the classroom window. But according to the task force, trees and bushes on school grounds should instead be viewed as major security threats. They supposedly provide too many opportunities for a shooter to stash weapons and hide from surveillance cameras. Shrubbery, according to the report, is particularly bad if positioned next to the aforementioned fence, lest all that foliage provide cover to someone cutting through the fence or climbing over it.

If a school insists on landscaping, the NRA recommends very kid-friendly “thorn-bearing and sharp-leaved plant species to create natural physical barriers to deter aggressors.” The report does urge school leaders to keep in mind that such prickly barriers might also prevent people from escaping a mad shooter.

Putting a whole new spin on The Giving Tree, the report notes that trees may have one upside. A stately maple may provide a level of “blast shielding in the event that an offender attempts to utilize explosive devices in an assault on school property.”

 

No parking lots

 

The NRA report grudgingly acknowledges that having a place for people and students to park at school is convenient. But that convenience comes at a steep price: “[V]ehicles can provide potential attackers with a means of concealing and transporting weapons, can be used as a tool in overpowering physical security infrastructure, and can even serve as weapons in and of themselves,” the report notes. If a school must allow employees and students to park near the building, the report says, the parking lot should be closely surveilled and ideally patrolled by armed guards.

 

Entrapment areas

 

The school receptionist is apparently the first line of defense against any active shooter. Thus the task force recommends that school front offices be protected with two sets of automatically locking doors, preferably constructed with “ballistic protective glass” like the neighborhood liquor store. Such a set up will allow the front office staff to safely trap a potential shooter like a bug in a window screen until help arrives. The report recommends reinforcing the front desk and side wall with “ballistic steel plating” that employees could hide behind should the shooter get past the entrapment area.

 

No windows

 

According to the task force report, schools should be designed with an eye toward 1970s-era post-riots urban architecture. Windows, if allowed at all, should be designed solely with surveillance in mind. They should be only large enough to peep out of to assess ongoing threats. “Design windows, framing, and anchoring systems to minimize the effects of explosive blasts, gunfire, and forced entry,” the report urges. The authors do acknowledge that this advice may conflict with the school’s need to provide people fleeing a shooter with a secondary escape route, noting that many people survived the Virginia Tech shooting by climbing out windows. Interior windows, particularly those in classrooms, should be fitted with ballistic glass, if at all feasible.

 

Armed Security Guards

 

Either police officers or armed trained security guards should be placed permanently in every school to monitor the single point of entry and respond with deadly force if an intruder with an assault rifle attempted entry to the school.

NRA head Wayne Lapierre added his wisdom with:

 

“In every community in America, school districts, PTAs, teachers unions, local law enforcement, moms and dads,” LaPierre said, “they all must come together to implement the very best strategy to harden their schools, including effective, trained, armed security that will absolutely protect every innocent child in this country. And that has to happen now.”

 

(The arming of teachers was not mentioned in the report but has subsequently been added to the list of proposals, I guess as soon as they can train teachers to keep one eye for teaching the class, the other eye on the door, one hand writing on the blackboard the other hovering above the loaded gun in holster, ready to whip it out and head shot any  body-armour clad intruder brandishing 2 AR-15s before he has the chance to return fire. )

 

If only... if only...... these measures had been in place in the Uvalde Elementary School last Tuesday, think what a difference they would have made....

 

The gunman would have gone to the local church or shops and shot them up instead.

 

Fair dinkum it really is the worlds largest  open air asylum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for that because I had not heard of this report. It made me angry and very sad. To 'harden' schools into bleak and joyless fortresses at enormous expense and re-role faculty as militia all in order to avoid banning the sale of automatic weapons to 18-year olds. It's beyond absurd, it's beyond insane.

 

By the time I reached the end I was half expecting the NRA to recommend children be trained by Monty Python on 'how not to be seen'. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

 

What is wrong with these people????????????

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

What is wrong with these people????????????

 

They're like so many these days, in believing that their particular right trumps the rights of others.

[burgundy]

During a visit to the US a few years ago, I visited a train show near Atlanta. I was struck by the attendance of a heavily armed cop, who was patrolling the show. 

I tried to imagine the UK equivalent - a sort of RailWells meets Hot Fuzz. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Nearholmer]

Is that NRA schools thing actually real, rather than satire?

[Edwardian]

24 minutes ago, burgundy said:

During a visit to the US a few years ago, I visited a train show near Atlanta. I was struck by the attendance of a heavily armed cop, who was patrolling the show. 

I tried to imagine the UK equivalent - a sort of RailWells meets Hot Fuzz. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

 

"If you want to be a big cop in a small town, f- off to the model village"!

[teaky]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Is that NRA schools thing actually real, rather than satire?

I had the same thought.  The further I read, the more I expected it to evolve into something comedic.  I began to expect the final recommendation would be a medieval castle.

[alastairq]

Don't forget, we ourselves, here in the jolly ol' YuK, are not immune to such lunacy....Or any lunacy, for that matter...

[Johnson044]

20 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The curious thing about a middling sort of area is the number of middling sort of chain restaurants, pubs that serve a reasonable meal, and local Indian/Thai/Italian etc restaurants on the high street.

 

The curious thing about a very prosperous area is the number of really very nice indeed restaurants, the sort with named chefs and discreetly obsequious service standards, which are tucked away in former manor houses in landscaped grounds.

 

The really, really curious thing is that we tend to sneer at the customers of the takeaways.

 

 

You were quite right to take me to task on this Nearholmer- I was being very pompous and up myself. Anything I said afterwards was just digging myself further into a hole of my own making and I'll probably dig myself in further now.

Well - yes- the eateries become more up-market depending on the prosperity of the area - of course they do. But proportionally it doesn't work that way. A "nice" High Street like Deal or Hythe has a very different ratio of cafes / takeaways to other shops to a depressed area, where the proportion is far higher. I’ve only to walk around the block to see this for myself. 

What I’m puzzled by is the bleedin’ obvious. That these places, which sell food that gives you a brief feeling of satisfaction without much benefit to health, are not cheap. They thrive in an area where money is obviously tight. There must be a ready market otherwise when a shop selling something other than junk food closes it wouldn’t be replaced by another fried chicken / pizza or kebab place (three of each face each other across the road within a quarter of a mile of where I live). There’s an Aldi, a Farm Foods, Poundland and a Morrisons nearby- and the money spent on a takeaway family meal would go so much further in any of these. Are they a feel good option that gets used because tonight I’m fed up, knackered, need a treat and tomorrow may never come? Many have “Just Eat” on the window, which as we know is pushed quite hard on the tv in the evenings. There’s either a lot of money out there or people are just living beyond their means? The cars that pull up generally are pretty new and expensive looking – certainly out of my reach for the most part.

It's getting tighter and tighter – especially, as you’ve said, if you’re bringing up a family. And yet, as the current The Big Issue article says, we’re wasting 20 million slices of bread per day. It’s a mess.

I rarely cook. I think I’m probably quite good at it when I try but I don’t very often, even though I know it’s better for the family budget and healthier. I’m lucky to be married to someone who loves to cook but when I’m on my own I could very readily go down the road and it would become more and more frequent- I know it would. I’m lazy when it comes to making a packed lunch and have to force myself to otherwise it would be another meal deal and the cost of these stacks up.  

I don’t sneer at the users of takeaways. I’ve no right to sneer at anyone for their lifestyle, be it necessity or choice. The pot would be calling the kettle black. My rant about parking on pavements and chucking rubbish out of cars stands. I do sneer when someone has contempt for their surroundings and for other people.
 

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Is that NRA schools thing actually real, rather than satire?

 

https://www.archpaper.com/2018/02/nra-harden-schools-windowless-bunkers/

Edited May 31, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[Nearholmer]

33 minutes ago, Johnson044 said:

It’s a mess.

It is, and a very strange mess, full of apparent contradictions, and things that are difficult to explain, and problems that seem intractable.
 

In some ways it’s no surprise that a brand of politics that tries to get away with easy answers to difficult questions, doing things that will be popular for the next five minutes, and which nobody really believes in, even those who choose it, is ascendant.

It’s all too difficult!!! 

[alastairq]

34 minutes ago, Johnson044 said:

The cars that pull up generally are pretty new and expensive looking – certainly out of my reach for the most part.

 

I think that the indicators of affluence  are somewhat superficial.

I wonder who actually goes out and 'buys' a new, or new-ish, car these days?

Isn't it all about 'how much a month' will the new car, wide screen telly, Sky, Iphone, Ipad, fancy 2 door fridge, etc....[never mind the mortgage?]...cost me?

Rather than, can I afford the investment?

Nothing new in the concept of what we used to call, the 'never-never'....I realise..but it seems to have permeated our entire society.

''Affordability'' seems to have taken on an entirely different meaning, from when I were a lad...

 

I get the feeling that a lot of people will, or are, having to face up to a life which will be reduced to 'basics?'

 Something that folk won't like at all.

 

Yet, I find, a life reduced to 'basics' can be quite liberating.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

31 minutes ago, alastairq said:

Yet, I find, a life reduced to 'basics' can be quite liberating.

IMO, there’s a lot of truth in that, and it’s part of the underpinning of some entire philosophies/religions, but by golly is it a difficult message to get across in a world built on ever-increasing consumption, inequitable distribution of prosperity, and status defined by possessions and lifestyle. It takes a very strong-minded (or ockerd) person to step outside all that and structure their life around minimalism.

 

I think most people have is an instinctive grasp of the fact that when hard times hit, things actually work like that 1920/30s cartoon, where everyone has to take one step back down the ladder, which is sort of OK for everybody except the bloke on the bottom rung, who steps back down off the ladder altogether, into oblivion.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Nearholmer