Reorte

If you want an abomination of a measurement, the Navy uses kiloyards...

To be honest whilst I can see why people say metric and decimal is simpler in principle (although arguably base 12 is a better choice than 10, although imperial units are in a variety of bases) in practice most people seem to find whatever they grew up with sufficiently usable, so the reality is that there's no particularly good reason to favour one or the other for that reason. Familiarity is a much more important factor, even if that leads to a mixture - I'm much prefer weight in stones, height in feet and inches, but have no feel whatsoever for temperatures in Farenheit. I do find it telling that the people who push base 10-based units never seem to do so for time, and carry on quite happily with 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week... (stuck with 365 and a bit days in a year as hard astronomical fact though).

Worked perfectly well for hundreds of years. Changed before I was born but always felt like change for the sake of change to me. Personally I like it when different parts of the world have their own idiosyncrasies, including our own. Only need just enough utilitarianism to make things practical, more than that and it gets lifeless. I need to have that converted to stone to get any feel. I wouldn't buy a set of scales that only had kilograms on them.

You think I like any of that lot either? I very much don't, and thus I'm not at all keen on moves that shift even further in that direction, rather than trying to wind them back as much as possible. I know the reasons for them, why we've shifted like that, and it often feels like another example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." I also find the dislike of the potential hassle we've got currently, which doesn't involve anything you're compelled to have, less than my dislike of the concept of ID cards.

You don't get that someone could simply find the whole concept fundamentally disagreeable? I see this quite often, people often not understanding any dislike (or like) that they don't actually share, and insist on an argument that would turn them around to agreeing in order to understand. Is empathy really that difficult? Note empathy and sympathy are very different things.

I've had to present my driving licence to the police zero times in the thirty years I've been driving. Whilst I can't rule out the possibility of it happening the frequency that it does is low enough that any hassle involved even without having it on me is too negligible in the grand scheme of things to care about.

Although I agree with the general thrust of your post on this, sometimes they will indeed pick up innocent suspects. That's an inevitable part of policing - if they didn't it would mean that they're always correctly arresting the guilty party first time, which although ideal clearly isn't possible. They're doing their job if the grounds of suspicion are sufficient enough that the risk of arrest for an innocent is sufficiently low. It's like the searching you mentioned - sometimes an innocent's house will be searched, even when everything has been done properly. If that wasn't the case, if they could always be certain about searching the right house, it would mean that they already had enough evidence to go to trial and wouldn't need the search anyway.

Same here, cheques aside (since I've not used those regularly for a long time indeed). Talking of cheques I'm tempted to find the cheque book and keep hold of it for some place that says "no cash."

How about we just agree to disagree and move on?

Sounds a bit "prove your innocence." If you're not a criminal you should be able to go about your life without ever having to speak to the police (unless you're a victim). Whilst life isn't and never can be perfect the odds of a bit of extra hassle should be low enough that it doesn't make any sense to mitigate against them; if they're not then the police aren't doing their job properly. Anyway how often do the police pick up the wrong person? They pick up suspects who they later eliminate from enquiries often enough, but that's different from just making a mistake. You're wording it as essentially a protection against the authorities. Needing that doesn't sound healthy.

It's precisely because I'm not a criminal I don't like being treated as a criminal, or potential criminal. It's nothing to do with paranoia. I don't fear misuse of them, but ID cards are a seriously, seriously messed-up concept.

Who you are, what you are doing is absolutely no-one else's business whatsoever as long as you're not negatively affecting anyone else. What's so hard to see about ID cards being a fundamental contradiction to that? I'm not saying you have to agree (you can understand someone else's point of view without agreeing with it), but I don't see what's confusing about it. Why would you say "which is as you would wish"?

The concept of ID cards is one I find utterly repulsive. Not because I fear misuse, but because I find the whole idea utterly at odds with a basic respect for people and privacy. You have no right whatsoever to know or do or compel anything about any other person unless they are harming you in some way. The same's true of the law (ultimately the authorities are just other people). ID cards are just being tagged and branded in another form.

It is, however, very disturbing just how many people are quite happy with that. If you'd raised it as a concern twenty or thirty years ago you'd have been told to stop being so absurd with your exaggeration dystopian views of the future, people would never go along with that.

A big thanks for stepping up to fill a gap, here's hoping it's a success for many years to come.

That's part of why I said I don't have a problem with such things as additions, it's when it becomes the only option that I start taking an incredibly dim view of the modern world (not that that takes me much effort!)

Personally I find it depends on the grot (well, to look at, not really tried to model much). Dirty stone, mills, soot, yes, concrete, litter, graffiti, no.

Spent a year living in Hunsonby. Well, on and off since I was at university at the time so I was just back there for the holidays. I took the train from Langwathby several times to get back. Always liked Hunsonby, felt it belonged to a different century what with the goat grazing on the green. Not far from Long Meg, for a bit more rail interest, not that there was much left to see of it by the time I was living there.

Spar Trek Enemies Bogpuss

The amount that graph's wobbling around it doesn't look particularly significant, a meaningful rise is certainly possible but it's certainly not distinct enough over the general noise on the signal to say for sure. TBH I'm surprised it varies that much considering the total numbers.

The skiing puns are about to snowball.

It's a much worse thing than just being able to phone up and talk to someone.

I agree with you about where it's going, and it's a very bad thing. It's reached the point where I think the government needs to step in and forbid things like parking payment by app only. It's fine as an addition, completely unacceptable as the only option, where it's merely being cheap and nasty.

Always left the bins out (at my old place, it's all rather moot where I live now) neatly, always came back to find the bin men had left them scattered half way over the road.

IIRC they weren't particularly adequate (at least the ones I travelled on weren't) for the numbers when first introduced. This was on the Manchester - Scotland route. At least they were better than the 185s that followed (1/3 2/3 doors and three carriages after Preston wasn't ever a good quality regional service from the off). At least they actually seemed capable of running up the hills even when jammed full of people though.