WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

I have read about that explosion. There were others of course and we still have one waiting to happen. The Liberty Ship sunk in shallow water in the Thames Estuary. Full of explosives and too dangerous to do anything about it. All the authorities can do is leaver it alone and hope that natural attrition by the sea water will neutralise the cargo.
What grabbed me this morning was the good news that at long last the tie in the pub industry has been broken. Landlords can now sell beers other than those allowed by the owner of the pub. This has been long awaited and of course the pub companies and breweries are screaming blue murder, forecasting that this is the end of life as we know it. The wonder of it all is that one of the strongest lobbies around parliament let this one slip through. Tenant landlords will be overjoyed but you can bet your bottom dollar that the owners will find some other way of screwing money out of them.

[PanBiker]

What grabbed me this morning was the good news that at long last the tie in the pub industry has been broken. Landlords can now sell beers other than those allowed by the owner of the pub. This has been long awaited and of course the pub companies and breweries are screaming blue murder, forecasting that this is the end of life as we know it. The wonder of it all is that one of the strongest lobbies around parliament let this one slip through. Tenant landlords will be overjoyed but you can bet your bottom dollar that the owners will find some other way of screwing money out of them.

They should take a leaf out of the Dogs book (the Greyhound in Barlick for the off cummed un's). Buy out the pub and start your own brewery.

[Stanley]

News that Jules Bianci has been brought out of the coma they induced after his crash. He is breathing normally and it looks as though he is improving slowly.
The arrival of the right arbor for my new chuck...
The wonderful weather....

[Nolic]

New pub in Barrowford at the bottom of Pasture Lane based on its own micro brewery. "The Bankers Draught" - guess what the building was originally? Nolic

[Big Kev]

I have read about that explosion. There were others of course and we still have one waiting to happen. The Liberty Ship sunk in shallow water in the Thames Estuary. Full of explosives and too dangerous to do anything about it. All the authorities can do is leaver it alone and hope that natural attrition by the sea water will neutralise the cargo.

I was born, and raised, in Gravesend and the "threat" of the SS Richard Montgomery was something we were all aware of even though it is a lot further down the estuary at Sheerness.

I remember, as a child my father finding a wartime bomb in the sea off Leysdown beach (just along from Sheerness) caused a fairly major evacuation. I would imagine that the authorities were not so sure of the stability, of the Montgomery cargo, 45 years ago as they claim to be now. I think I'd still be concerned for 1400 tonnes of high explosive, whether it were 70 odd years old or not

[Tizer]

The revelation this morning that a Russian web site allows people to spy on us in our homes via our webcams, and advice on how to prevent it. The best advice is don't have a webcam!

Disagreement on whether we should be giving money to other countries, mainly developing countries, to help them counter the effects of climate change. I'm all for preventing climate change and for helping other countries but giving them money is the wrong way to go about it. We should spend the money here in our universities and companies on innovation and development of technology to counter climate change and bring the technologists and scientists from those countries to the UK on fixed-term secondments to learn the methods and approaches so they can go back and do the same in their own countries. This is what we used to do very successfully in food and agriculture and people from all over the world came here to get the education and experience then went back to become science, technology and engineering leaders in their own countries. Teach a man to fish...

[Thomo]

Tiz is right, and I believe its time to stop throwing money at other countries problems, a great deal of which is never accounted for.
Following Stanley's post about phishing yesterday, I found one in my inbox, also from Talk Talk, instant delete! an hour later and there was another one, this time from BT, my previous IT provider, asking me to confirm my account details so that they could close the account, I left BT 14 months ago!

[Bruff]

A pragmatic and attractive idea Tiz, but best of luck in the current climate. The UK is sadly seen as less and less an attractive place to come and study with the hurdles being put in place seen as not worth the fuss along with concerns over the welcome you’re likely to get in the current climate. Just this week, the Universities Minister is in India attempting to allay potential student’s fears there that they are essentially ‘not wanted’. Student numbers from India are down 15%. One hopes he’s successful as this sort of downturn is worrying not just for the funding of the University sector, but also for the potential loss of the ‘soft power’ huge numbers of foreign students bring – what I mean by that is, when our exporters go looking to break the Indian (and of course other) markets, they may find their potential customers reflecting fondly on their time studying at say the University of Liverpool and how wonderful they found the UK and its people. Losing that on the altar of Mr Farage’s fear of a Romanian neighbour, and the scare-mongering that suggests every foreign student is nothing more than tomorrows illegal immigrant, would be a tragedy.

I know our Universities, along with our schools, are full of layabouts who’ve never had a ‘proper job’ in the ‘real world’ (or at least that’s what I read with depressing regularity these days), but despite that they are actually, at least for the time being, one of our genuinely world class ‘industries’.

Richard Broughton

[Thomo]

Just how does what India spends on UK university education stack up against what we send them in aid?

[Stanley]

Comrade, I like 'The Banker's Draught'. Is it a privately owned pub?
Richard, I agree with Tiz but as an add on to emergency aid. I have always supported sensible overseas aid simply on the grounds that it is the right thing to do. It's an accident of fate and history that some countries developed the capacity to produce wealth sooner than others and the compassionate thing to do is to share some of it with the less fortunate. We are incredibly narrow-minded about 'foreigners', especially when they come to the UK. Apart from anything else, it was OK when we flooded into their countries to colonise and exploit them, it could be pay-back time.
As for Farage and his blinkered political ideas, UKIP will sink like all one trick ponies unless it evolves into a party with sensible and well rounded policies.
See this LINK for a BBC report of the UKIP win at Rochester. A smaller margin than Clacton but Reckless still got 42% of the vote on a 50% turnout. Not quite an apocalypse but prepare yourself for a flood of defensive statements from Westminster....

[David Whipp]

Back to Barlick with my contribution...

Last night's Pendle Council executive agreed with my proposal of how to fund a shortfall in the local area committee's budget; this means that it should be possible to overturn a daft decision taken by the majority on the West Craven committee to axe funding for dog waste and litter bins.

This may seem a little parochial given the worthy world and national issues posted here, but it's one way of staying sane!

Here's a burnt out bin at Greenberfield Locks that now stands a chance of being replaced.

[Stanley]

Same syndrome on Letcliffe in I think 2010.
One point, as I understand it (and I once enquired of Environmental Services) dog waste is no longer burned separately and it is permissible to put it on ordinary waste bins. Do we really need two types of bin? Would it be cheaper to have just standard waste bins?
The Letters Page of the BET is worth a good close read today. Apart from a good letter from John Clayton about Bouldsworth there a couple that go straight to the heart of local funding and the attitudes of the Tory Party.

[PanBiker]

A feature on Newsnight last night regarding the state of the Palace of Westminster, AKA The Houses of Parliament. Due to decades of under maintenance It's falling down! The problem is that the piecemeal building since the various bits have been bolted on has never had sufficient funding to maintain it properly. The building itself is over ornate for what actually goes on inside and is no longer really fit for purpose. It was built to accommodate a two party system whereas nowadays there are multiple factions represented within the House of Commons.

The health and safety issues alone for it's present state should really warrant immediate evacuation. The fabric of the building is actually crumbling, you can pick bits of with your bare hands. The foundations are sinking and its packed to the gunnel's with asbestos. A team of telecom engineers have been working in the catacombs underneath the structure for over 15 years trying to map the telephone cabling that has been installed over the last 100 years or so. It costs a fortune to heat and strictly speaking everyone in there on a day to day basis should be wearing hard hats. It showed a workman replacing a tile in the over ornate flooring, the tile itself, about 6" square cost £70 and with fitting about £100. This is only surface maintenance to make it look pretty.

The cold facts are that on conservative estimates it would cost £3 Billion pounds over a 10 year period to knock it back into shape. This does not include the potential costings for stopping it sinking into the Thames, no one has figured out how to do that yet or how much it will cost. The figures are all pie in the sky of course as experience would tend to suggest that a 3 billion 10 year project would probably turn into 10 or 20 billion and maybe 50 years, it's a potential bottomless money trap.

They had two blokes on, one commenting on why we should keep it and one proposing getting shut. The keep it guy said it was too iconic and had too much history associated with it to lose it. Now if that is the case why has funding not been made available to maintain it over the years? The other guy said we should abandon it and replace it with a new build fit for purpose. I tend to lean with the latter.

Lets not get precious about this. OK the building did start about 900 years ago, so what. Over the years its been burnt down, added to, rebuilt, blown up, bits knocked down added to again and rebuilt. Most of what you see is it would seem, jerry built Victorian and only 150 years old.

My proposal would be to evacuate it immediately, and embark on planning a new building. They don't need to knock the place down, time will see to that. They could do an internal shoring up job, surround the entire site with a 100ft glass barrier, bolt a cinema type attraction on the end to show the history and leave it at that. Keep the clock tower going so it can still ring Big Ben and bobs your uncle. Rome is no longer run from Palatine Hill but what remains of the building is still there, thousands of visitors go to look at it every day. Nothing wrong with abandoning a building that is no longer fit for purpose.

Now about the replacement for the MP's, (ideal opportunity to settle the upper house question once and for all, just do away with it). Design and build a new building fit for multi party politics and put is somewhere in the middle of the country rather than in London, that would be fairer and also reduce the overheads of the MP's and all that have to work there.

Now the actual geographical centre of the UK happens to be in the front room of a friend of mines house at Cow Ark near Dunsop Bridge. I doubt if Mike would like all the Parliamentary ruffians within his environs so I would not propose the replacement is sited exactly in the centre. That spot is likely to move anyway when Scotland eventually goes it alone. I cant see why it cant be in Manchester, Leeds or York though, plenty of brownfield sites to go at in any of those locations. York would be prettiest but maybe I'm biased.

[Pluggy]

I watched it too, I drew pretty much the same conclusion, shore it up as a tourist trap and move the business of government elsewhere.

[Stanley]

There was a proposal in the 1970s and 80s to save money by moving many of the functions of government to a new build site and in view of the new cross Pennine motorway they looked very carefully at the moor above Rocking stones. In terms of population and ride time this is the best served place in Britain. We found that out when we were looking at tourism potential at Ellenroad. (There are more people living within an hour's ride of the Opera House at Buxton than Covent Garden) I think the big problem was that it was a move too far, too exposed and remote from the continent of Europe. The project sank like a stone.
I agree with both of you, time to ditch the ersatz 'traditions' because most of them were Victorian inventions to shore up a crumbling monarchy. The 'London Effect' is an old one and very strong. High time we scaled it back. In terms of investment in infrastructure it is draining development money out of the rest of the country. It shows how blatant this has become when people like Osborne advocate investment in the North.

[Stanley]

The final F! Grand Prix race of the year. Looks as though it could be exciting. The big question is does Hamilton play it safe and settle for second place which will give him the world championship or does he go on the attack? I think he will use his head and go for the second place but if Rosberg makes a mistake all this could change... I hope reliability doesn't decide the outcome.
Mick's visit today to collect the plunder for him and Doublejohn. I've got a lot of stuff I won't use again and it's a pleasure to pass it on.

[Stanley]

Lewis winning the World Championship. Much has been made of Rosberg's bad luck in that his car let him down. I remember his action at Monaco when he deliberately ran up the escape road to spoil Lewis' chance of taking pole and him deliberately driving into Lewis. Perhaps there is a God after all? On any measure, Hamilton deserved the win and the championship. Of course it all goes back to the fact that Mercedes got the new power systems right and were invincible. Next season should be interesting.... I hope Jenson Button gets a drive, he deserves it as well.
Just got round to reading the latest Private Eye and was shocked to see that the Imperial War Museum has had its budget cut by £4million per annum and as a result there are to be massive cuts. No more guides for school parties and worst of all, the closure of the library and all its archives are to be sold off. This after a £40million refurbishment and in the year we celebrate the centenary of the start of the Great War. This is beyond cultural vandalism, it is criminal. See THIS LINK.

[David Whipp]

Thinking of two wheeled racing, rather than four, this report in the Lancashire Telegraph attracted my attention; Tour of Britain.

As folk know, I'm a champion for our area hosting quality events and also support cycling initiatives and activities. So I'd like to be backing having a stage of the Tour of Britain in our area enthusiastically.

But to splash out £100,000 when Pendle Council is strapped for cash and day to day services are being axed?

[Bruff]

‘’Just how does what India spends on UK university education stack up against what we send them in aid?’’


Good question – if you’re interested I’ve popped a reply on the ‘Politics Corner’ thread as it perhaps sits better there.

Richard Broughton

[Tizer]

I mentioned in an earlier post about the work being done by the Environment Agency here to prevent two roads flooding, and how they'd put the rows of special high kerb stones on the drove road too close together so that farmers' tractors couldn't get through. They've had to take them up and replace them which has delayed the work. Now I find that the work on the main trunk road has been delayed too - they've been putting in pilings but two rows failed to meet at the expected position so they've had to take one lot out and replace them. The roads were to be closed for three months and the work finished by Christmas but the main road may well stay shut longer. The closed drove road is `guarded' to prevent people ignoring the warning signs and trying to drive down it - two men sit in a van, all day, 6 days a week, by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. How about that for 21st Century project management! Each time I see the van I can almost sense the money draining out of my pocket to pay their wages. And the poor men are bored silly!

[Thomo]

This Summer after the success of "Le Tour de Yorkshire" and following the announcement that there is going to be an annual Tour of Yorkshire event, this was suggested whilst chatting with a clench of local cyclists; "would it be possible to include Barlick in this"? I imagine that the bulk of the sum of £100,000 in respect of Pendle is for closing the major part of the route to traffic, ie. the built up areas of which there are many. I have not yet seen the proposed routes for the Yorkshire events but I understand that on one occasion at least the towns of Keighley and Skipton are involved, if this is the case, a detour via Earby and Barlick could be achieved with minimal disruption to traffic, there being no other major towns involved. This would also take the route away from the many main roads between Keighley and Skipton, possibly reducing the costs to Yorkshire. It is an idea that could be fraught with problems, yet if it is a popular idea, there is no harm in giving it go, after all this place is historically a part of Yorkshire, and, all contact details are already in place!

[Big Kev]

This article on the Pendle Today website was very positive

Barlick Christmas Switch On

[LizG]

A not quite 1 day old baby was left in a storm water drain and the concrete lid replaced. He was found 5 days later, alive and well(ish). Cyclists were riding by and heard him crying. Lucky baby.

His mother has been arrested and charged with attempted murder. There is a public outcry today because the authorities have allowed her to name him. I will reserve my judgement until further facts are made public.

[Stanley]

I have been following that story too Liz. Like you I have no judgements because very often a mother of a new baby who does this is not in control because of Post Natal problems. A brave and lucky little baby. The doctors say that the drain may have acted like a natural incubator. He is doing well according to the last report I heard.
n an earlier thread we were talking about explosions possibly waiting to happen, I think I'm right in saying that one of the mines on Vimy Ridge in WW1 failed to explode and is still down there.
As for cycling... After all the money put into the Olympics and the brave talk of the legacy coupled with all the initiatives to get people on bikes for exercise it would make sense for central government to chip in out of their budgets rather that local councils already under the cosh.
07:20. News from St Louis that the district of Ferguson has erupted into the worst rioting yet after a Grand Jury decided not to prosecute the cop who shot the unarmed teenager and started this cycle of violence. I have mailed my friends in St Louis to ask how they are. We may have our faults over here but thank God we haven't this to deal with.

[Marilyn]

There are some confusing aspects to the story of the baby found in the drain...and it is difficult to form an opinion due to the confusing reporting...but I have to say he looked larger and in better condition than I would have expected..