malumbu

And luv, is you are of the XX gender - whoops as everyone cringes, pet.

Ha'way the lads. Been said in Geordie/Mackam territory for at least half a century. Pal is a nicer word.

Nope not an urban myth, Japan doesn't have the workforce to support social care and is in deed using robots. Obviously in a limited way, and they don't dream of electric sheep https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200205-what-the-world-can-learn-from-japans-robots

I expect councillors have more than one interest. Over to you Rocks.....

The alternative for an aging population, where there is limited immigration from 'younger' countries with high birth rates is robots. Which is what is happening in Japan. I'm not a font of all knowledge, just went to a presentation on it once.

But we need poorer parts of the world to have high birth rates as we need their offspring to look after us as our population ages (that is not sarcy, that is fact). And we need poorer parts of the world to grow cash crops, mine minerals, open sweat shops, so we can continue our good standard of living. We can also bring in geopolitical instability. Its a fuggin mess, not sure what they answer is, perhaps a global pandemic to reduce the population.

Metallic Wrote: > Just wondering how many ED parents send their children to Kingsdale? We wont go there. We wont mention Kingsdale's aggressive marketing tactics, superiority complex, doing their best to cherry pick from the 'nicer' areas. No that would be inappropriate, why should be criticise those who live a few mins away from Harris Boys sending their kids a couple of miles away. Far be it for me. Absolutely not. Alice - reality check, there are some parents that think it is too dangerous for their kids to walk to school, be it traffic, or general security. Whether this is 10% or 40% I wouldn't know. I even know some who said they drove there kids to school because of pollution, not bothered that they were contributing to this and ignorant that air quality in a car can be worse than the street. As parents we did a lot to support sustainable school transport, walking routes/crocodiles/buses, discourage inappropriate parking. Then our kids grew up and it was up to the next generation to start again. I once cycled to Shirley to do some interview practice at a secondary school there (year 11s). Met with a ginormous car park and no obvious cycle parking. I wrote to the head asking them to do more to promote sustainable transport. No answer. I suspect it is an outer borough thing!

notimpressed Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Who in this day and age says 'sir'? I prefer to > address people as 'mush' or 'fella'. You're my rocka-fella, You're my Cinder-ella,, ooo ooo oooo oooohh

Interesting point about coaches. I've seem sitting their idling, for example outside Horniman museum. Asked them to switch their engines off and the driver has ignored me. These are school buses for heavens sake. You save fuel, money and reduce your emissions. I've had the same response from cops sitting their with a takeaway, with the engine running. Sad that small measures like switching your engine off, or smoother use of the accelerator and brake pedals, will reduce emissions yet many couldn't give a monkeys. I've discussed this on the lounge before - difficult to enforce and more needs to be done to encourage. Schools tend to be pretty good at no idling zones. Not directly relevant to LTNs but very relevant to air quality and climate change.

I picked peas for a couple of summers with local workers, I expect many were settled Romany or others who were the 'rural poor'. We crept off to sign on once a week. As a young person I was relatively slow compared to some of the old hands. They've mostly died off and the next generation were not interested on that level of pay and relative hardship. I later worked in a factory where we did a trial of a new product that had to be hand packaged. Wow, seeing those fingers move (it was a totally female packing staff, indicative of the country at that point). #Again they will have mainly died out. Probably with bad arthritic fingers in their later life..... So I have seen British workers being dexterous, fast etc. But a generation ago. Always love Countryfile, particularly where they are at the high end of picking/harvesting, and the fancy machine is operated by an Eastern European who manages the process and tells you all about it very articulately.

In deed Spartacus. And Yes Sir, I can Boogie

Hello John

Bigger issue is those who haven't got vaxxed. We know about the hard line anti-vaxxers but it is the 18 - 25 years olds that bother me where take up is still pretty low. And BBC aren't giving daily vaxes any more as the number of first timers is relatively low. In the great scheme of thing it is most likely that the young unvaxxed wont be wearing masks, ironic that older people double vaxxed are more likely to do. TBH figures are going to get quite scary so I expect that we will increasingly stay away from crowds. What we do is probably pretty irrelevant seeing as we have had the super spreader events - Wembley, Formula 1, and now with the clubs opening....

Please sir? https://youtu.be/LKtHaeaMPb8

This is all getting rather sexist and racist, where are the pictures of the women involved? And ageist, hairist, beardist and tattooist. Why the assumption that it is all good honest hard working bearded balding white blokes, aged 25 - 45?

Something for the weekend sir?

Not sure whether it has been mentioned how much cocaine contributed to the antics of many. Including bum flare man. https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/15595227/england-fan-flare-bum-strolled-into-wembley/ Although to be fair Chris Lynam was doing this 40 years ago. https://thejohnfleming.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/the-early-days-of-the-comedy-store-and-the-alleged-toilet-habits-of-irishmen/ Always amuses me the Sun being indignant about some of their core readers

In memory of Ian Curtis (born just over 65 years ago)

Peoples republic of South London? You can get the t-shirts at the Horniman Farmers' Market

Great Newsnight when Andrea Leadsom was slagging off the PM - Tories have become the Brexit party, Trumpian populist politics, no moral compass, useless cabinet. Really enjoyed it until I realised that it was Anna Soubry rather than Leadsome.... duh. She was right of course. I hate using the Express but on this occasion worth a read: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1462878/anna-soubry-bbc-newsnight-tory-mp-trumping-type-conservative-party-ont

Rocks - you asked about nudge. Nudge is exactly that, as I expect you know, pushing people towards better choices. The nudge on emissions could include - if you walk a mile to the local shop, not only will you be saving money on using your car, but this is also good for your health and others. LTNs are not a nudge but a kick up the backside. The Heathrow study is interesting as this showed that despite what many said with regards to the environment and emissions, when push came to shove they wouldn't change their behaviour. Hence the need for a big stick and/or carrot. Good examples of nudge: A text reminding you to pay your bills or fine "95% of people pay their bills/fine on time" So it is cool to do that. And the classic the spot on the urinals - men naturally aim at this as a target which reduces them weeing on the floor of the toilets. Very much encouraging/praising good behaviour

Rocks, this was not LTN, it predates these, this was simply trying to get people to car share or travel by alternative means. Please step back, and look wider! The study had nothing to do with Labour and was funded by a Conservative government who rightly know they need to tackle carbon emissions. Although we haven't discussed lanes that are only for car sharers, quite big in the States. You will of course need a dual carriageway for that which I don't think we have round here! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-occupancy_vehicle_lane Edited to correct duel with dual, to confirm I wasn't asking anyone out for a sword fight to settle our differences

Lebanums Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't believe the answer is to make it difficult for private car ownership. Make other options more > attractive. There is no longer direct access to a train station for those of us who live away from > LL or on the Peckham Rye side. The request to extend the 63 to Honor Oak Park has been requested > for years, but nothing has happened, there is no longer access to Peckham Rye. What are we supposed > to do? > Sadly you do have to have harsher measures to discourage drivers as for many this is what it takes to reduce the number of journeys. That's not to say improved public transport, safer walking and cycling aren't important, or that current measures are perfect (not commenting on the current LTN). In 2017 the nudge unit aka Behavioural Insights Team did some work with the Heathrow estates team (Heathrow is like a town in its own right and there are a wide number of businesses that go beyond aviation). You have a fairly well defined shift pattern, but most commute in a single occupancy vehicle. Interventions included making car sharing more convenient, but in terms of pick ups but going as far as whether you drove with the radio on, and what station. Results were pretty disappointing. "A range of light touch interventions were trialled, and many of them did not yield a significant effect. This highlights the complex challenge of increasing sustainable travel of staff, using low cost behavioural measures" [my further comment, some measures weren financially attractive] Discouraging driving can be seen as financial incentives to those reducing their carbon footprint/pollution emissions in paying less to the government than currently through vehicle excise duty (road user charging). There could be sweeteners/rewards but not sure who should pay for these, as those who don't drive would essentially be subsidising this. It's a long and detailed report but here is one of the interesting conclusions: The divergence between stated preferences and observed behaviour This project provided further evidence of the gap between attitudes and observed behaviours and should reaffirm to practitioners that they should not to take self-reported opinions, especially those reported to employers, at face value when devising transport interventions. The gap between stated preferences and observed behaviour is a well-documented phenomenon which was reaffirmed by this project the magnitude of difference surprised us. Despite nearly the majority of drivers expressing that they would car share if they could find someone with a similar shift pattern who lives near them, registration rates for the car sharing scheme were unexpectedly low. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/586376/sustainable-travel-evaluation-of-low-cost-workplace-interventions.pdf Interventions included a free bus pass, but this had limited uptake, and few continued to use the bus after the offer ended.

Slightly off at a tangent, some of this discussion is about footballers taking the knee. James McClean, an Irish footballer, refused to wear the poppy for remembrance day. He had valid reasons for not doing this. And got grief in grounds and on social media, including his own supporters. Indicative of both ignorance of the politics and some nasty sides of nationalism expressed by many football fans (and no doubt representative of many in a conservative (small c) country) https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/why-james-mcclean-doesn-t-wear-poppy-west-brom-remembrance-poppy-appeal-a8037391.html

The buck in government stops with the PM - he has not denounced racism effectively in a number of ways. He does not take the appropriate action against his Cabinet members, or get an agreed position. Having a wacking great majority is no excuse. What it the right wing media's view?