ECCOnoob

2 minutes ago, Mister M said:

Every time I've worked away from home I've had my hotel and travel paid for.

Most people in the working world do. 

But booo booo MPs hiss booo. They should get nothing but a crust of bread and a straw bed.  Boo hiss boo...

2 hours ago, Anna B said:

Disagree.

It goes well beyond simple expenses... This lot are privileged beyond belief.

They are supposed to be doing a job of work, but everything around them speaks of entitlement and advantage. It doesn't happen on anything like the same scale in other countries.

It is because historically  the British  were governed by the aristocratic ruling class born to expect only the best. They still seem to regard themselves as such. Times change for everyone, but not in Parliament apparently....

Oh pull your head out of the sand. Do say such ludicrous things deliberately to get a reaction or something?  

Take a look across the pond where we have a multi convicted criminal on serious prisonable offences still a credible candidate for return to presidency...  In europe we have leaders living in gold palaces starting wars and land grabs without any due process or voting control.... There are some jurisdictions in South America  with massive corruption problems. Drug cartels literally buying off their politicians.... In parts of Africa there's been stories of mass voter fraud with political candidates literally dumping bags of cash in under cover of darkness to wooo voters.... In some so-called democratic states in Asia it's an absolute dictatorship where the wealth, privilege and freedoms of political leaders and their servants vs the ordinary people is so huge it could be seen from space. Add on that anyone daring to criticise it or even negatively report it in their media publication suddenly disappears or get shut down ....     

Those are REAL examples of entitlement and privilege.   Whining about our MPs getting a subsidised canteen and the odd complimentary ticket to a football match isn't even scratching the surface. 

Get some bloody perspective.  

It also depends on location. 

Some properties just sell.  Some properties are fortunate to be in an area of high demand.  The owners will know that, so they are more than happy to chuck a property on the market with holes in the ceiling, stains on the carpet and a turd floating in the loo  because they know it will get interest and start a bidding war within days.  

23 hours ago, Al Bundy said:

Online sex?

 

How does that work?

It's just pornography. 

For all the fancy buzz words not everything on the internet is some complete mystery only known by the young  folk nor is it automatically some massive technological leap away from what was being done before. 

Online sex as people want to call it, if not far apart from back in the day when people used to go to private member cinemas on the fringe of town, or when they used to rent top shelf videos from the back of corner shops or even anyone who used to watch late night channel 5 or cable channels in the '90s and 00's to see what Emmanuel was getting up to or who was 'in' Debbie that week. 

The trend of cam girls and only fans is really only a modern-day version of the old Peep show concept. Chuck a pound in a slot to have a couple of minutes of titillation from some girl in their pants jiggling their bits about.   Or those dozens of channels at the top numbers in the sky guide where punters were making premium rate phone calls to chat to 'Chantele' and 'Brandy' in desperate hope to get a two second flash of a boob.  Now it's model fan subscriptions and people's credit card details being passed over so they can watch someone in their bedroom to exactly the same thing.  For the next generation it will be more virtual reality....

Whatever the buzzwords, it's all just pornography and it's been around for centuries.

As for prostitution, I would agree there should be some sort of regulated licenced facility where they can work on the supervision, security, with proper whole checks and registration for tax.  I believe places like Australia have such things. 

But even that is unlikely to fully eradicate the black market and streetwalking.  Some of the girls would be under pressure from their pimps. Others may simply not want to be controlled or be in the eyes of the taxman in that way, so would prefer to carry on Street walking.  This is the oldest profession after all. 

19 minutes ago, cuttsie said:

Man who.walkes white line in middle of road gets hit by truck going both ways 

But the wonderful thing about politics is if they don't walk the white line in the middle, they don't get anywhere. 

If they commit too far right they lose. If they commit too far left they lose.  

The fickle voting public and the even more fickle media controlling the steering wheel change their minds, loyalties and priorities on a whim, flip flopping from one extreme to another.  Staying centre is the only place to be.

1 hour ago, Anna B said:

I think you must wait for my posts for the prime purpose of disagreeing with them.

 

I am not against health and safety per se, but the way I read it, this isn't a permanent feature, but for the added influx of 'partygoers' ie' the University students, particularly the new ones coming to Sheffield for the first time and most likely to 'go off the rails' literally, until they calm down and get used to things.  

 

That's a great deal different from my disliking the privatisation of our UK Utilities and infrastructure, which I believe should be in British hands or we subject ourselves to the control, vagaries and hostilities of foreign countries. That's an entirely different argument.  

 

Not particularly targeting you. You just happen to come up with many opinions that I disagree with. I also will admit that when people use lazy tropes like "nanny state" it does grind my gears. 

There is not a single thing in the original article that mentions university students or newcomers to the city or suggests that those are sorts of people are more likely to 'go off the rails whilst they get used to things'. All of that is complete stereotyping and wild assumption that you have created in your head - which personally I find quite insulting to uni students as if supposedly lesser educated working class older drinkers are automatically much more responsible and free from such behaviour.   Well clearly they aren't.  They go drinking in city bars. They are just as capable of getting too drunk and walking out into the road. They are just as capable as innocently being forced off the pavement because there's no room - so why they need to be singling out?

Yes the barriers are temporary.  But as it sets out in the article - that is only an interim thing whilst they undertake permanent works to widen out the pavements, on the cards for next year. 

My comments about the state are slightly in jest given your posting history on this forum. However, the basic principle doesn't change. People can't have it both ways. You are always banging on about the NHS funding, more and more things should be put into the state's hands rather than those greedy corporations. Well, is it such a wild arguement to suggest that if taxpayer monies are funding state healthcare to fix people once they've been injured, taxpayer monies could be more wisely spent  to prevent accidents happening in the first place.   

Sometimes that easy target criticism of "nanny state" might not always be justified when it's the same state with having to pay to deal with the consequences.  

22 hours ago, Anna B said:

It's a bit 'Nanny State' isn't it. I mean isn't University partly about learning to be independent and responsible?

Having said that, if I was a parent of a Fresher, I think 'd be grateful for any safety measures the authorities could impose... 

Well as someone who's often championing expanding state owned this...  state run that... state-funded other.... you should be right behind it. 

At the end of the day, if it's 'the state' paying for someone's treatment and healthcare after an accident occurs, why shouldn't it be 'the state' taking increased steps to prevent one from happening. 

Also like how you've done some nice wild assumption that these people needing safety barriers are all young irresponsible university graduates. Last time I checked it's not just middle class young uni students drinking in city bars. Plenty of older salt of the earth working class lowly educated  people's go drinking in city bars too. 

Anyone is capable of having one too many and stepping a bit too close to a moving car.  Anyone is more than capable of innocently getting too close to the edge of the payment because it's full with other people or they are queueing up waiting to get in somewhere.

People don't cry nanny state when the football matches temporarily close off part of a road to deal with a crowd. Most adults are perfectly capable of crossing a road, but people don't cry nanny state when they install crossings at specific busy locations or junctions. Most adults are perfectly capable of walking along the platform without plummeting to their death, but they don't cry nanny state when they put up a balcony or balustrade edging. 

It's just sensible precautions.

44 minutes ago, MICK BADGER said:

and I for one believe him----NOT

Well that's your choice. But I'll be fascinated to know how exactly you think he's going to rejoin the EU by stealth, 

Do you think the EU is going to magically accept us back in with open arms without years worth of debates, paperwork, negotiations, approval processes, votes, formalised agreement.

Do you think Starmer can somehow quietly do all that shrouded in secrecy without the rest of parliament being involved, voting on it, approving it. 

Do you seriously think it feasible that parliament could possibly attempt to get away with that without journalists finding out, reporting it to the public who in turn would react accordingly and demand a formalised referendum process. 

Goodness sake, be realistic.

Look, I certainly didn't want Brexit to happen. But I reluctantly accepted the outcome of the referendum vote and now we are out with the consequences that have come with it.  But equally, hardened brexiteers need to accept the fact that leaving the EU didnt mean we leave europe. We still have to co-operate and liaise with them as they are our closest allies. They are our closest and massive traffic bloc. Our newest partners when it comes to cross business, economy, military, security....with plenty of us Brits scattered living and working the EU countries just as  plenty of EU citizens are still living and working here in Britain. 

I don't agree with Starmer on many things and certainly wouldn't vote for him. However, one thing I will agree on is there was far too much anti-europe rhetoric being thrown around and it's only right for it all to be calmed down.  We are ultimately all still European no matter what the flag shaggers plead otherwise.  

Show me another event that has a million plus people all gathering in one area over 2 days. 

How does the supposed 'out of control crime hotspot' that you describe compare to other  mass gatherings. If you have say 100,000 drunken football fans, how many of them potentially commit a crime during the festivities and then scale that up x10 to make it a fair comparison.

Even a child of below average intelligence will be able to work out that if you have a million plus people gather together in one place it is almost impossible for it not to be totally crime-free. Some of those crowds will inevitably be there to cause trouble and harm people. It's how the police respond. That is the key and seemingly they responded quite well given the arrest numbers.  As I have said multiple times on this thread even with the updated crime and arrest figures from the Carnival, the number of people committing crimes versus the number of people attending is still absolutely minimal. 

People like you exaggerating it out of all reasonable proportion to try and push some agenda precisely proves the point in the article.

2 hours ago, YorkieontheTyne said:

 

Wouldn’t know about the airport process, I’ve never flown.

Ok, fair enough.

But a similar scenario can easily be applied to the railways. No longer are people having to contact National rail enquiries to check the times and routes, then go go down to the station to queue up at the booking office and wait for the booking clerk to ask 101 questions,  type war and peace into the computer whilst they print off your tickets.

People can be in their own homes, sprawled on the sofa press some buttons on their phone and bingo.  They see exactly what trains are available, select it, make the reservation, pay it and then just rock up to the station with a e-ticket on their phone to scan through the barriers or show the guard.  Some of the apps will even go as far to tell you exactly what platform the train will be coming on in advance and where to stand for your coach.  Again, all without having to try and find a member of staff, queue for the information booth or decipher the boards.

Like I said earlier, whilst I'm sure it is not for everyone, this is the direction of travel and it isn't going to stop now.  

2 hours ago, YorkieontheTyne said:

No it isn’t. You’ve still got to queue up to get your room key behind others who may or may not have checked in online.

Wouldn’t know about the airport process, I’ve never flown.

Yes, you have still got to queue up but as I said, your individual time at the desk will be much quicker because you are just grabbing a key and not going through the whole check in process. Times that up by the number of customers in a day and its all relative. 

Add on that more and more customers will start using self-check in so leading to even less people waiting around in the queue stuck behind someone going through all the paperwork.

2 hours ago, YorkieontheTyne said:

The one similar to this that amuses me is when you get an email inviting you to check in online prior to arrival at the hotel, “to streamline your check in experience”.
You still have to queue up at the desk to get your room key, so streamlining? I don’t think so.

But it is. 

If you've already done all the check in forms online, all you are doing is rocking up and grabbing your key. It might seem a miniscule time saving to the individual, but times that  by the number of guests each day, over the course of a week it makes a great difference to both the staff resources and customer wait time.

Some hotels now have gone even further where they are doing digital room keys on people's phones. In theory, someone can be checking in online, gets notification when their room is ready and just go straight up  without even having to go near reception.  For regular travellers and loyalty members customers it's what they want.

Just think of it similar to the whole airport process now. Dependant on the airline and the country, I can check in online, get my boarding pass on my phone, rock up to the airport straight to bag drop, get my own label and send it off on the shoot, use my phone to go straight into security, use my phone to check through the gate and use my phone to find my seat allocation.  No standing in a long queue waiting whilst every passenger gets checked in, sorts out their luggage, goes through all the questions, squabbles about their seating allocation....

The internet world of instant everything and physical business interaction is becoming more blurred. The next generation are expecting everything on tap when they want it at the click of a button. Businesses are clearly having to adapt for that. There's being lots of reports about how the next generation don't want the levels of human interaction compared to predecessors. They are living here world where everything is online and button control on their whim.  Unfortunately for some, we are now too far down the rabbit hole and we aren't going back.

2 hours ago, pfifes said:

As a variation of the supermarket self scan, has anyone used a hotel self check in?  Premier Inn have them except you don’t check yourself in the reception staff can possibly help it.  No, they hover around ‘helping’ and asking questions even though you say you’re fine and have used them before.  
What on this good earth is the point of them installing self checkout machines when they have obviously drilled into staff that they must walk all customers through the self check in? They may as well just revert to a traditional check in desk for all!

Yes in a couple of hotels I have and I don't recall having the interference that you did.  Someone came up to me asked if I was okay using the self-checking, I said yes, and they left me to it.  Maybe you have just been unlucky. 

The fact that one receptionist can keep an eye on three or four self-check terminals at once is clearly going to be streamlined than having to stand behind a desk checking in one person in full at a time while other guests are queueing up waiting.

Oh and just to top it off, the impact of those  scathing reviews on the Waitrose website can't have been that severe because the product in question is still scoring an average of 3 and 1/2 stars 

2 hours ago, pfifes said:

Shoppers have been left flushed with anger after finding out Waitrose has decreased the size of their loo rolls.
 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13730187/amp/Waitrose-shoppers-supermarkets-toilet-rolls-shrinkflation.html

Jeez, newspapers more than anything are  masters of making something out of nothing. 

"Shoppers revolt" my arse.  What they mean to say is one grumbling pensioner goes crying about it to The Times and a handful of the Twitterati make some comments about it on the internet. 

To top it off, the Daily Fail then creates a completely separate story reporting about the story from some bloke commenting to The Times.

Part of me really would love to sit one of their editorial meetings just to see how they possibly manage to create so much excrement to fill their websites and print 'news'papers everyday.  

48 minutes ago, Mister M said:

NON ESSENTIAL staff at the now notorious hotel which housed asylum seekers in Rotherham which was surrounded and infiltrated by rioters were evacuated several hours before leaving asylum seekers to put out the fires themselves:

Urgent protections needed for asylum seekers in hotels, say refugee groups | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian

Corrected that for you. 

Very sensible.  Why the hell would any organisation put their employees at unnecessary risk unless absolutely needed.

7 minutes ago, Prettytom said:

We should discuss the serious incidents. There are too many robberies and stabbings at carnival. Do you have any ideas about how to change that?

 

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to carnival Al, but it’s great fun. And the 99.9% of peaceful carnival goers derseeve a safer environment.

 

Incidentally, I just detoured that way on my way home. No carnival for me this year, but I did share a train or two with some brilliant people. It’s mostly a great event, with the caveat that it needs to be better policed.

You say "deserve a safer environment"  and "needs to be better policed" 

Unless you are aiming for absolute zero incident and zero crime which is clearly an impossibility - I dont know how much more you expect to be done.   Bad people do Bad things.  There is no such thing as absolute zero risk they will keep doing bad things - we have to be realistic and proportionate.  

As I keep saying.  Look at the ratios of incidents, arrests against numbers of attendees.   Whichever way you spin it, its still averaging less than 0.0xxx......levels of percentage of people being affected.   Its reported that the event already has 7000+ police officers, which as a comparative, is more than double the entire number of officers who serve the whole of South Yorkshire Police - so just how many more do you think would be needed?

Nobody is brushing anything under the carpet.  The small number of incidents have been widely reported across all sorts of media and directly confirmed by the police. 

But let's not make out, as you clearly were suggesting, that the carnival is some feral out of control crime hotspot where everyone attending puts their lives at severe risk the moment they step outside their door.

Just now, Al Bundy said:

How have you come to this statistic?

 

I apologise.

 

Nothing to see here, let's brush it under the carpet.

90 arrests according to you.... out of a recorded 2 million people attending over the two days. 

It's maths.

12 minutes ago, Al Bundy said:

What in my post is nuts?

 

Now obviously I am assuming you have intelligence to realise that my first paragraph is tongue in cheek, but the rest is a totally valid argument.

 

"A big ball of happiness"

 

Stabbings.

A women stabbed whilst with her child.

Sexual assaults

Emergency workers assaulted 

90 arrested.

 

Such fun.

 

 

0.004% of attendees cased trouble and were arrested.  So very very clearly for the vast majority of attendees, police staff, and volunteers, it was such fun. 

Stop exaggerating problems that don't exist to try and desperately justify some point.

But a question that needs to be asked is when did the cladding become non-compliant? Was it at the time it was built? Post Grenfell? Last week? 

It's all well and good everyone jumping up and down demanding something happens... All well everyone demanding the landlords and owners cough up and change it.... but things don't happen overnight. They certainly don't happen without massive costs and disruption which all cause just as much outrage, upset and conflict as the incidents themselves. 

Let's take the average block of flats, plenty of the people living there will be leaseholders. Are they are perfectly fine to to be hit with a bill of tens of thousands of pounds because the cladding is suddenly deemed no longer compliant compared to standards that were set 20, 30 40 years ago at the time of it being built, approved, signed off by the authorities..... Is that fair? 

Would people willingly accept their mass  eviction notices so the landlords can spend months/years stripping or pulling down to rebuild it again to modern day compliance standards. 

As with all of these things, the knee-jerk emotion always seems to outweigh the practical realities. 

Yes of course buildings should be made safe.  Yes of course standards evolve over time.  but it all takes time and money and it doesn't happen by some magic wand.  Even more so when standards suddenly change.

We don't pull down or gut every older building just because they're non-compliant with previously nonexistent 2024 standards.  I can imagine the outrage now if they did. 

1 hour ago, Slinny said:

They did not think off people in this country only a chosen few,  Did the conservative last time voters think Hunt was making every thing private for most off  the general. Public . NO   CHANCE  .   People move up the property ladder and think their political  status have changed  How ?  Let’s hope for the sake off this  country  they don’t fall for the three card trick again  Same in USA don’t let  a lying cheating man like TRUM P get in power. again , He is dangerous .

Are the general public not shareholders in companies?  Do they not rely on jobs and income from the business and operations of their private company employers who need to be making profit in order to sustain themselves and keep offering such employment?  Do the general public not have savings and investments based on that private sector companies being profitable and contributing to the  economy? Do the general public not rely on pensions which are all balanced with good performing economies?  Do the general not happily take advantage of competition, access to a global marketplace, price differentials, open supply and our country's performance on the global stage? 

Yeah yeah. blah blah blah. The public sector is all sooo wonderful except of course when  it runs out of other people's money to spend. 

8 hours ago, spilldig said:

I suppose if it was pure beef and bread it would be o'k but I have never been sure what it consists of because you hear so many different stories.

But it's not so hard to find out these days. For example, if we're looking at a McDonald's UK menu the whole ingredients list for every item is all set out on their website. The beef patty for instance is just that. Beef and a bit of salt and pepper. That's it. 

'Stories' are just Stories otherwise if they were accurate they'd be facts.

Companies are much more open and transparent these days with all the litigation risks over allergies and contamination. The majority, if not all of the big chains publish that information all over the internet. In their restaurants they will have big books ready for inspection of anyone who has to query what a dish contains, whole folders filled with tick box sheets and checklists setting out contents of everything from a piece of bread to a prime cut of meat.   

We have all seen the consequences when it, thankfully rarely, goes wrong.  

Like I said earlier, "junk food" always seems to be some easy target. I think it really isn't a million miles apart from what people are making in their own homes everyday, no matter how posh the label or expensive the price tag.  

32 minutes ago, lavery549@yahoo said:

Do you eat a load of junk food like Macdonalds ? . I can't think of anything worse than eating junk like this . As far as I can see , there are very few healthy ingredients . No wonder , there are so many obese people around , worse still children .  Do you think this is the parents fault ?  

Compared to what though? 

It's a burger and fries. A beef patty and fried potatoes.  In terms of the raw ingredients, it's probably not a much far apart from the sorts of things that people are cooking in their homes everyday.   It's still the same basic makeup of a £35 burger and fries being served in some Michelin star restaurant.

Of course it's not the healthiest food in the world, but then again it doesn't claim to be. 

Very few people are regularly cooking from complete scratch at home. Even less of those people are going to be buying straight from 'the farm'. In these modern times, nearly all of the food we buy has a heavy amounts of processing.  In fact, cutting out any inevitable rose tinted delusion, it has in reality been that way since post wartime. 

I bet if you took the raw basic ingredients in most junk food meals, there would be massive amounts of crossover with what's been sold in the supermarkets, delish, greengrocers and butchers. Even the poshest stores and the packets with things like finest, premium, extra special, taste the difference, organic...

Most doctors will say diet is about moderation. It's quite right that no one's going to do well from eating so called junk food everyday but equally, I doubt gorging on free range, freshly slaughtered, skinless, extra lean chicken and a pile of cale everyday will be good for the body either.

There seems to be a lot of food snobbery over cheap fast food, but take a look at the menu in some artisan gastro pub or Michelin restaurant  or private estate farm shop . Look at the rich game and meat based dishes, the gargantuan portions filled with pure butter sauces, laced with alcohol, cream and spices.  You could get gout just looking at it. 

At the end of the day, life is short and there's nothing wrong with the occasional treat in moderation. It's convenient and quick and tasty. A lot of our longevity is in our genes  no matter how desperate people try and be to be healthy. You could have someone who is super fit, eats nothing but organic vegan food exercising regular and still snuffs it in their 60s with cancer.  On the other hand, you could have a long-term smoker, heavy drinker, eating nothing but pies living into their '90s.

17 minutes ago, Padders said:

Patrick Dickinson, Gimbal Walk, Walk with Tim, The Mc'master, are all very good U-Tubers and worth watching..

Tim Lindon is a great example of what we are talking about.  He is a guy who has been in the world of TV.    He did the whole stepping stones of holiday camp, blue coat style entertaining for years, no doubt lots of auditions and knock backs, bit parts, got a few very low rent TV presenting gigs fronting shows on obscure cable channels and quiz networks, doing the odd corporate video before eventually starting his Youtube walking channel  during lockdown which has now turned into full blown travel blog reviews ranging from seaside crumbing hotels to palace suites in Dubai and LA. 

Some would argue that its almost a downgrade going from the magic dreamy world of actual TV to that crappy internet Youtube but just shows how the reality is for those  naive (and often delusional) fame hungry wannabe stars.    I bet Tim is more well known, "influential" and respected now than he ever was fronting cheap quiz channels on proper TV networks. However, its probably taken him 15+ 20+ years to get there.