ECCOnoob

Is it balls. It's just evolving. It's changing its purpose and, like cities up and down the land, moving away from just shops. It's becoming new residential, new leisure facilities, new food vendors, new public spaces. God sake even wonderful Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham are not immune from gaping holes on their high streets that are being filled with other uses. For every Victoria Quarter there is an empty decaying Core or Merrion. For every shiny John Lewis or Harvey Nichols there is plenty of shuttered empty House of Frasers, Debenhams, or Arcadia brand or Allders. It's not all streets paved with gold. Let's be frank whatever moved in... certain old farts can't move on from their rose tinted nostalgic longing for't 'ole int road, Walshes, Rag and Tag and the trips to posh Castle House wi' Doris and Brenda operating lifts up't cafe with it's soggy bacon and lamp warmed beans. The 70s are over. Habits change. People change.

How many times have you attended one of the public council meetings? How many times have you contributed to a committee petition or raised a formal question? How often do you participate in public consultations or leave meaningful comments on proposed planning or licence applications? Have you ever met with your local MP or attended one of their regular surgeries? How often do you watch the webcast recordings of the chambers sessions or read through the minutes to see what debate was raised and decisions made? The unfortunate truth is that nobody really cares enough. Too many are all so quick to moan and whinge and give uninformed opinions but fact is nobody can really be bothered. Politics whether it's local or national are boring. Politics are complicated. Politics are not all snappy interesting sound bites and attention grabbing headlines. Politics involves lots of drudgery and day-to-day trivial affairs which cannot be brightly packaged, covered in gaudy colours and buzzwords like the latest episode of big brother. Fact is most people would rather be engaged in the latest celebrity gossip or their social media following or watching their favourite YouTubers. They would rather spend 3 hours down the pub or watching football or out shopping than spending their afternoons or evenings sat in a 3-hour session on budget adjustments or implementation of new bar licencing or planning arrangements for redirection of a sewer pipe. If people want to be heard they have to get involved. A little bit of slackrivism by clicking some poll or making comments on a random internet discussion site like this doesn't cut it. I've said before when this similar subject was brought up regarding Parliament, there is a wealth of information all available at the click of a mouse on the council website. There are multiple opportunities for people to properly engage as much or little as they want to. They can give feedback, they can give objections to proposals, they can raise their own direct petitions, they can raise questions, they can even attend and sit in the committees. The ones who do get their opinions heard are the ones prepared to put in the effort.

Why would that stop you getting state welfare or other types of payment to support you? I really do think you need to look into this properly. You seem to be doing a lot of speculation and assuming of things that don't quite make sense. There is lots of information on the net about how housing benefit may be available, attendance allowance, disablement benefit, fuel payments, payments for medical or transportation, pension credits..... If you have had limited or no paid employment throughout your life and already been reliant on state benefits, I simply don't believe it just stops when you hit pension age.

It might be worth double checking with the pension service. Assuming you are born after 1951, 10 years national insurance payments (even if they're not consecutive), may be sufficient to get you some level of state pension. You have said in other posts that you have had previous jobs and are working now. I'd definitely recommend checking how much you have potentially built up if you have been paying NI through your salary

So according to that source Sheffield annual wages are well above the "UK average" approaching nearly £30k a year or about £569 a week. Of course, it's still more than minimum wage but interestingly a bit less than the UK average provided in Anna's Independent article. Either way, it shows that Sheffield can't be this hopeless, decaying, overlooked, post industrial wasteland with no prospects of employment like some of the doomongers like to portray. Plenty of people clearly are earning at least or above the national average with another source showing they are in reality earning well above it. Clearly can't be just one single person earning a billion pounds just to skew the figures can it. Of course that average will never apply to all employees, but nor should it. There will always be those at the bottom and those at the top .... But such as life. We're not living in some utopia of equality with everyone earning the same. As for the earlier poster trying to bringing some nonsense comparisons between average wages and state pensions figures, let's not be totally disingenuous with that one. Firstly, many if not most pensioners don't just live off state pension. They will have built up assets, stock or cash savings over many years. They may have paid off their house. They may have endowments or insurance policies being paid out. They may have separate private pensions from their former employers. For those who do have the lowest level of basic pension with little means, they have scope for things like housing benefits or mortgage interest allowances, winter fuel payments, optical and dental allowances, free prescriptions, free travel passes, free TV licences and a multitude of businesses and services offering marketing gimmick discounts just for being an OAP..... So not exactly a fair comparator to an average worker without access to top up state benefits, or discounts.

Assuming that is a gross figure, it works out about £32,700 a year More than minimum wage level but hardly outrageous either. There will be plenty in the city earning at least or well above that figure including many professional trades, white collar professions and significant numbers of public sector pen pushers and middle managers. There will be plenty of those so-called 'poverty stricken', striking rail workers, nurses, doctors and teachers whose own wages won't be a million miles off that average if not even above it but they are still belly aching. Given any 'average' will be skewed by the extremes at both ends it looks realistic enough to me.

Oh come off it. I also use the word politicos in my post. I wasn't directing at you personally. You're not seriously going to try deny there aren't some extreme rabid right wing politicians and campaigners who border on racist with the rhetoric and actions. You're not seriously going to pretend that some newspaper publications and television opinionators won't be squealing with delight about this policy announcement as they can use it to fire up plenty of attention and faux outrage and controversy amongst their audience.

Wow. That's a real thorough, rational and well written counter arguement. You seem to portray yourself as chief mass debater who starts all these threads. You are the one who invited my thoughts and I've given them. Don't start getting petulant just because you don't like the answer. I think it's pretty obvious how certain politicians and certain brands of the press are going to take such announcement without any sort of rational reasoning why they object to such proposal. I think it's pretty obvious that any hint of streamlining the asylum process will be like a red rag to a bull to some. Now do you have any actual comments on the points I've tried to make.

Provided the relevant checks and balances are being done - any efficiency drives surely must be a good thing. Whilst the rabid right wing politicos and certain tabloids will be having a field day with this one - fact is the IND or whatever they are called these days can be just as inefficient and backward thinking as as any other government department. It will be filled with lots of outdated procedures, stuck in the mud civil servants, lethargic attitudes, duplication and wastage. Having had a little bit of exposure to immigration law nearly 20 years ago it was bureaucratic, sluggish and inefficient back then. God knows how much worse it would have become over the years. If it's been established that these face to face interviews were not really making much impact on the substantive decision making process on certain categories of application, why bother? If there is a clear and distinct pattern that, despite all the long winded process, a certain number of countries were getting a significant number of applications granted, why shouldn't there be some considerations on streamlining? After all, these interviews and protracted communications use resources and cost money. I am well aware that there are translation firms or local friends of friends self-employed interpreters whose whole business models have blossomed from raking it in for years on the government departments or immigration lawyers gravy train. Times evolve. Procedures evolve. I have no doubt there is some element of electioneering being a contributor, but ultimately if it helps clear the backlog, why not? Not so long ago everyone had default face to face interactions with their doctors or their bankers or their lawyers or their employers. Now such fact finding or interaction or decision making is still being done just as much, but without necessarily the face to face. Why shouldn't certain types of asylum decision follow the same pattern and be made on paper.

I am sure it does. But that is clearly exception rather than the rule. Bit of clutching at straws by the earlier poster me thinks. No one is going to tell me the cycle lane and subways is like that on a daily basis. Even roads sometimes flood but it doesn't mean we just ignore them completely.

Yes. As soon as one chooses to go public with something, it's going to create speculation positive and negative. Even if they don't go public there's still plenty of uncorroborated opinions or accusations getting thrown around regarding whose to blame for any kind of accident. There are even entire YouTube channels dedicated to showing bad, clumsy, reckless driving errors. There are plenty of articles and memes and clips showing hazardous or completely ridiculous parking failures. Once again, this is not some cyclist victimisation. Let's also not ignore that there wouldn't have been a news story or online backlash or speculative debate or public opinion at all if Dan Walker hadn't CHOSEN to do some self publicising by taking woe is me photo ops in the back of an ambulance. Again, another reason why Mr. Walker is a contributor to his own circumstances. If he didn't want lots of attention and backlash and speculation and debate shouldn't have publicised it then. Seems like skipping the purpose built cycle path wasn't the only bad choice Walker made that day. I am not saying that the car driver wasn't at fault. We don't know that. However, there is no doubt that choosing to use the roundabout put the cyclist at increased risk which was their own decision. I'm not saying that the victim deserves the backlash and speculation. But choosing to make it very public and high profile invites such response. That again was a choice made by the cyclist.

Actually I disagree. Depending on the severity of the accident, there would be investigations. There would be blaming and excuses. There would be questions raised over mechanism of the accident or liability or credibility or extent of damage. There would be insurance claims with more investigations and more dispute as to the conduct of both parties. Let's not make out this is cyclists victimisation. The fact is Walker cannot remember a thing. The police are saying nothing about the incident. There are seeming various versions of the video footage which has discrepancies depending on which paper is portraying which side of the story. Ultimately, nobody is gonna know definitively We can speculate all we want but unless you were there actually witnessing it first hand, nobody on this forum is going to have a clue other than their own opinion. Myself included. So can we stop stating things as if it's proven fact.

I'm sure it doesn't. But there is also vast public expenditure making purpose built safer measures for cyclists such as cycle lanes, widened pavements, road narrowing, crossovers and subways ..... Now, if a cyclist CHOOSES not to use them, that's their freedom but ultimately, they are then putting themselves at additional risk and become their own maker of their own fortune. Even if the driver was in the wrong, it does not detract that Walker was a contributor to his own risk when there was clear alternatives available. Nobody said drivers are 100% perfect. But let's be completely frank, neither are all cyclists.

Based on what? Dan Walker can't remember a thing about the accident. The police are not giving any details about the accident. There is clear ambiguity over the video evidence depending on which paper people are reading and what angle of the story they are trying to portray.... It's certainly not that simple.

I will agree to a point as long as they were properly placed like Park Square and not the total mess, with lights being placed immediately after an exit, as at university roundabout. However, I doubt traffic lights would have done much to change the situation with Dan Walker's accident. Fact is, whoever is it fault - which will be continually debated until the cows come home - Walker didn't exactly help himself. He could have chosen to use the purpose built cycle path but didn't. He could have chosen to wear more appropriate reflective or bright coloured clothing but didn't. That is going to be a contributor to what happened. Personally, I also detest the way he has gone for the easy clickbait of the ambulance selfie and me me me attention seeking. God sake, he's supposed to be a journalist. If you want some serious message about cycle safety and enquiries on what the council should be doing to make people safer, he could have done so through proper impartial and factual discussion. Instead he has gone for the tabloid trashy approach, which IMO has lost him both credibility and sympathy. Just like Andrew Neil, Jeremy Vine and Suzanna Reed before him, they all seem to eventually get lured into selling out and dropping into the downmarket, dumbing down side.

Did you get an AI bot to write that for you or something??? Either that or whatever you are smoking is far too strong. I clearly forgot I was dealing with a comedy double act on this thread.

That's rich coming from someone like you. Take a look back at 102 pages of waffle on this thread. If we are to believe that you get genuinely sooo perturbed and are genuinely sooo critical of some of the trivial topics you brought up on this thread, it would almost be disturbing. I suspect most of us treat it as the obvious wind up it is. A bit of faux outrage debate for entertainment. You're a comedy character. You have to be.

Average speed of a tram in a city environment is about 20 miles an hour. Average speed of a train is about 65 mph. Top speed of most trams is around 50 to 60 mph. Top speed of the bigger uk trains is at least 125mph and up to 185mph on HS1 line. In areas where trams and people interact, they are nearly always on a flat level surface. Tram tracks don't have a potentially fatal electric rail running inches away from where people are walking. Bit of a blindingly obvious difference. Never seen such prize tut being thrown about by some people on this thread. The railways have laws and whether people like them or not, the staff have a duty to adhere to them. Many railway stations are private property so again, whether people like it so not, you are on their land and you follow their rules. Thirdly, for those who arrogantly think it's so simple to get down and grab one's lost phone, are you seriously going to tell me that if they fell and snapped their leg in several places, they will simply lie there laughing it off saying "...oopsie daisy. How clumsy am I?...". Or would they be screaming the place down demanding the staff come and rescue them, putting employees at risk, causing major disruption to the network and or the people all because of their own stupid ignorance and negligence. Let's get serious. Let's cut all this crap. Let's stop talking as if railway safety is some modern day bonkers heavy-handed phenomena. God sake theres been public information films, preventive measures and enforced bylaws introduced as far back as a 1950s and 1960s. Of course you are never going to eliminate stupidity, but at the same time, railways and the private operators in general have a duty to protect their assets and property. They have a duty to minimise the risk to their own employees and other customers. Prevention is always better than cure so it makes absolute perfect sense to block, discourage or prevent something from occurring, no matter how much the perpetrator is full of themselves.

Not nice for anyone to have to go through I'm sure. But let's be totally honest, if some cockney wide boy or upper class posh kid from millionaires row in Hampshire joined an inner city comprehensive in Barnsley, I'll doubt they would be free from abuse either. Over the past at 30 years times are starting to slowly change, but the melting pot of school and college life still is ripe with teasing and name calling and bullying when anyone has even the slightest difference to the norm. Kids particularly are savages with that sort of thing, but it spills out into lots of adult life too. Just look at some of the comments on this forum. Even every one us is not above picking out a stereotype or spotting some difference or finding some amusement in someone else's position. Even the companies themselves embrace social stereotypes. Yorkshire Tea were famous for it in their adverts filled with exaggerated references of Yorkshire superiority and mocking of soft southerners drinking their dish water against proper brewed tea drinking northerners...

So they should be. As someone who has a relative with learning difficulties, unless they have a extremely serious condition, they should be attending the mainstream school system. One of the worst things that happened to my relative, being a child of the 70s when life was very different, was to watch them being pushed into a "special" school surrounded by people with a mix of learning and behavioural difficulties and basically just left to sit there playing with crayons, sing a long nursery rhymes and playing in ball pits because that's all the teachers "thought" they were capable of. Fast forward a few years, and we have now have many disabled children attending mainstream school, mixing and socialising and with 'regular' students, being encouraged to challenge themselves, albeit with additional support, with the results of many more coming out with at least some basic skills in reading and writing and even possibly going on to being able to manage basic jobs. It can potentially give them the ability to have a fulfilling life as opposed to simply being constantly segregated, constantly surrounded by their own and basically cast off from society the moment they are 5 years old onwards. It's not so simple and there is no one size fits all. "special" school can be the worst thing that could happen to development of someone with a disability so we should be very careful not to be pushing for such segregations.

God it must be so wonderful to live in your dreamland where everyone agrees on everything straight away, everyone complies with everything as they should, every single thing that everyone does is perfectly by the book, on time on schedule with not a single change of plan, delay or hiccup....... Just like any other large organisation of course the council is always in "dispute" with someone. It's compliance, responsibilities and impact goes across a huge spectrum of both our personal and corporate lives. Lawyers don't have some magic crystal ball that can predict and plan and prepare for every single, possible eventuality across every single aspect of the spectrum between now and the end of the world. Neither is the law a complete black and white absolute finite set of rules which can be quickly and simply applied in some binary format. It is filled with contradiction, ambiguity, overlap and even huge gaping holes which are open to wide interpretation, challenge and appeal. What earth makes you think the council has some automatic upper hand? The law is supposed to be judged equally. Lets also not forget those companies signing the council contracts will have lawyers of their own being just as meticulous and heavy-handed looking after their client's interests too. You don't think every planning decision gets quietly accepted without challenge? You don't think every major works project gets quickly agreed around the coffee table without months of major contractual negotiation, drafting and dispute do you? When John Lewis broke their contractual agreement and closed down their store - you're damn right the council raised a dispute. JL owed a lot of money. The council made sure they were getting it back. When the dispute arose with Yorkshire Water over the placement of the shipping containers, "the law" stated the council had no obligation to consult them because it was a temporary structure. The Council could have told YW to shove on it up their backside but they chose to show compromise and move the structure which some would argue was a best outcome. Now the Operator of the containers was failing to comply with their obligation in terms of fire regulations, and dismantlement, the council could have continued to dispute with them delaying both removal of the structures and the other improvement works to fargate. However, they are choosing to think about the bigger picture and get on with it. Something which again, most people have being screaming for them to do for a long time. It's obvious that the council is going to have legal action all the time. It's obvious not every decision they make is going to be accepted wholesale by the population. Not every challenge they dare to raise is going to be blindly agreed on by a judge either - but that's all the reality of running the organisation. Yes of course there is an element of picking one's battles but the same time we shouldn't have a council that's so timid to take any legal action or maintain defences of claims against them, for constant fear of public purse - that could easily be just as much abused by serial claimants, corporations or disrupters. You declare the public "has a right to know", well if most actually bothered to look it's already there. Just like parliament, there are vast amounts of council minutes, committing notes, meeting recordings, session recordings, case details all available on the net. A vast majority of civil court hearings are public hearings which anyone can go in sit in. Except of course for disputes involving family matters which quite rightly the public doesn't have a right to know about. It's none of their business. It's nothing like as simple as you naively make out.

Blimey, if that article is even half-right, it really sounds like a bit of a desperate vanity project for Cleese and nepotism for his virtually unheard of daughter to boost her own comedy career. Is interesting that she is described like some well established actress and comedian but only seems to have been flitting around LA doing a small number of TV bit parts, modelling poses, low league comedy clubs and web shorts. Now she is suddenly being put on a pedestal for lead role in a 'hit' major network sitcom. So it's going to produced by an American actor and their American production company who I suspect will really struggle to write for British humour. Perhaps they are not intending to. It'll be very interesting to see how watered down it is. Whilst I am aware that Connie Booth herself was American, she at least had a very long career working on the British stage and in television. There has been multiple American remakes of Fawlty Towers (albeit without Cleese), some of which are still on YouTube and worth a look just to see the horror and hamminess. Payne in particular is a prime example of how not to do it. Also find it interesting that for Cleese's anti- BBC bravado, at present it looks like this remake is already destined for 'straight to video' on some streaming service. None of whom have actually signed it up yet. I guess we shall wait and see.

Which q park was that? Surely that must have been including additional cost for vehicle charging or something because their rack rates are nowhere near that for 3 hours. Sorry the numbers aren't making sense. As for not being able to find somewhere to park, the City Hall is surrounded by options. There are all the council run surface car parks on Carver Lane, Eldon Street, Fitzwilliam Street and Rockingham Street. There are on street parking bays on Tripett Lane, Carver Street and Division Street. There is the NCP at Wellington Street or Furnival Gate. There are the APOCA car parks on Eyre Street or Atkinsons. Then there's the Q parks at Charles Street or Rockingham Street. Hardly a lack of options and surely you cannot have been so naive to think that you were going to be able to drive into the middle of a big city and park on the street conveniently outside the door of the venue.

I would agree. But as far as his management and publishers are concerned it's done its job. Straight into the top 10 best dressed list in Hello magazine, all the tabloids splashing it on their websites and the daily mail comments section is no doubt going into meltdown. There isn't enough money you could have paid a PR agency to get your name and coverage out there quicker and easier.

Arrrgh. Arrrgh. Won't somebody think of the children. Get over yourself. From being small toddlers kids will catch sights of big hairy men dressed up in women's clothing and young women with boobies pretending to be boys every time they go and see a pantomime. They worship and go running up to hug people in giant animal costumes. Doesn't turn them into bestiality when they get older. They are growing up in a new era of neutrality. They are developing in a world where not everything for girls is pink and everything for boys is blue. Where it's acceptable that some girls are more than happy to play with toy soldiers and construction sets and some boys like playing with plastic kitchens, sewing crafts and makeup sets. They are learning tolerance and not giving a flying fig about constantly categorising people simply by what's between their legs. Tolerance of people's differences and acceptance that not everyone should have to conform with some set gender stereotype where they're clearly don't want to be. In my opinion, it's not so much an 'increase' of mental health issues in today society, it's more about the fact that finally people are not ashamed to be talking about it. They are more than prepared to finally get it out there and spread the awareness instead of the stoic Britishness of keeping everything inside and internally having a breakdown and life of closeted misery as if that's something to be proud of.