ECCOnoob

Yeah yeah and it's the rich man who is providing those 'poor men' employment opportunities and income. Income which said poor man could one day choose to invest in a business or some shareholdings or even take some risk and start their own. Said poor man could use such income to build up their own nest egg, gain opportunities or advance themselves. Nobody's owed anything. Not everyone born with a million-pound goes on to be successful equally not everyone born with nothing stays that way. Many work hard and create something for themselves. It's business not some workers cooperative. There's no default right equal share 'just because'. Employer hires and employees are contractually paid for their services at an agreed rate. If the employees don't like it they can seek to negotiate more if they can sufficiently justify their value. They can choose to leave and find alternative employment. They can take some steps to find ways of advancing themselves to reach a higher grade or position. It's life.

So could the wealth accumulated by most of the cultish God botherers and their deluded worshipers. So could the wealth accumulated by most governments. Go crying to them. Businesses are there to make money not feed the world.

Good. Most of our pensions, life savings and investments are tied up in such companies. A big chunk of our economy, global reach and credit status is tied up in such companies. A bigger chuck of our direct and indirect employment comes from such companies. Employment they can only keep providing when they make money. Yeah, let's all will profitable businesses to fail. Lets all aim downwards to be low income jealous unachievers spewing their bile out at anyone or anything that makes money. Yeah! That will show them 🙄

Cash can be stolen or counterfeited or lost or destroyed. Its not completely infallible either. What anonymity? Cash doesn't give you some perfectly free utopia. It can still be tracked and traced and followed. Sales can still get logged and recorded. Customer purchases, regularity, frequency and locations can still be analysed. Cash can still be blocked and removed by the authorities. Retailers can still adjust their prices easily whenever it suits them based on tracked cash sales. Yes I concede technology makes it slightly easier - but don't be so naive to think that the same scenarios didn't and don't still exist where hard currency was the prevalent payment method.

Yeah yeah and cash is all so wonderful until it gets lost or stolen or damaged. Not forgetting, you still need an internet system to process cash. It might astound you to know Banks have been running on computerised networks with the power of the silicon chip for nearly 60 years. They have developed backups. It's no longer Doris in the back office filling in a ledger with a quill.

You seriously think they don't have contingencies in place for these things? There are a growing number of retailers whose entire 'till' consists of nothing more than a mobile phone device and a small card reader. There are entire retailers whose staff walk around with devices round their neck able to take and process sales directly from the shop floor. There are EPOS transactions being able to be done on board trains, on aircraft, on ships way out at sea. There are protocols for manual backups to be able to manage offline. Should the absolute worst happen and a shop is plunged into darkness for days on end I think their problems are far bigger than simply not being able to take sale transactions. Just another load of hysteria to try and prove some point against cashless operations.

Why should they? You do know what a banknote is don't you? It is a piece of paper. That's it. It's only asset is because of the promissory note provided by the bank issuing it against whatever commodity they choose to value it against for a cumulative price that they choose to set. There is no 'freedom' in cash. There is no 'individual choice' in cash anymore the writing of a piece of paper known as a cheque or transferring computerised numerical information between plastic cards or online transactions. As I have said on another thread, I really do not understand this stupid hysteria and paranoia. Are people so naive to think that even using cash gives them some ultimate anonymity privacy and freedom. They have no idea how even with cash the authorities can trace someone if they need to. In fact, some would argue that online currencies are even harder to to trace than some hermit living in the middle of nowhere holding onto their precious cash. Yes at a technical level, online tracking is far quicker and easier, but don't for one second think that if they are determined to find out about someone they cant do it. Cash or not, with exception of a tiny tiny minority nobody is stuffing piles of their money under the bed. Everyone relies on banks to store their money. Everyone shops in stores to spend their money. That gets monitored. That gets noticed. That gets recorded. Life evolves and businesses should be under no obligation to maintain outdated procedures just appease a handful of luddites and paranoid weirdos who won't embrace change through some unfounded hysterical fear. Cheques have existed since the 1700s, modern day debit cards were established in the late 70s. Even the oldest most decrepit person on the planet has had at least half of their life to learn the basics of cashless payment. No excuse.

Make sense. That's where the the major part of the shopping is now and fargate has had to create some space for the container park and various ongoing building conversion works. The lower part of Fargate also now has some residential, so again, The Moor will be a more appropriate place to put such an attraction. Don't really see the move as being a problem, I think it's pretty obvious that it will overflow up to peace gardens so the link between fargate peace gardens and the Moor through the xmas market attraction will hardly be a great challenge. I would argue those who kick up a stink about or be leaving petty comments all over the Sheffield Star articles about such a minor thing would be the sorts of "don't like change" types who would be complaining no matter what the council did

Hopefully yes. The quicker the better. Coinage is annoying and bulky to carry to around. Banknotes after a while in circulation are filthy, fondled by thousands of pairs of hands, stuffed in and out of sweaty pockets, sat on, farted on, stuffed into dirty wallets or handbags, lying around on all kinds of surfaces, held in many people's mouths..... If that was any other kind of object being passed around so freely most people wouldn't touch it without a pair of rubber gloves and a bottle of disinfectant. Cash of course is also a great expense to businesses in its processing, secure storage and transportation. For more than the cost of software which can tally everything up, allocate and redistribute at the click of a button. Society has always been moving towards cashless for far longer than most people think. There is reference to an early version of cheques being used right back in Roman times, then came bills of exchange, and modern from cheques developed by the late 1700s. Not forgetting a 'cash' banknote itself is nothing more than a promissory payment note tied to a specific commodity or currency set by the issuing bank. If it wasn't for such a arrangement, the piece of paper that we preciously hold in our hands is actually in itself valueless. Even back in the black and white days when 'modern day' consumer banking first came on the scene, people were not using wads of cash to transfer between each other. They were using cheques, bankers drafts, bankers orders. Go look up some images from the 20s, 30s of early banking operations, rooms filled with clerks and typists all processing thousands of cashless transactions. After the cheques came the plastic cards initially with the fascinating imprinter machine and carbon chits, then electronic transactions with our scrawled signatures on the back of receipts, that evolved into chip and pin machines, then contactless cards and the latest versions of technology removing need for a physical card completely. Whichever tool is used, it is all doing the same thing. Deducting an amount of value from one set of computerised figures and increasing value of a different set of computerised figures. It really is as simple as that. Do we really need to get our knickers in such a twist over the method of how that happens. I suspect most people really don't care. I really don't get the paranoia and hysteria over this. Nobody is keeping piles of money under their mattress. We all rely on banks at some form. I really don't care if my bank knows how many times I buy a Costa coffee each week or that Sainsbury's is tracking my groceries which I buy the same of every week anyway. If someone was that desperate to find out my personal habits, they could do that anyway physically. Yes we get targeted advertising, yes we get tracked which sets individual price points on the things we buy. But we all embrace the conveniences and benefits that comes with it. All these features which are hysterically portrayed as invasions into our privacy, in my opinion, are not so different to things which have come before. The targeted advertising all over the internet every time you click on a link is really not a million miles away from the piles of junk mail we used to receive through our doors everyday. The marketing lists, the community-based local adverts, the flyers being left on our car windscreens... People complain about the amount of information when they sign up for online services but is that really any different to the days of going into a store and having to fill in forms to get HP, credit, club membership or special discount cards. It might have been on paper but it was still logged, reviewed then tracked the same as anything else. Is customer profiling really a million miles apart from the days of being accosted by 1000 clipboard wielding market researchers every time you walked down the street or the days of the census takers knocking on everyone's doors... As I say, I suspect the majority really don't care and are simply interested in maintaining their personalised discounts at their favourite stores and the convenience that comes with targeted online shopping. If Mr Google knows what I want before I know what I want - is that really something to be scared of or something we should instead be embracing as a sign of how far we have come and celebrating what we can achieve in technological advancement. It really wasnt that long ago that the thought of a electronic brain that can calculate some simple mathematics was seen as witchcraft... now a cheap pocket calculator is seen as the absolute basic of basics, can be retailed at less than £1 and manufactured in some far eastern workshop for pennies.

Maybe because it's not so simple as waving some magic wand to make everything better. Sometimes disasters are caused by reasons previously unknown as for example the king's cross fire and the discovery of the trench effect which was a contributor to it spreading so rapidly. Sometimes disasters are caused by basic human behaviour, idiocy, malicious acts, lack of responsibility. You can have all the best standards and rules and precautions in the world but it won't change that. Sometime disasters are caused by changes in time. Standards and regulations in force at the time something was built may evolve. By example something like Grenfell. The tower and it's subsequent cladding was all within the regulations. The builders and contractors were perfectly entitled to use it. Unfortunate truth is that it can take a disaster for problems to be discovered and changes to be made. Sometimes a disaster is far more than just a single issue. When things happen, the public anger and hysteria demands for a head to roll - but very often it cannot be the case. It could be institutional failure, it could be multiple parties to blame. That is evident in the present topic of the Hillsborough Disaster. Yes we all know the disgraceful action the police did in trying to save face but no amount of campaigning, playing victim or political posturing is going to convince me that some of the Liverpool fans are not equally to blame. Plenty of them have blood on their hands for their own behaviour on that fateful day. It's far bigger than just some single entity. Teaching disasters, the lessons learnt from such disasters and human behaviour is fine. But I do have concerns as to what exactly this MP's motive is. What sort of lesson we are trying to teach because if the answer is going to be some sort of anti authority stance painting the Liverpool fans as these innocent sweet victims then that is a distorted version for political agenda. If there is any sort of real teaching to our future generation it's simply this.... Life happens. Our great leaders don't have a time machine or crystal ball. Sometimes things occur and when they do we just have to react and deal with it. Sometimes there isn't a single point of blame where we can all direct anger at. Sometimes blameless things happen. It is not simply so black and white and it's how we pick up the pieces and stop it from happening in the future that matters.

Have you ever run a public swimming venue? Have you had to organise a sports event involving vulnerable minors? Have you been trained in the legalities and responsibilities involved in Safeguarding? ..........no? Well then you are in no position to be telling those who have, how they run their venues, what rules they can set and enforce. Now if you want to continue in your weird obsession about the right to be photographing and filming other people's children in their swimwear without consent - that's your business. But you are not doing it there, nor you will find many other venues. Get over it.

Got there ahead of me. I was about to say something similar. BHF particularly has several large stores dedicated to nothing but furniture and electrical. Six branches in South Yorkshire for starters. Some posters don't let facts get in the way of pushing their point.

It's not about interrogating it's about establishing facts and context in order to make a worthy report. To fail to do so just produces a one-sided emotive story designed to do nothing more than create reaction and speculation.

Very suspicious more like. I would have preferred it if so-called ITV "news" had actually done some proper journalism and drilled down into what led to the problems, proper context to their backgrounds and actually fully explain why these people have ended up in such desperate states instead of pushing the easy emotive clickbait 'oh dearism' agenda. The crying pensioner who says she needs her job to survive and so worried about struggling with increasing costs to the point where she allegedly can't even afford to cook a piece of bread. Is that it. Is that all we're going to get. Are we supposed to react to that little bit of dialogue and make an informed opinion on it. Are we supposed to blindly accept it at face value..... What exactly what she doing before the pandemic? Was she retired? Was she already drawing her pension? Where are her family? Does she own a property? What was her career before she took this 'cleaning job' as 'a bit of a social' as she described. She was obviously managing well enough back then to the point where she clearly chose she didn't need to work and just did it as a bit of a jolly. Now she is full-time working 5 days a week - at minimum wage that's earnings over £1,500 a month. Where is it all going? How about questioning why, if she is struggling so much to afford to make toast - she is continuing with the burden of responsibility and expense of owning a dog. What about asking her about her living arrangements. She appears to proport she's on her own and thus I'm suspicious as to the size of her property. If she is claiming her bills are now over a £250 a month, Why has she not consider moving elsewhere smaller, downsizing, freeing up some capital and generally taking responsibility to manage her money..... Everyone else is facing the struggles and as they have done many times before they adapt and manage. What makes her so special. Same of the shopkeepers and their dramatic pause to take an emotional moment off camera. God what a cliche. Why have these hardened journalists not done some proper drilling into the full context of why the stores are struggling, have they not asked basic things about where the regular footfall is from customers, what sort of products they are stocking, will their products suit the local market, what supermarket competitors are doing a better job? Is it really so simplistic to blame price rises and the government. Again, what makes them so special, lots of retailers are feeling the pinch. But many are adapting changing and surviving. 30-years ago the news was there to stone-faced report facts. Now thanks to the countless multimedia channels and platforms all jockeying for ones attention, there seems to be a trend of news continually descending into these emotive, reactionary, guff pieces which used to be reserved for the likes of This Morning and the tabloid chat shows.

Reading through some of these comments, there seems to be a lot of people don't have a clue about life in a professional kitchen. All catering whether it's Sids cafe, gastropub or michelin-starred celebrity restaurant has elements of mass-produced. It has to otherwise service would never happen. Even places that claim something is freshly cooked to order doesn't detract from the amount of pre prepared ready to microwave items which form elements of the dish. Even the finest hotels in the world catering for a room of millionaires still has elements of pre-prepared ready to throw on a plate. If they didn't, the average function dinner would be taking all day. Just how else do you think these places can cater for 100, 200 people wanting lunch between 12 and 3. As others have said, It's Christmas Day. There are enhanced staffing costs and overheads that all have to be taken into account. What people are choosing to pay for is the luxury of having all the work done by somebody else. The service, the atmosphere with others. Those who don't want to pay can simply get on with it themselves - just the same any other time that someone chooses to cook from home or eat out in a restaurant. Yes of course it will be cheaper to buy the ingredients and make it yourself but that's not what people care when they choose to go out. I really don't get the complaints.

I don't believe it is sufficiently valued though. I think its constantly abused, taken-for-granted by far too many people not contributing enough into the system. I think the extent and scope of the services offered exceed well beyond its original intentions. I believe there is far too little self-responsibility and people who expect the NHS to pick up the pieces for their own negligence, arrogance or self abuse. I believe we have a glut of malingerers constantly turning to the system when they could perfectly well help themselves or even pay some of their own way if required. I totally agree that reforms are required and I would be a champion of an NHS remaining free at source healthcare for essential and necessary provisions. However I don't treat it as simply as the private sector must be excluded. There are things that we all should be contributing to and not simply sitting back and relying on government to provide for us through some bottomless money pit. Why exactly shouldn't they? There are lots of elements of the huge flabby NHS that could be served by the private sector. There are examples around the world of a hybrid combination of public and private health care provision. It seems to work out and there is no blind reason why we should dismiss it out of hand. What exactly is so wrong with say, some support services of the NHS being done more efficiently and potentially cheaper by the private sector. Take for example administrative functions such as records retention, appointment scheduling or medical notes transcription. If I compare a doctor to my profession of the legal sector often they both still have very traditional methods of back office administrative procedure, such as what many deem archaic like audio dictation and transcription typists. For many years now the legal sector has been embracing things such as outsourced typing services, voice recognition, computerised records services, electronic post, secured servers all done by companies outside of the business. Is it so unreasonable for the NHS to at least consider such alternatives rather than insistence on traditional methods or spending vast amounts of money trying to recreate their own in house versions of already established systems? The same discussion could easily apply to other services such as courier services, maintenance services, cleaning, catering.... Take something like hospital cafes and coffee bars. Such services are not necessarily patient critical so why is it so wrong to consider allowing a private operator to come in and run them. A well-known coffee brand takes its place, they pay rent to the hospital which of course goes into the hospitals budget and provides what some would argue is a better and more consistent service to the customers. Think about the other net result. Less NHS money paid out in staffing and pensions and HR functions, no equipment or maintenance cost, less insurance and legal costs as they would all be born by the outsource company... Now, I am not saying that privatisation applies to all and everything. What I am suggesting is we can't just shut down the debate with some oversimplistic approach of "privatisation = bad" I wholly agree it is a bottomless money pit. Has been for decades. It's almost amusing that for all the screams and protests and chanting about funding cuts it's the one organisation that seems to be in some protective bubble with ever-increasing billions been thrown at it year in year out. It is ripe for reform and there is no reason why that shouldn't include a real consideration of the budget and where money is actually going. Again, I think you are being completely oversimplistic in your comments. . Where's the proof that 'most of it is going to private profiteers'. . I want to see the waste. I want to see exactly what these layers and layers of staff are doing. The organisation is said to be one of the biggest employers in the country. That's a hell of a lot of personnel and is it beyond reasonable to question whether they are all absolutely vital and that they are all pulling their weight.... If the answer is no, that is an obvious part of the budget to be cut right there.

I do not and never have worked for the council. A look back on some of the other threads will show that I am certainly not some default cheerleader for them. There are lots of things I criticise them for. However, on this particular issue I really do not see what all the fuss is about. I really do not agree with this endless criticism and mockery about a minor delay to a project. I just read the newspaper articles, I read documents on the publicly available planning portal, I take an interest in things that happening and have practical knowledge of the realities that are involved in organising, planning, legislating and executing construction projects involving multiple parties. What has happened in this project is totally commonplace and I really don't see what major 'incompetence' the council has done as others seem to be portraying. Said before and I'll say again, all just seems like a simplistic excuse to do a bit of council bashing.

Have you never had to adjust a date of something? Have you never had plans changed? Something crop up which caused some disruption? Yes they announced the original opening in June because quite rightly, at the time, that was the intended schedule for the works to be completed and it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is already been publicly explained that during the planning works there was a lack of information on the survey reports and this resulted in discovery of underground water pipes which required some minor resiting of the planned structure. The council duly made the announcement about the delay, explained the reasons for the delay and their extended time frame for the opening. Again, totally common thing to happen in any construction project and reasonable thing to do. It is not some great disaster. It is not some gross misconduct of office. It is not some wholly incompetent and negligence action.It has not been delayed by endless amounts of time. It has not been cancelled at vast expenditure to the public purse for no result. The project is still opening. The businesses are still viable. Personally I really don't see what all the fuss is about. The project only got the planning permission granted in mid-march and even accounting for the delay, 7 months to get groundworks, build out, utilities and interiors and inspection sign off done is hardly prolonged or embarrassing passage of time. It will open by next week. Given the majority of the money for this thing hasn't even come out of council funds people really have got even less to be whinging about. Besides, all the NiMBYs and naysayers will have their wish soon enough. It will all be gone within 12 months because that's all the conservation wombles demanded Steel Yard could have. Normal service on fargate will be resumed back to a load of empty space and empty crumbling buildings. Yeah - that's what the "real Sheffielders want". Blah blah don't like change blah blah everything council's fault.

Not necessarily you personally. But the fact this very thread is 34 pages long with a good majority of it being negative about a development that hasn't even opened yet sort of proves what I'm getting at. Can't we all at least agree to disagree with arguments over personal taste on aesthetics and let the thing actually open before we all start jumping in on how successful, necessary or worthy it is.

Where is exactly is the incompetence here??? They are bringing a project to try to restore some life to an area which is obviously slowing down. They are bringing a project which will bring an opportunity to small businesses into a part of town they would usually be out priced from. Yes the project got delayed because of an intervention from Yorkshire Water but so what? It hardly some great scandal. Projects get changed or delayed or adjusted all the time. How do you know all the fault is on the council? I don't think you have a clue as to the layers of people involved in such development. Yes they installed some plant pot barriers which some people find distasteful. But so what? the council is never going to be able to be pleasing every single person all the time are they? Like I said, some people just willing it to fail. Just looking for lame excuses to have a moan. Just load of old farts who seemingly cant embrace changes and want everything back the way it used to be.

I am not sure what you mean by inappropriate. It's a pedestrian shopping street not an area of national historical importance. What has been there previously was nothing more than some concrete and metal fountain usually with a litter filled pond round it. Since then that location has had temporary stages, fake alpine chalets, mini Ferris wheels and hundreds of trestle tables hastily set up by whatever rent a gob organisation wants to seize the moment. We all know deep down that the real reason for the oversized awkwardly placed flower pots is terrorist prevention as it's happening in cities across the globe, and an unfortunate reality of the time we are now living in. If it wasn't those, it would be some glorified concrete barriers, or metal railings or bollards. At least plants are slightly better. Whilst the bright colour may not be to everyone's taste, at least it brightens up what was a otherwise dull area undergoing redevelopment. Same with the container park itself, yes it isn't to everyone's taste, but it is trying to bring a bit of footfall back to an area which people have been moaning was dying off for years. Despite all the protesting and shouting on this forum, the fact remains that companies cannot be forced into empty buildings nor can landlords be forced to give up their premises without good reason and lots of legal red tape. It really feels some people are willing it to fail. Despite the cynics, There is a pattern of success with these projects both temporary and permanent in many other cities and I hope that the majority will see it a good addition rather than those simply picking holes and harping on about the past. It is a great opportunity for small independent businesses to have a place in the city without great expenditure. It is a great opportunity to get people after hours down to that part of town and can bring a bit of life after 5:30. In conjunction with the increasing numbers of residences in that area and nearby, there is a reason why it shouldn't be your success. I bet if Leeds were building one and we weren't there would be plenty of reaction from the the complainers...... Council can't seem to win.

Did you try places like Division Street, The Moor Devonshire Green, West Street, Sheffield Plate, Kommune, Roxy Ballroom, Boom, Lane 7... So you didn't see hordes of people in two areas of the city that you happened to go to. Doesn't automatically mean the entire city is desolate.

But that's the problem. Everyone is raving about how 'civilised' ie quiet and calm it is compared to others but that's because it has a fraction of the passenger flow and flights. Empty airports don't make money. All the politicos and Twitterati are banging on about how much of the success it COULD be however, the more flights, the more passengers, the more queues, the more crowds, the more chaos.... suddenly everyone would still be moaning about how "bad it's become". Can't have it both ways. If one wants quiet, calm, exclusive, preferential treatment it comes at a cost. Otherwise airlines are simply operating maximum numbers for minimum staffing and smallest outlay. It's business and DSA was a failing one.

For what... I'm simply stating a fact.

Alleged victim. Given there were no criminal charges being brought - prison wasn't going to happen. The alleged "victim" was bringing a civil claim i.e. a money claim for damages.