Cycling UK Forum

Cyril Haearn wrote:Mercalia: I have read 1600 articles in the Guardian on my smartphone in the last few months
Occasionally a begging text appears but no paywall

and?

I thinks its the sister Spectator that does it?

The immorality of Primark? The cost of cheap clothes

Primark among retailers cancelling £2.4bn orders in ‘catastrophic’ move for Bangladesh

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/02/fashion-brands-cancellations-of-24bn-orders-catastrophic-for-bangladesh?

Cyril Haearn wrote:Mercalia: I have read 1600 articles in the Guardian on my smartphone in the last few months
Occasionally a begging text appears but no paywall

By now you must have several rots o' the wetware going on! So much newspap - from a single source too - is like eating nothing but Fry's Chocolate Cream Bars then wondering why your hair is falling out and you're sick 3 times a day. Don't you ever wonder what all those strange voices in your heed are?

But perhaps your avidity for the book has saved you from going totally puggled.

Cugel, once more suggesting you try The Beano instead.

The Grauniad asking for donations asserted that I had read 1600+
Not every word of every article, I fear

Cyril Haearn wrote:The Grauniad asking for donations asserted that I had read 1600+
Not every word of every article, I fear

I had the same request, but I don't feel guilty because I also buy the paper version.

One good thing to come from this covid-19 crisis is the collapse of Airbnb which has removed rental properties from the market as they can make more more as Airbnb? I have no sympathy for those with large portfolios of properties that require a constant income from Airbnb lets to pay the mortgages.

How the Covid-19 crisis locked Airbnb out of its own homes

For those who have built up mini (or in some cases not-so-mini) property portfolios that rely on a constant stream of guests churning through Airbnb apartments in Bath, Barcelona or Berlin, the prospect of weeks or months without guests spells financial disaster.


To try and make some income from their empty properties landlords have flooded the rental market with their Airbnb flats. On Edinburgh’s Princes Street, for example, there are 209 Airbnb listings on a road of just 494 homes. Property portal Rightmove said the number of new rentals coming on to the market in the week the UK lockdown started increased by 45% in London, up 55% in Brighton, 62% in Edinburgh and 78% in Bath. It’s a similar story the world over with a 61% increase in Dublin and 41% in Prague


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/04/how-the-covid-19-crisis-locked-airbnb-out-of-its-own-homes?

mercalia wrote:One good thing to come from this covid-19 crisis is the collapse of Airbnb which has removed rental properties from the market as they can make more more as Airbnb? I have no sympathy for those with large portfolios of properties that require a constant income from Airbnb lets to pay the mortgages.

How the Covid-19 crisis locked Airbnb out of its own homes

For those who have built up mini (or in some cases not-so-mini) property portfolios that rely on a constant stream of guests churning through Airbnb apartments in Bath, Barcelona or Berlin, the prospect of weeks or months without guests spells financial disaster.


To try and make some income from their empty properties landlords have flooded the rental market with their Airbnb flats. On Edinburgh’s Princes Street, for example, there are 209 Airbnb listings on a road of just 494 homes. Property portal Rightmove said the number of new rentals coming on to the market in the week the UK lockdown started increased by 45% in London, up 55% in Brighton, 62% in Edinburgh and 78% in Bath. It’s a similar story the world over with a 61% increase in Dublin and 41% in Prague


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/04/how-the-covid-19-crisis-locked-airbnb-out-of-its-own-homes?

Agreed. There is already a housing shortage and these take houses out of the marketplace. Initially it was about a little extra income from a spare room. Human nature being what it is, it soon became big business. House prices increase, genuine B and B operators get squeezed, local shops get sidelined.

whitebells?

Never seen them before

mercalia wrote:whitebells?

Never seen them before

They are moderately common http://www.britishnatureguide.com/white ... ebell.html

NHS app

so the NHS is thinking of supplying a smartphone app to help map the virus. I was listneing to the world at one today. It uses bluetooth I understand and requires the phone to be on all the time. I dont do either and any way there wont be an app for Windows 10 phone and there cant be for Phone 8.1 as the store has gone

Vorpal wrote:

mercalia wrote:whitebells?

Never seen them before

They are moderately common http://www.britishnatureguide.com/white ... ebell.html

The trick is to find all three types (blue, white and pink) in one location or to find all three shades of valerian (red, pink and white) together.

I worry about why I find such discoveries rewarding, perhaps the handle 'stradaGEEK is a clue?

Or maybe it's just because they are so pretty.

My most memorable sight still has to be catching Venus and Uranus in conjunction in one high power telescope field. The realisation of the vast sizes and distances involved combined with the contrast in brightness and colour actually left me a bit stunned and speechless.

State Pension and triple Lock

So a ( tory?) think tank wants to end the triple lock on pensions to pay for the covid-19 costs?


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/14/scrap-triple-lock-uk-pensions-coronavirus-crisis?

The state pension is hardly generous? I think about £8,700 pa for the new state pension

One argument the think tank suggests is that the elderly are one of the groups that were being protected from the virus? yeah right, if it came to a choice between an old person and a young on a ventilator the oldie would be allowed to die?




Their other argument is that comparitively the state pension has gone up far more than basic incomes since 2010 - missing out the matter of what the state pension was in 2010 before the triple lock. it was rather low?
(Before 2011, the state pension rose in line with the retail prices index measure of inflation, which was consistently lower than annual rises in earnings......)

One thing the think tanks gets wrong --

The thinktank argues in its paper that the economic impact of lockdown policies – which it says have “have rightly been deployed to protect the lives and wellbeing of those most vulnerable to the virus” – is falling most heavily on working-age Britons ....“In the context of an annual deficit that could reach £200bn as we emerge from the crisis, shaving £4bn a year from the growth of the £100bn pension bill is not too much to ask. It would also demonstrate reciprocity from a group whose wellbeing was, rightly, prioritised during the lockdown phase of the crisis,” the SMF said.

not true it was designed to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed?

I see the Sun supports the report claiming that it is middle class millionaires who benefit One point is that Pension Credit is set just below the New State Pension. so the ersults would force more people to claim ( or not claim) this means tested benefit as then presumably Pension Credit would have to increase past the state pension to compensate?

if any one should pay the costs should be the banks execs who got off scot free from the crash still getting their bonuses. If the think tank wants to equalise the burden then level down the salarys of the top jobs, the Linekers and footballers and top people in corporate UK? Tax the companies that have fiddled the system to avoid paying much taxe in the UK - eg Appple, Amazon etc

Any guesses for the average age of the members of said 'think-tank'?!

Cyril Haearn wrote:Mercalia: I have read 1600 articles in the Guardian on my smartphone in the last few months
Occasionally a begging text appears but no paywall

The Guardian (to which I subscribe, a voluntary arrangement, as you point out...) pins its colours to the mast. They believe in the principle of free speech and are committed to making their content available to all & sundry, without the constraint of payment, aka a paywall. I believe that this is a very valuable principle indeed. It is up to individual readers to contribute what they believe is a fair amount. To boast that one continues to read their content avidly, without making any contribution at all, is not something I personally would be particularly comfortable with...

Stradageek wrote:

Vorpal wrote:

mercalia wrote:whitebells?

Never seen them before

They are moderately common http://www.britishnatureguide.com/white ... ebell.html

The trick is to find all three types (blue, white and pink) in one location or to find all three shades of valerian (red, pink and white) together.

I worry about why I find such discoveries rewarding, perhaps the handle 'stradaGEEK is a clue?

Or maybe it's just because they are so pretty.

My most memorable sight still has to be catching Venus and Uranus in conjunction in one high power telescope field. The realisation of the vast sizes and distances involved combined with the contrast in brightness and colour actually left me a bit stunned and speechless.

well on my ride went back to the site and found them all together. Not many pinks more white and lots of blues





any one know what that tiny cute blue flowers in teh bottom pic are?