In the "News" today.

Tgwu wrote:

I did not know it cost £5.20 to climb the 72  feet of Smeaton's Tower by the 93 steps, until I seen a coupon offering it for £3

I remember when it was

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1943! I thought you were younger than that!

Richard Blight wrote:

There is also the fact that certain modern practices in agriculture cause topsoil to wash off the tops of fields, speeding down hillsides into rivers and becomes silt. The silt clogs up rivers and floods fields belonging to farmers!

The fact that January is the wettest on record after a very wet December has absolutely nothing to do with it!  Everything has to be somebody's fault. In this case I would track down the feckers doing the raindance and spend the next 10 years trying to deport the little bastards  

Farmers are nearly all Tories too.

Flooding on the Levels has always happened. The silt from flooding makes the agricultural land very fertile and very desirable to farmers.

Strikes me as being a bit silly to build houses there in the first place and even sillier to decide to buy them.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Richard Blight wrote:

There is also the fact that certain modern practices in agriculture cause topsoil to wash off the tops of fields, speeding down hillsides into rivers and becomes silt. The silt clogs up rivers and floods fields belonging to farmers!

The fact that January is the wettest on record after a very wet December has absolutely nothing to do with it!  Everything has to be somebody's fault. In this case I would track down the feckers doing the raindance and spend the next 10 years trying to deport the little bastards  

Farmers are nearly all Tories too.

Flooding on the Levels has always happened. The silt from flooding makes the agricultural land very fertile and very desirable to farmers.

Strikes me as being a bit silly to build houses there in the first place and even sillier to decide to buy them.

Millions of folk choose to live along California's west coast. Technically, they're probably silly too. But just think of all the "told you so's" we'll be able to level (bad pun, sorry) at them then the 'big one' comes...

I suppose that what I was, rather clumsily, really alluding to is that the floods are a metaphor for the impact of this government's over-riding philosophy on the whole country. In this case years of council tax freezes, quango bonfires, "doing more with less" and all the rest of the cut-led austerity agenda has left nobody anywhere who is able to maintain adequate drainage for those who live on the Levels.

Much the same, metaphorically, has happened, is happening or will happen to social services, housing, our roads, railways, students, libraries, schools, universities, the NHS, the armed forces, the civil service, police foces, emergency services, social security system and everything else that is, or should be, publicly funded just not in as visually obvious a way.

If you want services, like adequate drainage for instance, in any shape or form then they have to be paid for which means you have to pay tax and that there needs to be a mechanism that links, preferably by way of a solution, the cash to the problem.

And if you decide to vote to destroy every last syllable of that concept then when the consequences are so horribly and inconveniently delivered into the heart of your home then manking on about dredging isn't really the answer.

There's also a similar point to be made about climate change denial.

The residents of the Somerset Levels are at last having demonstrated to them what "there is no such thing as society" means in all its horrid, squalid glory and it would appear that despite having voted for it for decades they don't much like it.

Private wealth, public squalour. There's a lot of Tory voters out there who think they've bought a place on the lifeboat. They haven't.
I see the flooding is now the fault of the green/environment lobby along with the huge price of gas and electricity. What horrible people we are and we didn't even know how horrible we were until the Bullingdon boys told us.

I've missed exactly how the flooding is the fault of the Green lobby. Not enough nuclear power stations in Somerset, is it?

See that woman lost her claim against burton fc, sure at start of week she was 38 at end of case 46!
Billy kees comments made me laugh
Phone hacking trial seems to be getting interesting.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I suppose that what I was, rather clumsily, really alluding to is that the floods are a metaphor for the impact of this government's over-riding philosophy on the whole country. In this case years of council tax freezes, quango bonfires, "doing more with less" and all the rest of the cut-led austerity agenda has left nobody anywhere who is able to maintain adequate drainage for those who live on the Levels.

The dredging of the Somerset rivers was stopped some 20 years ago, the majority of that time the Tories were not in power. Never let the fact get in the way of a political dig though eh ?

If tax loopholes were closed resulting in big business & the rich paying the estimated £25 billion lost in unpaid tax there would be a hell of a lot more money available for vital infrastructure.

Elias wrote:

See that woman lost her claim against burton fc, sure at start of week she was 38 at end of case 46!
Billy kees comments made me laugh
Phone hacking trial seems to be getting interesting.

. Our esteemed President could have had some great fun with her

Richard Blight wrote:

My favourite story of the week is Cameron calling in the military because the government is getting a serious ear bashing over the floods in Somerset. Two soldiers turn up yesterday have a look around, then go home again with a look on their faces as if to say " what the feck do you expect us to do about that? Bomb it?   

Earlier in the week, the environment secretary turned up, obviously to see what the fuss was about. The result being, after four weeks underwater, he gave everyone 6 weeks to come up with a plan to sort it out.

And he really did look as though he thought that was the right thing to do. He also pointed out that he'd been chairing any number of COBRA meetings. Well that's alright then.

Completely useless doesn't even come close.

In other news, we're likely to lose english tv channels over here in the next few weeks. Another satellite has been launched because the original is getting old, and it's beam or whatever won't cover southern Spain.

I blame Murdoch. Don't know why, I just do.

FY 310 wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I suppose that what I was, rather clumsily, really alluding to is that the floods are a metaphor for the impact of this government's over-riding philosophy on the whole country. In this case years of council tax freezes, quango bonfires, "doing more with less" and all the rest of the cut-led austerity agenda has left nobody anywhere who is able to maintain adequate drainage for those who live on the Levels.

The dredging of the Somerset rivers was stopped some 20 years ago, the majority of that time the Tories were not in power. Never let the fact get in the way of a political dig though eh ?

If tax loopholes were closed resulting in big business & the rich paying the estimated £25 billion lost in unpaid tax there would be a hell of a lot more money available for vital infrastructure.

Illegal wars, dodgy dossiers, introduction of student fees, abolition of student grants, introduction of market forces into the NHS, subtle undermining of the welfare state, attacking unions, inadequate regulation of the City, sucking up to Murdoch... Very sad. Blair's government was a Tory government in all but name and he squandered a golden opportunity to make a lasting difference.

When you stop for a moment and think about how far to the right the Labour Party has drifted it only emphasises how extremely right wing, a gnat's whisker from being far right in many ways, the modern Tories are. I've always struggled to understand how any decent-minded person could be a Tory and now I have absolutely no idea at all as to how they manage it.

I wholeheartedly agree with the last bit.

GOB wrote:

Tgwu wrote:

I did not know it cost £5.20 to climb the 72  feet of Smeaton's Tower by the 93 steps, until I seen a coupon offering it for £3

I remember when it was

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I use to go school with one of those every day and spend it at a Morris minor tuck van that parked just up from Whitliegh sec. I could buy spangles, mojos and shed loads for that thrupence, happy days.  

Always found a queue halfway up so it took an hour to get up there.

I used to get thrupence pocket money as well, I remember changing my brothers thruppenny bit for three farthings because he thought that I had more money than him. When we got home my mum took half my sweets off me and gave them to him. I used to buy a sherbet dip (1 penny) 8 blackjacks (1 penny) and a quarter (that's 100g roughly not like two eigths   ) of sweets out of the jars.

Jimmy Savilles favourite that was.

Iggy wrote:

I used to buy a sherbet dip (1 penny) 8 blackjacks (1 penny) and a quarter (that's 100g roughly not like two eigths   ) of sweets out of the jars.

Gosh Iggy...

You brought back a memory there. Blackjacks!!! ...and I suddenly thought of these for the first time in fifty years.

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Just come back from a lovely morning doggy walk along Ernesettle creek and Warliegh point. Calm, river like a mill pond, sunny, birds chirping away.

It's hard to believe it's going to be 'apocalyptic' later this afternoon!!   

knecht wrote:

Snow, snow, sleet, sleet, snow.

Last night I drove into Tavvy to get a takeaway, when I left it was pissing down with hail, sleet and rain, there was about an inch of slush on the road and it was only 1c, if it had frozen they would have had something to talk about.

Ice on the windscreen this morning - not much. We may be all doomed. Or we may not.

6 ft crocodile on the loose in Bristol, possibly.

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Bet he will feel the cold.