What I fear we are seeing is the revenge of the second rate — by which I mean the politicians who end up running our councils (the comparatively talented ones become MPs. Yes, think of that.)
What I fear we are seeing is the revenge of the second rate — by which I mean the politicians who end up running our councils (the comparatively talented ones become MPs. Yes, think of that.)
Second rate ? There’s optimistic.
Talented become MPs ? Woo hoo hoo
Lay off the funny fags Rod.
Hustle and bustle in Cambridge? How do these people cope with London, or any city in Asia? Yet next week they’ll write a travelogue about the vibrant souks of Marrakesh.
“To build the fatuous green bus lane the partnership will need to pave over Coton Orchard, a 100-year-old collection of more than 1,000 apple, pear and plum trees, strawberry fields and vines. It is described as “a haven for wildlife and a peaceful respite from the hustle and bustle of Cambridge city centre”.”
The problem is that when you talk about chopping down any load of trees, you get this same spiel. You never hear some countryside group describe a wood as “really mediocre”. Of course there’s wildlife around fruit trees. This is 1000 trees out of 3 billion trees in the UK.
Tell me about it. Second-raters are the bane of our lives. I’m prepared to accept there are only so many bright sparks among us and suspect they have better things to do than clean up our mess. The good thing about second-raters, however, is that, despite rank and file shortcomings, we can always count on outwitting them, keeping one step ahead.
This is 1000 trees out of 3 billion trees in the UK.
But a couple of billion of those are foreign imports (Sitka spruce) in the far north of our island. Genuinely ancient woodland (I don’t think Coton Orchard falls into this category) can’t be replaced by planting a few thousand saplings.
BoM4
Yeah but the problem here is that they are chopping down an orchard to build a “green” bus lane. It is that disconnect that annoys so many. Chopping down trees is bad form anyway.
The environmental damage caused by HS2 has been pretty big, by the sounds of things. Which is another reason why it should never been built.
Ottokring,
“Yeah but the problem here is that they are chopping down an orchard to build a “green” bus lane. It is that disconnect that annoys so many. Chopping down trees is bad form anyway.”
But that depends on the net outcome. Fitting fibre optic cables means using a lot of energy but the saving compared to people travelling to work is huge.
I don’t know about busways but compared to trains or trams which mean a load of overpaid communists and bureaucrats putting on a crap service at huge public subsidy I support them.
“The environmental damage caused by HS2 has been pretty big, by the sounds of things. Which is another reason why it should never been built.”
HS2 is pointless. It cuts the time down, but it’s still 49 minutes Birmingham to Euston, which means the door-to-door commute time is too long, especially when you have remote work (and remote work hit longer commutes much more than short ones). And for someone doing the odd trip to see a client, they don’t care that it’s 83 minutes. It’s still a day seeing a client.
They’re now talking about 70% of HS2 travel being leisure, which just blows away any cost justification.
@Bernie G there is a cumulative effect where having to get around so many of them creates it’s own inertia
A lot of the problem is people in cities who have no idea what the world is like outside of their cities.
It’s the same with hunting and animal control, easy to have a ban on say hunting bears when you never have to deal with one. In Vancouver there was an outcry over coyotes biting humans in Stanley Park(because of larger numbers and idiots feeding them), the outcry was over shooting or relocating the coyotes and it dragged on for over a year. They really do think the Disney version of animals is the way the world works.
BniC
Can’t the coyotes eat the tramps ?
That strikes me as a win win.
BNIC: “They really do think the Disney version of animals is the way the world works.”
Yes. I begin to get the feeling this is by design..
But the people of Vancouver can rest easy. If there’s that many coyotes, that means the rats are just fine… And plump and fat. and…
The problem isn’t second rate people per se, it’s second rate people who score high on the Dunning-Kruger effect and are ambitious.
They’re now talking about 70% of HS2 travel being leisure, which just blows away any cost justification.
Rilly? Daytrips to Brum on what will undoubtedly be a premium service (like the Javelins on HS1)?? Still, it’s more rational than most of the attempted justifications I’ve read for HS2.