The Ranting Room |
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 16:49 | |
Is it simply a matter of land scarcity (lot of people on a relatively small island), or are there other issues at hand?
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 16:52 | |
100% unbridled ing greed.
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What?
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Syzygy
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 16 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 7003 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 16:59 | |
spot on!
It's true that there is a certain land density issue in SE England, particularly London, but in general it's not that much of a problem; Sutherland in NW Scotland apparently has a similar population density to the Sahara, but house price fever has even spread up there so that local young couples can't afford to buy houses, but of course it's a popular spot for second/holiday homes.
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'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 17:13 | |
It's interesting because I experienced massive sticker shock when I lived in the Washington DC suburbs during the American housing bubble (~ 2001-2005). I was lucky to buy a townhouse in 2002 - if I had waited a couple more years, I wouldn't have been able to afford anything, a situation that many of our friends found themselves in.
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Jared
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 06 2005 Location: Hereford, UK Status: Offline Points: 19929 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 17:15 | |
especially for Blacksword, Syzygy and any ranting roon regular who may be interested in a succinct and interesting account about why everything in Britain has now been privatised, why everything has a league table and why we no longer have any ideological choice when we go to the polls....
(not so) easy reading....
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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Blacksword
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 22 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 16130 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 17:28 | |
I imagine that book is something of a horror story, Jared. There was a TV series recently called 'What happened `to our freedom' (I think) It touched on how Britain became a nation obsessed with targets and league tables. Did you see that? |
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Jared
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 06 2005 Location: Hereford, UK Status: Offline Points: 19929 |
Posted: August 07 2007 at 17:48 | |
I did see the trailers, Andy... but I work evenings, so couldn't watch it...
putting this book into some form of perspective, Simon Jenkins had Tory sympathies, years ago... while he was critical of the later Thatcher years with regards privatising BT, Coal, British Gas and the social housing stock, he maintains that she always believed that attempts at privatising Railways, Health Service, Post Office, the prison service and so on would be a mistake...
...enter Major, Blair & Brown, with not only an ever accelerating plan of privatisation, but an up to 10 fold increace in beurocracy, increased centralisation, performance tables, faulty computer systems which have cost the tax payer billions, and PFI hospitals, which we'll still be paying for when they are knocked down....
it will make you SO proud....
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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Jim Garten
Special Collaborator Retired Admin & Razor Guru Joined: February 02 2004 Location: South England Status: Offline Points: 14693 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 03:41 | |
Ah yes - back in the 1970s, council tenants in the UK could buy their properties, but generally were happy to continue renting... then along comes The Milk Snatcher (anyone remember that nickname??), decides that house ownership isn't so much an option, but a duty, gets the wobbling classes on side via the red top tabloids and all of a sudden, everybody is buying their council houses for pence! This coincides with the 'Greed is good' generation (aka the b*****d sons of Thatcher) overheating the economy, leading to interest rate rises, so those wobblers who bought their council houses, no longer afford the mortages, frantically try to sell the houses (or have them sold from underneath them by the banks), leading to supply outstripping demand & a house price crash in the late 1980s which has now miraculously reversed itself in the last 15 years, leading to the average house price in London outstripping the national debt of small African countries.
Disclaimer - I'm no economist, just pissed off about 2 things: 1 - Thatcher's legacy 2 - My hypocrisy (Vicky and I bought our house at the nadir of the house price crash in 1991 ) |
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Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 10:10 | |
Sorry for being an ignorant colonial, but what are council tenants and council houses?
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 10:28 | |
Council housing is essentially state-owned houses, often grouped together on a large estate (termed, not surprisingly, a council estate), but they usually owned and managed by the local council (town government if you like). Council tenants are people who rent such houses. In the 1980's Maggie effectively sold these off to sitting tenants are well below market value - which appeared to be great value for money - except the houses had little re-sale value because of the stigma attached to them. Edited by darqdean - August 08 2007 at 10:30 |
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What?
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 10:34 | |
Thanks. There's very little government-owned housing over here, and what little there also has a stigma attached. "Government housing" has a very, very negative connotation here, as it is mostly very poor, urban developments that are not well maintained. |
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 12:33 | |
Ah yes, but you Americans all have swimming pools, jacuzzis and living rooms big enough to store every prog album ever recorded...
Well, that's what us British believe anyhow... You certainly don't have terraced, or semi-detached housing though. Edited by Geck0 - August 08 2007 at 14:23 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 13:15 | |
^ have you noticed when flying into London Heathrow, how many bdy houses have sding enormous fkoff swimming pools in south suburbia?
No, sorry, my mistake, that was Virginia Water.
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What?
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 13:19 | |
Well, have no fear - I have none of those things (though I find my living room to be of adequate size for my meager prog collection) "Semi-detached" housing? If you mean row houses or connected townhomes/condos (common wall), we have plenty of those. |
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Jared
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 06 2005 Location: Hereford, UK Status: Offline Points: 19929 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 17:09 | |
yes...the term 'milk snatcher' refferred to her 1979 policy of withdrawing free school milk from infant school children...
your case is missing one vital ingredient, Jim... hand in hand with Heseltine persuading council tenants to buy their own houses, was a meteoric rise in the level of council house rents, which within a 3 year time scale, brought them almost in line with the private house rental market, giving many tenants no choice, BUT to buy their house at the discounted rate....
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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Angelo
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: May 07 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 13244 |
Posted: August 08 2007 at 17:52 | |
ISKC Rock Radio
I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
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markosherrera
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 01 2006 Location: World Status: Offline Points: 3252 |
Posted: August 10 2007 at 22:21 | |
I dont like:Ruffians, reggaeton ,liver ,tv propaganda like as seen on tv o r too long commercials ,talk many times every day the same political topics with the people in reunions,. .tv programs where the people fight and shout,other is the howard stern show....mosquitoes ......messages of the president.
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mystic fred
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: March 13 2006 Location: Londinium Status: Offline Points: 4252 |
Posted: August 11 2007 at 08:35 | |
on the subject of TV there are too many of the same old tired formats -
Big Brother - a freak show of child-like demented selfish racists - rather watch wet paint dry.
A Place in the sun - leave the safe English suburbs to buy a broken down old ruin in Spain amid acres of dusty scrubland, miles from anywhere, no clean water and no electricity, the locals hate those f**king gringos buying their land anyway. if you have a heart attack forget it - a Doctor might come next month, and a builder might finish it next century. insult your friends by charging them to stay there as only friends and family would be stupid enough to pay for that hell-hole.
Cash in the Attic - sell all your family's expensive heirlooms for pennies to waste on something really stupid, and that other one with the red and blue teams buying worthless junk at a boot sale and failing to make a profit at auction - all the boot sale sellers buy them at auction in the first place, stoopid!
DIY programmes - don't see them much anymore but some posh fop used to wreck people's homes with his horribly tacky ideas - wasting money and reducing value of said property.
Vet clinics - watch ruthless vets drain worried caring pet owners' bank accounts.
Good rock music shows - hardly exist these days.
rant over
Edited by mystic fred - August 11 2007 at 08:39 |
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Prog Archives Tour Van
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: August 11 2007 at 12:11 | |
Plus you forgot the worst one, how could you?! Ready, Steady, Cook! I detest that program more than any other. Dreadful. |
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The-Bullet
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 23 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 401 |
Posted: August 11 2007 at 14:45 | |
Enough with these ing search for a dancer/singer/Joseph/Maria ing shows . Tune in next week as 12 hopefuls vie to be the Queens ing binman
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"Why say it cannot be done.....they'd be better doing pop songs?" |
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