Daydream thread... without the rose-tinted specs

Better_Days

Dental checkup this afternoon - wish me luck

ukmaggie45 I heard that quote on the radio this morning too - about Pickles being more use as a sandbag. :rotfl::rotfl: Government knows what he is like, I can't believe it is accidental that he is putting the knife into the Environment Agency - smoke and mirrors. It's easy for Pickles to apologise - he won't be carrying the can.

No way dredging would have stopped this level of flooding - seems to me it would have just made things worse downstream. The problem we have is that we need long term solutions but have governments focussed on no more than 5 years ahead - a pipsqueak in environmental terms.

Davesnave

Better_Days wrote: »

Dental checkup this afternoon - wish me luck

ukmaggie45 I heard that quote on the radio this morning too - about Pickles being more use as a sandbag. :rotfl::rotfl: .

Good luck wiv the teef, Better Days.

Was it Pickles who visited the Levels and arrived without any wellies? I can't remember, but whichever wallah went there recently on the government's behalf had to borrow some. :rotfl:

Quite apart from sea defences which haven't been built and rivers that haven't been dredged, successive governments have also given grants to have upland areas drained, thus helping to ensure that the water gets down to low lying areas in double quick time. You couldn't make it up!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

cant remember where I seen it, might have been countryfile...where they went over to Holland and they spend 5x more on flood defence than Britain... not only do the dredge, they are also putting back the natural curves/water coarse lines into the rivers, to try and buffer the force of the water flow...


I also noticed that the river banks were a lot higher than ours...


I personally think If I was in government I would be asking the dutch to help with solutions, as they had a HUGE disaster in the 50's/60's??? where people died in their floods

RAS

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

I personally think If I was in government I would be asking the dutch to help with solutions, as they had a HUGE disaster in the 50's/60's??? where people died in their floods

England also suffered http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2013/jan/31/devastation-east-anglia-1953-flood-in-pictures

Imagine being on your roof in freezing rain in January, no warning.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

RAS wrote: »

England also suffered http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2013/jan/31/devastation-east-anglia-1953-flood-in-pictures

Imagine being on your roof in freezing rain in January, no warning.

WOW!!! that was bad

lostinrates

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

cant remember where I seen it, might have been countryfile...where they went over to Holland and they spend 5x more on flood defence than Britain... /QUOTE]

Tbh that figure by itself isn't tat informative to me.

How much are farmers subsidised to maintain,things like ditches presumably the same as here....

What is the rules of water way owner ship in holland? Do landowners maintain or state? How is it enforced?

I think we do need to ask these questions, but with cool heads. I think like all the other ills, they are not necessarily party issues, but have become part of our culture that we need to address at a cultural rather than party political level.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

LIR what I understood by the article, is that the government are in charge of the up keep/maint of the waterways

Better_Days

Davesnave wrote: »

Good luck wiv the teef, Better Days.

Was it Pickles who visited the Levels and arrived without any wellies? I can't remember, but whichever wallah went there recently on the government's behalf had to borrow some. :rotfl:

Quite apart from sea defences which haven't been built and rivers that haven't been dredged, successive governments have also given grants to have upland areas drained, thus helping to ensure that the water gets down to low lying areas in double quick time. You couldn't make it up!

Thanks Davesnave got a gold star from the dentist Back in a year.

I think it was Owen Patterson who arrvied at the Levels without any wellies - well the story was that he did have his wellies with him but they were in the boot of the car and he was embarrased to be seen changing from shoes to wellies in front of the press :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I agree, draining upland areas and removing vegetation including trees is madness. And for decades hedgerows were ripped out, too. Like you say, you couldn't make it up. We have an organic veg and fruit box delivered for our fruit and veg, a small contribution I hope to a more sustainable way of food production. It's not cheap though.

LIR I think you are exactly right - it is a cultural issue - I find it so frustrating that people see tax as a bad thing - but at the same time, expect all the services that taxes pay for. And although the public sector has its problems, I can't see that the private sector does any better. Scandal after scandal - G4S, A4E, Atos, Serco, (are these people who dream up company names morons) PIP implants, PPI, and now one of the biggest providers of English Language tests for visa applicants is involved in what appears to be wholesale and systematic fraud. It's bloody depressing.:(:(

lostinrates

Better_Days wrote: »

Thanks Davesnave got a gold star from the dentist Back in a year.

I think it was Owen Patterson who arrvied at the Levels without any wellies - well the story was that he did have his wellies with him but they were in the boot of the car and he was embarrased to be seen changing from shoes to wellies in front of the press :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I agree, draining upland areas and removing vegetation including trees is madness. And for decades hedgerows were ripped out, too. Like you say, you couldn't make it up. We have an organic veg and fruit box delivered for our fruit and veg, a small contribution I hope to a more sustainable way of food production. It's not cheap though.

LIR I think you are exactly right - it is a cultural issue - I find it so frustrating that people see tax as a bad thing - but at the same time, expect all the services that taxes pay for. And although the public sector has its problems, I can't see that the private sector does any better. Scandal after scandal - G4S, A4E, Atos, Serco, (are these people who dream up company names morons) PIP implants, PPI, and now one of the biggest providers of English Language tests for visa applicants is involved in what appears to be wholesale and systematic fraud. It's bloody depressing.:(:(

I see fabulous private sector examples often. The best NHS hospital I have ever been to is a private sector run one. It has outstanding feed back, a lot of users there don't realise its private
Y owned operated because its 'NHS' umbrella. I'd also choose a private GP if it could interact with both systems as easily as my consultants do and there was choice locally. I find that in UK compared to
Other places we really expect to be guided through a lot of choices for us, we say 'they' should do something, where as I think 'we' should be doing something.


Where private fails is where, like public, its not competitive and its running with the same parameters as public and free rein with no call to protect public over profit. Private needs competition to work best IMO.


Anyway.......


Winds turned here and is from the north. Its much colder and working signs of ice are out next to warning signs of flood. Where the floods are very shallow ice will really cause havoc, too deep to grit, but wet enough to block us off if it freezes. I don't think it will, not badly.

Famous last words?

My sitting room is so co
Ld everything feels damp. DH (who is home) spent a clue of hours splitting wood and I have the burner raging in there and instruction to keep it going when he goes back to work on Wednesday, all day for the week to try and keep house dry/warmer. Its not been too cold, but with the colder wind its suddenly really noticeable.

alfie_1