[Bones McCoy]

Both utter cunts, though, still. Twin cunts, in fact.

See also: eccentric late TV astronomer Patrick Moore. Also a massive cunt.

Moore was a cunt with redeeming features.
One of them being - he didn't have a twin.

[davidjay]

Indeed - he was also dead keen on bringing back the death penalty. Awful chap.

The modern equivalent would be having Farage on a kids show because he also happens to have an interest in whatever the topic is.

We are fortunate that Farage has no interests - beyond whatever enriches Farage.

He still made it onto that Aussie bug eating one, and about 46 Question Times.
On the Aussie bug one, we learned how utterly vacuous he is.

I don't think that took much learning.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Great stuff here, Shame That's Life isn't still on the air.

- This new railway line then. We need to sort out the groundwater
- No can do. There's only a little farm track.
- Can we build an access road, just while we do the works?
- No.
- OK, can we build a smaller thing? Not ideal, but reasonable compromise, eh?
- No.

The company behind the HS2 rail project said taxpayers could face a bill running into "tens of millions of pounds" after a key phase of the scheme was blocked.
Permission for an underground chamber and ditch in Wendover, designed to manage groundwater as part of the high-speed rail line, was refused by Buckinghamshire Council.
Planning officers recommended approval, but the council said the proposed access track would cause harm to the "sensitive and protected Chilterns National Landscape".
HS2 said the decision could cause major delays and additional costs to the nearby construction of the Wendover Green Tunnel.
An early visualisation of a white HS2 train with blue door seen speeding along a track.

The proposed ditch and underground chamber would have managed groundwater on a stretch of the line
The plans, external followed advice from the Environment Agency and were intended to help regulate the flow of naturally occurring springs in the area.
It would have involved upgrading an existing access track to facilitate construction and allow for future maintenance.
The project had already been scaled back in response to residents' fears over proposed construction traffic for the works, including down the narrow Dobbins Lane, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Councillors also opposed HS2's planned upgrades and extension of a farmer's access track and used the "harm" this would cause as their basis of their refusal.

[Youngian]

Couldn't the Vogons have Dobbins Lane and it's residents vaporised?

[The Weeping Angel]

[Tubby Isaacs]

Couldn't the Vogons have Dobbins Lane and it's residents vaporised?

Tempting. Will be surprised if lots of the current Tory councillors aren't vaporized in the local elections. It's a massive council, as a heavily populated unitary. 147 councillors.

Unfortunately, the combination of Lib Dems and Kippers are unlikely to be an improvement on the Nimby score.

[Tubby Isaacs]

You can't win with railways in this country, can you? Either you're having to pay a fortune to build tunnels or demolish buildings, or you can't build because it would ruin the peace.

[Boiler]

The residents of the Chilterns have always been very vocal in their opposition to HS2. Aren't the Chiltern residents also responsible for that very expensive tunnel? I do like to point out that replacing HS2 with an eight lane motorway through their AONB would really give them something to roar about.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The residents of the Chilterns have always been very vocal in their opposition to HS2. Aren't the Chiltern residents also responsible for that very expensive tunnel? I do like to point out that replacing HS2 with an eight lane motorway through their AONB would really give them something to roar about.

There's an article on HS2 in Rail Magazine this month that talks about the cost rises. Compared with the original plan, local objections added 13 miles of tunnels to the route. That takes the total to 32m from about 19m, a not inconsiderable extra cost.

It makes some other good points. Where roads and bridges need replacing, they get replaced with better roads and bridges. So in effect local road improvements get counted as HS2 spending.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Surprising here. "We don't care about the solar farm", say locals. One chap says "I'm not a Green, but I think we need renewable energy". That's probably quite a widespread view, not that it gets reported much.

[Andy McDandy]

"Living in the shadow of"? They're not bloody mountains.

[Boiler]

I'd much rather have a solar farm next to me than one of these massive logistics warehouses with the colour-graded panels trying to conceal them against the sky devoted to distributing mountains of unnecessary shit bought from the likes of Temu and Shein.

[Boiler]

It makes some other good points. Where roads and bridges need replacing, they get replaced with better roads and bridges. So in effect local road improvements get counted as HS2 spending.

Funnily enough, I think that's how a road bridge over the ECML that connected the two villages my siblings live in got replaced - funded by the ECML electrification. It was always high enough for the wires but it wasn't wide enough for a lorry and a car to pass each other comfortably and at the time, the local brickyards were still working.

[The Weeping Angel]

Britain's 35th greatest filmmaker, Ken Loach, here with a killer argument.

Ken Loach, the film director, was one of the 5,500 commenters on the stadium planning application.

Mr Loach, who lives in Bath, said: "Visitors come to see the Roman Baths and Georgian architecture, not to look at a modern sports stadium – you can see those without travelling very far."

[Tubby Isaacs]

What sort of argument is that? The point of a sports stadium is to watch sport, not to stare at the stadium.

People go to Rome to see the Colosseum and watch Lazio play. Seems like it's possible for a city to have both.

[The Weeping Angel]

Or they go to Bath and watch Bath City FC.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Bones McCoy]

Always with the shadows...