Big J

From the bit of research I've done, I really like the nordic capitalist model. Supportive of entrepreneurs and business, but very socialist in it's social mindset. The poor aren't really poor and the rich aren't that rich. I was looking at average salaries for lorry drivers in Sweden the other day (out of curiosity) and the average starting wage is £4k a month, rising to double that with 10-15 years experience. They place value on essential services (like transportation of goods) in a way that I don't think we do. Truck Driver Average Salary in Sweden 2020 - The Complete Guide WWW.SALARYEXPLORER.COM

Interesting thread, and one I'm surprised I missed. Firstly, the furlough payments are going to be very tough to wean a chunk of the population off of. There is endemic fear of covid-19 in the population and I understand that. I think it's overblown, principally by a somewhat hysterical media, but is does remain a deadly virus for some. That being said, personally, I must admit that I've become a total nihilist with regards to the whole situation. Life isn't really worth living in the long term if it's going to continue like this (huge restrictions on personal liberty and businesses collapsing left right and centre), because the economic effects with far outweigh any struggles we'd have with the virus. I'm young, I'm fit, I don't have any preexisting health conditions, I don't socialise at all at the moment with anyone in high risk groups, and if it does get me, I'm life insured to the hilt, so my family will be covered. There is no guarantee of a cure, no timescale for a cure if one is found and no assurances about it's effectiveness. The general public not in high risk groups need to get back to normal. The vulnerable need to be shielded, and those that care for them protected, but everyone else needs to work to pay for that continued effort. On the topic of wealth inequality, it's something I do feel quite strongly about. The disparity between rich and poor is astronomical, and has only been increasing over the past 100 years. There is no justifiable reason that anyone needs hundreds of millions of pounds, and it's worth remembering that for many of them, it's inherited wealth. It's really easy to completely avoid inheritance tax, and wealth passes through generations without any challenge from tax authorities. The poor do need to be paid a bit more, and the rich a bit less. With egalitarianism comes increased overall happiness, which is surely the goal of life? Money to a point helps attain that, but it's surprising how low that point is, after which additional money makes no difference to life satisfaction.

Yes, to a reasonably extensive degree.

I wouldn't have thought so. I am not aware of red deer being present in that valley. It was very articulate, but a bit ranty. Probably best I lost the post! ?

I had a long reply. The mouse fell off the chair, closed the window and I lost it. In short. I love being outdoors, I dislike cities, I hate mounted hunting. I dislike the English countryside and I'm at my wits end with the UK if I'm being honest. I apologise for the brevity, but there is little in life that is so frustrating as to spend 15 minutes typing a reply to have it vanish in an instant.

I completely understand and support the need to control populations of various animals in the countryside. In my line of work that's principally squirrels and deer. I object however to mounted hunts. I find them to be arrogant, anachronistic institutions that have little to do with pest control, and more about the continuation of contentious and distasteful traditions.

I think third party insurance for bikes (and horses) is a very good idea.

I emphatically agree. There is no place for horses on 21st century roads. The arrogance is quite staggering sometimes. Last year, I had the distinct displeasure of having to follow a mounted hunt for over a mile down a lane to get to site. Having lived in Scotland for 13 years, seeing a mounted hunt is quite a culture shock, and they made no effort to make way for the line of traffic that had accumulated behind them. Horseback, costumed toffs with bloodlust are a demographic I have precisely no time for.

Bloody hell. That is a ticket to see St Peter. I used to cycle competitively as kid (only did one national level race, but warmed up next to Nicole Cooke and raced against Mark Cavendish. I was distinctly average, doing my 10 miles at Dover in 25:58 nursing tendonitis in my left knee) and continued cycling for a few years recreationally and commuting. I wore headphones ONCE. I got knocked off my bike at a junction in Manchester. It wasn't my fault as a taxi cut across me but I would have heard him coming had I not been riding with headphones in. As such, I think that they are a terrible idea. You're so vulnerable on a bike. Headphones eliminate one of your most vital senses.

Why exactly? Horses are a bloody hazard around here. They serve literally no purpose other than to make travel in a car more dangerous. I've no objection about them being kept in fields, far from it. It was a bit of a culture shock moving from Scotland to the South West as I can't recall ever having seen horses on the roads up there.

I may well be a peasant, but I'm still not sure why that would affect my feelings towards horses! Try as I might, I completely and utterly cannot see the point of them. If you want to go for a nice walk in the countryside, use your legs. Take your family, take your dog, enjoy being off the roads. It must be incredibly stressful riding a horse on roads with 21st century traffic. I even saw one on the bloody A30 the other week! It all about efficiency you see. You plough through a pheasant or a rabbit on the back lanes, it leaves little to no mark. The damage resultant from a horse (and rider) collision is a little tougher to buff out!

Calm yourself Marcus!!

(I'll preface this by saying I don't see the point in horses, I don't like horses but I'm sure they taste nice) Two awfully nice ladies, straddling a pair of lasagne fillers swore at me the other day because I had the sheer impudence to be driving through a village in my car at 25mph on my way to a meeting. I came around a corner, they were just around it. I stopped well clear of their horses and got an earful as a result. Can anyone tell me how parading these pointless money pits along country lanes constitutes human exercise? I don't want to see a horse unless it's dragging a log!!

I would propose to plant the flatter areas with conifer plantation and rewild the slopes. Harvesting costs on slopes are much higher, so it would make sense to utilise that for improving biodiversity. All other large European countries maintain much, much higher levels of forest cover and it's something we need to work on. At higher altitude, spruce grows well and it's the backbone of the UK timber industry. You have balance biodiversity loss against the environemental impact of imported timber (with associated biosecurity risks) and the economic security that a substantial homegrown national forest would bring.

I'd not advocating the eradication of minority languages, rather that I don't agree with their promotion over what is clearly a more useful and universal language (English). That money would be far better spent on teaching world languages. We're planting either grassland or arable fields at low level, neither of which have much ecological value. With the moorlands, exactly how biodiverse do you think they really are? The resurgence of the Welsh language seems to have more to do with resentment towards the English than any practical application, which I think is unfortunate. I'm happily in favour of it to be taught as a minority language, and supported within the community, but it's genuinely useless in an international context. It's not a good use of government resources at all, and that money would be far better spent on upskilling kids in other ways (other languages, other subjects, vocational learning etc). Parts of Wales suffer from uniquely awful deprivation and lack of economic opportunities, and anything that can be done to benefit the populace as a whole has to be worth considering. Being able to "caution, reversing lorry" in Welsh when there is an English sign right next to it doesn't fit that criteria! ?

Moorlands, in the form that we find them now, are not natural landscapes. Far from it. Given that there is limited ecological benefit of maintaining them in their present state, and that they are ecomomically useless (in their present state), I'd say planting them with sitka is a bloody good idea. In the UK we import 80% of our timber, and the likelihood is that in a post covid world that imports will be hamstrung to a presently unknown extent. If nothing else, surely if makes sense to grow the timber we need on our doorstep rather than import it from afar. One of the main fuels for the CHP plant in Kent is imported eucalyptus chip from New Zealand, for instance. Plant the flat lowlands with fast growing fuel timber (euc, willow, pop etc), plant the hillsides with native broadleaf for habitat and biodiversity and plant the uplands with softwood for structural timber. Simples. The UK's 13% forest cover is laughable.

I had a quick look on Google, and the consensus seems to be that there are a very small number of elderly with minimal English, and also young children in Welsh speaking communities, though they quickly learn English once at school. It honestly just seems like a wasted effort to me. Teach in two languages, as clearly that's a great idea, but ensure that both are useful. Imagine if they were bilingual as a matter of course in Spanish? They could seamlessly explore from Mexico to Argentina and everything inbetween. Angelsey to Pembroke doesn't quite hold the same appeal. I know it seems like I'm unnecessarily driving home a contentious point, but educacation has to be prioritised. You can't learn everything, and nor should you try. I just believe that ensuring everything we learn is as useful as it can possibly be is important.

Languages are tools and allow the speaker access and participation in societies that speak them. My point with regards to Welsh is that everyone who speaks Welsh also speaks English. And English is also spoken by another 1.5 billion people, so objectively, it's a much more useful language. If the time and expense of teaching someone Welsh was put into one of the World languages, the children growing up there now would have far broader horizons. Also, anecdotally from contributors to this thread, it appears that the English teaching is suffering to an extent due to the Welsh teaching. I may of course be wrong. The UK is woefully awful at languages as a whole. Compared to our European neighbours, we're generally pretty mono-lingual. The Swedes teach English from an early age with a third language being taught slightly later. As such, they all have pretty much perfect English by the time they leave school.

But that doesn't actually make any sense. For a person who speaks perfect English to hold it against someone that doesn't speak Welsh is obtuse. Communication is the key objective here. How it's acheived is largely irrelevant. What does a command of Welsh actually bring to a public sector job? Would Welsh speakers not have broader horizons and more opportunities if all the investment in Welsh language education was put into Mandarin, German, French, Spanish etc? I can't see a modern day advantage to it. As I said earlier, I understand the cultural and historical context, but how does it objectively improve the lives of those that speak Welsh? If you're bilingual in English and Welsh, you can integrate easily in Wales or the English speaking world. If you're bilingual in English and (say) Spanish, you can integrate in the English speaking world, and then converse with another 477 million people in 20 other countries.

I'm going to sound like an ignorant bellend, but can someone possibly explain to me what the point of learning languages like Welsh is (or Gallic in Scotland)? It's a genuine question, if you'll allow me to explain. Given that the objective of learning a language is to communicate with other people, I've always struggled with the notion of learning a language that isn't widely spoken, unless it's in order to live in a country where it's exclusively spoken. So for instance, learning Finnish is a requirement to live in Finland, but there are only 5.5 million Finns. However, in the case of Wales and Welsh, everyone already speaks English, which is a perfectly adequate way of communicating with 1.5 billion other English speakers. Welsh is only spoken by just under 1 million people. Surely, if you're going to go to the effort of learning a second language, it ought to be useful outside of the context of your community when everyone in that community already speaks English. Just seems like a wasted effort to me. I understand that there is a cultural and historic angle, but I've always taken a very practical approach to learning new skills. If it doesn't serve a purpose, I'm not interested. Be kind in your responses! ?

I just got an email from HSBC about it. Think we'll go for the full whack. Why the hell not? I'd rather have a decent contingency through what is starting to become a tricky time for us.

The only thing I guess I'd say about the Touaregs is that if you're young and with limited no claims, you're going to struggle to get insurance. I think mines about £400/pa but that's a business policy.

Average is about 24mpg. Up to 30mpg on a run, down to 15mpg when towing heavy. It's really not that much worse than your average pickup, but it's golf GTI fast and seems to tow well with it having air suspension.

I have a one owner, 55 plate V10 Touareg, which I bought in November for £5k. I then spent £1300 on it going over everything with a fine tooth comb, and touch wood, it's going well. Compared to towing with the 4x4 Sprinter (160ps), the Touareg (370ps) floats up the hills like they aren't even there. There is a hill I fairly regularly traverse called Hembury Hill. It's 110m of climbing, rearing up to about 1 in 8. Not hugely steep, but very long. The Sprinter (when towing the forwarder, at 3.2t) would be reduced to 20-23mph with my foot stapled to the floor in 2nd. It'd only just manage it in second. Same load, same hill, but in the Touareg and I'm cruising all the way to the top at 40mph (maximum safe speed with a trailer) on half throttle. So much less stressful, and only giving away a 2mpg penalty. So whilst I'd never pretend it'll be a cheap vehicle to run, the Touareg has to be more reliable than a Landrover and having owned a Disco 4, it also tows more adeptly too. That said, it depends where you are in the country. You don't need the horsepower if you're somewhere flat. It's just that Devon is the automotive equivalent of a rollercoaster ride with the inclines.

It does perhaps sound like the school that they are attending is a little substandard. My older daughter is 5, and she's always had a bit of homework, and they've taught cursive writing from the get go. She's a strong reader and her maths is really coming on well. If it sounds like I'm saying "oh isn't my child amazing!" I should add that she's also a headstrong, petulant little toerag for a not inconsiderable amount of time most days!! ? In all seriousness though, at 7 and 9, I'd have expected that the school would have been sending home plenty of work for them to do pre-lockdown.