A challenge for old house lovers

But having made his fortune building it before entering politics

I'm less than sure: take Concorde and the 747: one was ground breaking technological advance, one a 707 scaled up. One cost a fortune, one made a fortune. Arguably where you really need to excel is in being able to turn other people's exotica into cheap mass producible goods that everyone will buy.

Firstly, someone had to be creative in the predecessors to the 747, and what went before also cost a fortune, namely US bombers, which the 707 came from. So, the total cost of the development of the airliner is clouded over. Secondly, the two are not directly comparable, aiming at different markets. Thridly, much of the R&D of Concorde went into other projects and fields. As was the case with NASA and the rockets.

Some truth in that. If all R&D was stopped in the world right now, and attention to implementing existing technology the world would not suffer that greatly.

We have the ability to have homes that do not require heating systems with simple technology, grow all the food we need, make engines cleaner and efficient, etc, etc. It just takes organisation and political will.

In the 1950s the UK had an horrendous problem with slum housing. People were living in appalling conditions. New homes were ultra basic with no new technology applied to them, not even insulation. They still had open fires in them. Yet we were spending billions on V bombers and all the R&D that went with it, and 100,000s of families were still sharing one toilet. We would have been better off concentrating on the existing technology we had and directing all the brains of the country to the housing/town development fields. If we did we probably would not be in the situation we are in today.

Hold on a minute - I wasn't around in the 50's. Do you seriously expect me to believe that 100,000s of families, which would be half a million people, had to share one toilet? What must the queues have been like?

Quite frankly, I'm glad they didn't do even more town planning and development in the 1950s and 1960s. There would be even more concrete to demolish.

Christian.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote | Dont orget te pesrians and o course teh Africans. Where did IMM | first come down from the trees?

Didn't he emerge into the daylight, blinking and mole-like, from a coal-hole in Stoney Stratford?

Owain

Yep. The sitiuation still existed until the mid to late 60s.

Long.

If the best brains in the country were in that field matters would have been better. Well in theory anyhow.

"Neil Jones" wrote | IMM wrote: | > In the 1950s the UK had an horrendous problem with slum housing. | > People were living in appalling conditions. New homes were ultra | > basic with no new technology applied to them, not even insulation. | > They still had open fires in them. Yet we were spending billions on V | > bombers and all the R&D that went with it, and 100,000s of families | > were still sharing one toilet. | Hold on a minute - I wasn't around in the 50's. Do you seriously expect | me to believe that 100,000s of families, which would be half a million | people, had to share one toilet? What must the queues have been like?

And imagine the arguments over whose turn it was to buy the toilet roll (or indeed seat up/down).

Owain

Where is that? Scotland?

Toilet roll? We dreamed of toilet "rolls"; ... torn up squares from copies of t'Echo with piece of string through 'em to hang from nail in't wall was good enough for us!. Seat up or down? Seat? Wiv cover? We dreamed of seats with covers - plank wiv 'ole in't were good enough for us! Folks nowadays ...

I'm just grateful I never had to share a toilet with half a million other people.

No, and absolutely no intention to either.

It would work well. I read that when people are in a fantasy world, as you clearly are, it is best to leave them in it, and not awake them to reality. As long as they are not dangerous, it is best to leave them as they are happy in there. If reality took hold unhappiness would result.

Do they have uni's in Fairyland?

In 1986 it was unlikely the Soviet empire would disintegrate. It did a few years later.

Not territorially.

That was apparent from 1917 onwards.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

One of the inevitable effects of socialism....