Re: 20 ways to loose money on your house...

I know all that.

I suggest you get a basic maths text book and learn how to calculate averages.

MBQ

I have been to Mannheim, and it is nothing like MK. MK is how cities should be planned.

How long? 1000 years?

The Victoirians planned little. Decent planning (garden cities) came at the end of the Victorian era because of the unplanned mess of clearly cheap and slummy housing built which promoted disease, as the industrial revolution took off like a rocket.

It is clear you know nothing of MK. MK is great planning success and is regularly visited by planners from all over the world. The vast majority of the homes are owner/occupied. MK is no council house overspill town, far from it. The outer suburbs are still being built and all the major developers are involved. They are the only council which reserves plots for selfbuilders promoting individual house styles.

There was nothing wrong with the tower blocks at all. Many looked the part with lots of green space around them. Everyone who had a flat in these loved the flats themselves. The problem was that they had no security. On the Continent each block has a concierge with desk at the front door, in the UK the inside of the block was regarded as the street. On the Continent they also had stronger laws to easily evict neighbours from hell. The tower blocks were designed by upper middle classies for the working class who never shared the same habits or values. The blocks were designed with for upper middle class tastes and lifestyles (many ex council blocks have been bought and gentrified to great success because the clients were mainly middle class). They were a classic case of not designing the product to suit the client.

Nevertheless it was quickly apparent that proper security and stronger laws to control/evict irresponsible tenants were needed (one neighbour from hell in a block of 60 flats can make life hell for all and ruin the public ways). No social laws came until Blair's pretty recent anti-social laws. Not implementing security was gross mismanagement by the councils as this could have been done virtually immediately.

The villages are still there. Most villages don't character anyway, apart from an old pub and church. Most are very forgetful.

I described it just above. here it is again...

"The old woods are all still there and the place is full of lakes, making it the greenest town I have ever been to. It is very lively in the centre and a very young city."

The place has FOUR SSI woods and a longer shoreline than Jersey. There are dedicated walking paths called redroutes as the tramac is red, which go through the parks and woods, all over the twon/city. It has one of the newest and most advanced theatres in the world. Do want a lively nightlife? They have got it. Do you want extensive shopping? They have got it. Do you want a Sarf Lhandan football team? They have got rthat too.

It soon will be a city by its population alone, if it is not one already. The signs say "city centre". You don't need a cathedral to be a city. Anyway that cathedral and royal this and that is total tripe! And should be stopped. A city should be designated by its population alone. Last year Preston was given city status by Queenie with a population of 135,000, about the same as what first fitted into Wembley stadium and only just above what Odsel stadium in Bradford held. Ridiculous.

They produce wind. So I'm not surprised you like them.

You mean apart from the leaks, the vandalism, the druggies and the fact that no-one wanted to live in them? Oh, and Ronan Point.

That too.

it was in decline from the outset. It's a value judgment as to when the bulldozers move in as they inevitably will. Fundamentally, human beings don't like living in artifically engineered environments as witness the tower blocks.

Presumably to have a laugh and find out what not to do.

ROTFL.

The problem as always was the people and the environment into which they were put.

Absolutely, although it does leave one wondering what would suit the client.

Do you mean like you and your english lessons?

I wouldn't want any of that nonsense apart from the woods. If I want to go to the theatre then I'll go to London, thanks.

This is just nonsense promoted by the leftist local authorities in places like this. Reading is another.

Not at all. Cities in the UK are defined by royal warrant and a cathedral. That is the traditional way in our culture and should remain so - a judgment based on quality, not quantity.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

MK is not a city, however. I'm not sure that Mannheim is either. There's nothing wrong with either that appropriate ordnance (and I don't mean maps) would not address.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

"Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)" wrote | Mike Mitchell wrote: | > >I lost £70 on the way to the back once :-( Sorry, BANK | > Back of what? | Are rent boys *that* expensive then? :-)

If you have to ask the price you couldn't afford me. But IMM will probably do it for free for anyone who gives him an old catalogue they found in the builder's merchants wastepaper basket.

Owain

"Screwfix" peut-etre? :-)

MK will be a shithole until the day it's demolished as the slum it is.

Wicks, by his present preference for Krell. They don't discriminate with their catalogues - they get sent to everyone.

They've got a good Maplin.

Assuming you can find it. And find your way out again.

But according to Steve, cleaning has no effect. It's all in the nose. Even private doctors have noses.

MM

That is not what I said.

Again perhaps you don't understand how infections spread within hospitals. The problem can be solved relatively simply, not by changing the cleaning contracts which IMO at present have hospitals in a cleaner condition than in previous years, but by changing the attitudes and behaviour of the medical staff. The people who actually touch the patient are the ones responsible for spreading MRSA, not the ones who clean up after them.

To prevent MRSA being a problem is relatively simple. Medical staff whould wear sterile gloves when handling a patient or should wash their hands thoroughly between examining patients. The staff should also be trained to avoid touching their nose with their hand while examining or treating a patient. When examining open wounds staff should wear surgical masks and those masks should be worn to cover the mouth and nose completely. There is a bad practice common among surgeons at present to wear a mask with the nose outside the mask. This negates any value the mask may have.

Infection control is about identifying and breaking the chain of events that leads from the source of infection to the patient.

I attended the hospital that came out as one of the worst in England for MRSA on Saturday. It was perfectly clean, and indeed has been so every day that I have visited it on and off over the last ten years. The contract cleaners do a better job than the previous directly employed shirkers.

The tabloid image of filthy hospitals is typical journalistic excess. It's not grime that is causing the growth of MRSA, it is bad medical practices. These are easy to solve, and we need the medical and surgical staff to take responsibility. At present it is as if they have never heard of Pasteur or Semmelweiss.

I know people who live up there who don't seem to complain - what is so *specifically* bad (or good) about it?

J.B.

Good? Almost everything. It is a well designed, very green, full of lakes town/city, the way all towns should be.

Bad? Nothing.

The problem is that Little Middle Englanders are not content unless they live on top of each other in old, draughty, damp ridden, dirty buildings thay look a disgrace. They are probably jealous too. Little Middle Englanders are full of jealousy, that is how the Tory party cajoles them by pointing out that the working class have something they don't have. Then they come out with nonsense like, "a fairs pay for a fairs days work". You see them regularly on Question Time, all brainwashed with no brains worth mentioning.

Would that have been the fares fare policy?