Wasn't the idea to remake the UK (or whatever remains thereof) as the Singapore of the region - well this is well on track to take place - the UK's GDP will start to drop to Singapore's level - pity about the rather great difference in population size though - but I guess a poorly paid workforce with expensive food will be quite amenable to Chinese style provisions re health + safety and other unimportant considerations.
-
-
Well at least on your island - if that's where you are now - you are now able to go to the pub or a restaurant. Slightly odd as there are reportedly still 15 or so active cases of coronavirus, but presumably those are contained.
Comment
-
Quite apart from the direct impact on the charities concerned and the business itself(and others like it), there is the knock on effect on landfill. The covid closure of charity shops has already caused problems with lack of alternatives to putting unwanted clothes etc in household bins for many people, and the loss of doorstep collections just adds to that.
I wonder if the Latvia end has any interest in pushing for a solution or whether they have adequate sources elsewhere to cover any UK shortfall?Comment
-
One good thing that may come out is some thought re the real cost of instant fashion with a use measured in days before the next flash fashion is pushed by 'influencers' to the young + not so young - personally having seen the true face of Chinese Marxism now in operation do we really want to support gang rape as part of 're-education' and in almost certainty Genocide + slave labour in picking cotton to keep some companies who were willing to pay starvation rates of pay in Leicester still in operationComment
-
Apologies in advance if this link doesn't work
I was looking up the 'lorries crossing the Channel empty' issue, and came across an alternative 'side of that bus' image which I thought rather summed things up. There is also a rather entertaining ( in a kill me now sort of way) spoof 'File System Error' helpdesk response to " just installed Brexit" further down.
Brexit isn't doing much for the green agenda so far it would seem, what with driving empty lorries and the reports of the longer journeys hauliers are doing to reduce border problems such as thisfrom this article https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-tape-mps-hearhauliers saying they are now opting to drive the length of the country to Scotland rather than face checks in Dublin port.Comment
-
The link worked on mine.Originally posted by oddoneout View PostApologies in advance if this link doesn't work
I was looking up the 'lorries crossing the Channel empty' issue, and came across an alternative 'side of that bus' image which I thought rather summed things up. There is also a rather entertaining ( in a kill me now sort of way) spoof 'File System Error' helpdesk response to " just installed Brexit" further down.
Brexit isn't doing much for the green agenda so far it would seem, what with driving empty lorries and the reports of the longer journeys hauliers are doing to reduce border problems such as this from this article https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-tape-mps-hear
Comment
-
Sadly I rather doubt the thought will translate into meaningful change on any scale any time soon. High unemployment, fixation on, and encouragement of, consumer driven economy, import of materials from outside EU, removal of troublesome uk workers' protections, and problem solved for business...Originally posted by Frances_iom View Post
The national hobby is shopping, changing that habit would be slow even if there was the mindset in government to support it, but there isn't. Those who are changing their mindset and habits are not the millions who in normal times hit the High Street each weekend.Comment
-
Of course with Asos or Boohoo buying up the Arcadia group, there will be no Topshop, TopMan, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins or Debenhams to visit anymore, as all the stores are closing and they will be run as online only. Similar is happening to Oasis, a great favourite of mine a few decades ago.Originally posted by oddoneout View Post
So less highstreet clothes shopping... at the price of further mass unemployment....Comment
-
The big problem consists in the fact that the huge amount of money generated in this our unsustainable model for an economy is necessary for the proportions of it which are extracted in taxes to pay for the essentials. Payment for the latter has to be safely calculated within the parametrics of debt: the idea promulgated in parts of the Left that argue for an "improved" capitalism as the "only possible alternative" seems like a risky venture at the mercy of the lender. It really is incumbent on humankind to come up with a new and different model of economy. David Attenborough, in the last episode of his latest much-vaunted TV series, implicitly concurred with the idea put forward by politicians of Green persuasions valorising the natural resource base, so that we may have an equivalence in economic value terms to, for instance, make measurable comparisons between the value of the oceans and the organisms they contain and productivity rates measured in terms of GDP. The difficulty - for me - is establishing relevant comparison bases that would be meaningful in re-directing human activity into sustainable activities.Originally posted by oddoneout View Post
Perhaps it's time for a discussion topic on economics, though I'm not sure I am the best qualified person to start one.Comment
-
It's interesting that when it was rich MEN who expanded the shopping experience into chain stores in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, the idea was expressed that it was to women's VANITY that the promise of literally investing in consumer choice would secure the future for capitalism. FWIW my own view is that the feminisation of male dress codes in the 1960s and 1970s is one of the aspects of lifestyle frowned upon by sections of Conservatism because it was seen as a threat to the hitherto sharply delineated style norms that had governed what being a man or a woman was supposed to mean. I am old enough to remember pink shirts for men being sold in Cecil Gee in the 1960s, and the frown being cast upon this as a threat to masculinity because it was gay men who had introduced this style in menswear.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
In fact the hippies took the sartorial revolution much further - and, in the minds of reaction, this was but one signifier in the race to social decadence and national decline - another being mix-and-match styles as youngsters took what they thought went well together from sources that often went beyond national traditions, and the sheer idea of making one's own clothes. Surely people noted the return of grey suits, white shirts, harsh ties in shiny materials, black shoes and the obligatory short hairstyle, modified so as to be slightly distinct from the short back and sides of the 1950s, after the advent of Thatcher and the coming of the yuppies. Ironically it was only men of privilege including Tory ministers like Heseltine who seemed permitted to retain their hair! Any re-launch depended on men with the iron chaaracteristics of ruthlessness we see operating to this day in the boardrooms, and women to be more like men: hence the "power dressing" of the 1980s, and repeated attempts as its reintroduction. Since when the slide into austere conformity has gathered pace: go to any large supermarket chain branch, pass through the rows upon rows of women's wear, gawp at the sheer variety of colours, patterns, materials and cogitate on the imagination put into devising new designs, albeit ones thought up to force the putative buyer into changing the wardrobe and dumping last year's models. Then reach the one or maybe two rows of male attire on offer, and despair.
There was a programme on cross-dressing a few years ago. In it, what became clear was that many man had been attracted to wearing female clothes had been the unattractiveness and lack of choice in what was on offer, as opposed to some sexual frisson, as I had been thinking. A discussion on why we are made to wear what we do, the semiology of clobber, is overdue. When it happens we will re-discover one aspect of what is contributing to male violence, especially against women, and numbskull bloodymindedness. In an orgy of over-determination men are being literally misfit and thereby in one of many ways typecast. There was once - for the benefit of anyone less than around 60 years of age - pleasure and excitement to be had in visiting the shopping centre - even if only for the benefit of window shopping. There was even more variety in men's clothing in the 1950s than there is today - as any person watching old movies from that era can discover for themselves.Comment
-
Another sad tale, but doubtless government bods will be pleased to see that he blames the EU.
Comment
-
On my reading the EU gets mentions in the blame game in that article, but the real opprobrium is reserved for the leavers, the Government, and specifically, Johnson.Comment
-
Talk about a long haul......
Even if you thought you knew something about it this is a shocking read....so this is "free trade"?
A moratorium on the dreadful phrase "teething troubles" is long overdue.... always the answer when ministers have no answer....its become one of those "if I hear it one more time I'll..
.." phrases....
BTW....anyone found any aubergines in the shops recently...?Comment
-
I totally agree - time for this phrase to be taken up on the hated phrases thread, if it has not already been.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostTalk about a long haul......
Even if you thought you knew something about it this is a shocking read....so this is "free trade"?
A moratorium on the dreadful phrase "teething troubles" is long overdue.... always the answer when ministers have no answer....its become one of those "if I hear it one more time I'll...." phrases....
I managed to find some yesterday, chopped up in a bag of frozen mixed veg for stir-fry purposes.BTW....anyone found any aubergines in the shops recently...?
Comment
-
Managed to get one aubergine from Sainsbury's - more was needed and found in Morrison's.Comment
Comment