Off Topic Other Stuff (anything you want to share)

Above the title of todays Daily Telegraph (17th Mar )... advertising an article in Fridays Features Supplement is the headline.....THE PLYMOUTH CHAINSAWN MASSACRE.....What led to the felling of 110 trees in the city centre.

Covering a page and a half with before and after pictures is the story of.....The curious incident of the trees in the nighttime.....

Plymouth council has incensed campaigners and residents by chopping down 110 trees after dark as part of a regeneration project.....Rosa Silverman reports.

" It's beyond heart-rendering"..."I am disgusted."...Plymouth will not forget this awful act of ecocide,".....These were some of the milder comments made this week by residents in the Devon City better known for gin and The Mayflower than for nighttime arboreal massacres. But when council contractors felled 110 city centre trees under the cover of darkness on Tuesday, they may have changed all that.

The works were halted at 1am by an injunction secured by a group called...STRAW... (Save the TRees of Armada Way),...Lynne Sears. one of it's members, said that trees were pruned while protesters stood beneath them...."And everyone around us was saying ...please just stop...she told The Telegraph".

By then, only 16 of the trees due to be removed still remained. Widespread condemnation of the felling swiftly followed....with wildlife television presenter Chris Packham branding it " despicable vandalism".

In fact, the strength of feeling had been known beforehand ...around 16,000 people had signed a petition to save the mature trees...which line Armada Way...a walkway between the railway station and the sea.


This article continues for two more full columns.....Daily Telegraph...features Supplement...Friday...17/03/2023.

PS......The only thing left green soon in Plymouth will be ARGYLE.

 

Yeah that's not quite the story. The plan is to open up a pedestrian route from the city centre to the Hoe.

please log in to view this image

https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/sites/d...rmada-Way-Public-Realm-Works-Presentation.pdf

There's a similar plan to link the Theatre Royal end of the town to the redevelopment that's going on at Millbay

https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/millbay-boulevard-public-consultation-response

https://www.millbayplymouth.com/about-millbay/millbay-masterplan/

God knows the city centre needs all the revamping it can get and since more new trees will be planted than are being taken down, it's just Eco Warriors who'd stop the world to save a small patch of weeds.

PS this doesn't not constitute a warranty from me that any of this will actually work but it's not just massacring trees in order to cut maintenance costs, which I believe has been the case in Sheffield.

 

Thanks notDistant for on the spot info.

 

Oxfam came under fire last night for issuing a bizarre 'inclusive' language guide to staff..

The 92 page report warns against 'colonial' phrases such as 'headquarters'...suggesting 'local' may be offensive and says 'people'...could be patriachal.

Workers were told 'parent'...is often preferable to 'mother' or 'father'...terms such as 'feminine hygiene'...should be dropped...and 'people who become pregnant'...should be used instead of 'expectant mothers'.

The guide even suggests that 'youth'...'the elderly'...and 'seniors'...should be avoided...to afford respect and dignity.

A long list follows of things to avoid.....and what to say instead.

 

DEATH BY POTATO.

At least eight people have died after the roof of a storage facility packed with tonnes of huge sacks of potatoes collapsed in India.

 

DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL......................(I'm glad my council taxes aren't being wasted on such crap)

Some of Enid Blyton's most-loved children's books have been taken off a county's library shelves for fear of offending young readers.

The original versions from Blyton's 700-plus collection, written between 1922 and 1968, are now hidden away in back rooms to prevent the public "stumbling upon" outdated language.

They are being stored alongside the autobiography of Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defence League, and other texts.

Blyton's works include the Famous Five series, Secret Seven and Noddy.

Devon County Council, which runs the centres with Libraries Unlimited, said: "Where popular books have language that is increasingly outdated...Enid Blyton is the best example....we continue to purchase new editions were publishers have updated the language within".

Readers can get the books if they ask librarians for them. But they will be given a VERBAL WARNING about the language...(Capital letters mine).....Dr Bryn Harris of the Free Speech Union said he was "bemused" that Blyton's stories were being treated as "dangerous and subversive samizdat".....(.This word means...clandestine copying and distribution of liturature banned by the state...especially in former communist countries of eastern Europe) brackets added by me.

In 2010, Blyton publisher Hodder edited her works to remove words such as "queer", "Gay", and "tinker".....and last year Childrens author Jacqueline Wilson reworked Blyton's ...The Magic Faraway Tree...to censor sexist narration, such as women doing domestic work.

Earlier this year there was controversy when Roald Dahl's children's books were rewritten.

Daily Express...Monday...20/03/2023.


The nutters are taking over the country in every area of life......history is being rewritten in our life time.....next inline will be that Putin is the saviour of Europe and the World.

 

Well you mustn't believe what your read in the Express Plym.

But if you want to get really wound up, you should seek out the recent articles in the Times concerning how schools are inviting outside groups to present PHSE "lessons" on gender and sexuality in junior and secondary schools, One mother was branded homophobic and a risk to children when she demanded to see the content used by a drag queen in such a lesson. The online content of the Times is subscription only so I don't have access to it and can't show you.

 

I've seen it.

I've also noticed that a christian theology lecturer has been sacked and claims he was threatened with a counter-terrorism referral by a college after tweeting that "homosexuality is invading the Church".....which most people have been reading about for years.

Dr Aaron Edwards, 37, a father of five, was dismissed last week for misconduct by Cliff College, a Methodist College in Derbyshire, after he allegedly brought the college, "into disrepute" .
He was told by the college that he could be reported to Prevent, the Government's counter-extremism programme for saying....."If sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a saviour".

The governing body of the Methodist Church in Britain decided in June 2021 to allow same sex marriages, But globally it has understood that marriage is a lifelong union of one man, and one woman.

Toby Young of the Free Speech Union, said: "expressing orthodox Christian beliefs should not be grounds for dismissal from a purportedly Christian organisation.

 

I for one couldn't give a monkeys what a bunch of people who think there is some super being out there who controls all things in the Universe but isn't actually seen by anyone think or don't think. I don't believe in any God or otherwise. I also do not care if two people of the same sex want a ceremony and call themselves wife and wife or husband and husband at the end of it. I do however object to having outwardly sexual activity shoved in my face and that is either gay or straight. There is no need to flaunt any of it in front of an audience and things like that should be left to the privacy of their own rooms. I also do not think kids need to have all of that shoved in their faces either. This goes in there and then that happens is all they need to know. If you don't want to catch anything or have unwanted kids then you wear this or that. Anything else they will find out themselves when the time comes like we always have. I do get fed up with the endless reporting of these subjects and to be frank could not be bothered to read any of it anymore let alone go from rag to rag to find stories. I have better things to do with whatever life I have left.

 

As a change from pictures of aeroplanes, I thought we'd have a picture of a ship.

Oops! Research ship Petrel tips over in dry dock in Leith, Edinburgh. That'll take some tidying up.

I'll remove that as it turns out there have been casualties.

 

That's not aship it's a floating scaffold.

 

Further to the tree felling.....,,,,

The Tory council leader Cllr Richard Bingley who oversaw the felling of more than 100 trees in Plymouth has quit following an outcry over the operation.

Cllr Richard Bingley was facing a vote of no confidence next Monday over his decision to approve the felling of 110 trees in the city centre under the cover of darkness last week in an act labelled "environmental vandalism".

Instead he said he would step aside from his roll as leader of Plymouth City Council.

Cllr Bingley said : "I've always said I'm not a full-time politician, I don't seek to be, I'm just an individual who is passionate and ambitious for Plymouth.

If others feel they can run our glorious ocean city better, then that's great with me, "over to you2, I say.

Daily Telegraph 23/03/2023.

 

For someone who's not a full time politician, he's sure been in a lot of parties. He's managed to span the gap in ideology between the Labour Party, the Conservatives and UKIP. as an active member of each at one time or another. That takes great agility and a complete lack of scruples. Now, I'm not saying he's a opportunist carpet bagger of course. Others might.

You may also be interested to know the local Conservatives have degenerated into utter chaos over the past 12 months, which of course I'm not saying is all Bingley's doing. Others might well say that.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/ne...th-independent-group-emerge-following-7714349

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/plymouth-conservative-leaves-party-over-8012518

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/ne...h-councillor-quits-conservatives-amid-6851595

I admit to a vested interest: I know Nick Kelly because he was a great help in starting to sort out minor problems affecting me and my neighbours. He's a decent bloke but unfortunately was swept by the outbreak of in-fighting before we got a full solution. That in-fighting cost the Conservatives its majority on the council but got Bingley the top job. The council under him has now reversed the initial changes Nick got through to help us out and we're back where we started.

 

No planes, no ships, no politics... just sporting news.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65051591

 

No problems in Bromley party wise.....there as never ever been a council ruling that hasn't been Tory in the borough ever since the GLC was started.

 

This tree story is blown out of alll proportions by mainly the press and media. The act was not done under cover of darkness to avoid being seen. It was done on the grounds that they would not have to close the City Centre to everyone and dodge the crowds. It made perfect sense to do it when they did if they were going to. I have little time for the man himself but to blame him for being underhand in this is just rubish. As for the City being insensed by it well that's crap as well. They had a consultation where around 2000 people out of a population of 270k responded. Of that around 1600 voiced an objection. So in essense around 0.6% of the population. The remainder didn't obviously give a monkeys about it one way or the other. Create a stir though and people will jump aboard the hurt train. I for one agree with cutting those trees down. Not trees in general but those in a pedestrian area. These trees grow roots that push up paving slabs and make walking there a bit of a pain. If you are poorly sighted in any way then it can be a real problem. If you are going to plant trees then do it where people don't have to walk unless by choice. I don't care about this blokes future in politics one jot but I'm not going to cry hang him for this particular story.

 

I’m of the firm opinion that the further we keep democracy away from the people, the better off we are

Scrap all the councils (including the devolved chinwaggeries in Scotland and Wales), the elected mayors and police commissioners. Just run the whole thing from Westminster.

That’s the way to get rational government away from all the garden fence opinions.

We’d have to leave Stormant alone otherwise the Irish would be blowing each other up again but otherwise get rid of it.

 

Everything run from central Government.....that devious cheating crowd.

Our so called respectable PM.....who after ages ...posted his tax returns the very moment the country is rapped up in Johnson's appearance before his peers....mmmm why that moment I wonder.

 

The world we live in......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65069316

 

I want to know who I can complain to.......why did I have only 23hrs for my birthday.....just not fair.