--- Rich Mallard said...

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message

I only ask because when people are trapped in a losing argument
(especially in Usenet) they normally start bluffing about
non-existent
rights. It's the stage before mentioning Nazis. So I do tend to
get a
bit cynical when people start mentioning strange rights that
no-one's
ever heard of before...

It doesn't look like a losing argument to me.

Well, Nick definitely isn't winning. He's clearly outnumbered at every
turn. (And the fact that he reads and posts to uk.transport.london -
not uk.transport.kent - in the first place shows that deep down even he
doesn't really believe his claims! It's that hypocrisy more than
anything else which annoys me!)

So, if I decide to ban you
from being called Solar Penguin and dictate that you must now be
called
Lunar Rat, is that reasonable?

And what would give *you* the right to make that ban in the first place?

You would have "every right" to choose your name and label,
not because there is an specific act of parliament that says
so, but because it would be commonly held as reasonable IMO.

There are laws and acts of Parliament, etc. that relate to pseudonyms,
aliases, etc. One of them almost certainly lists the ability to choose
a pseudonym as my legal right. But if it didn't, and it turned out I
was mistaken, I'd be prepared to accept that choosing an alias is a
privilege, not a right, and I'd even stop using it *if* ordered by
anyone with the right to do so.

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

Well, Nick definitely isn't winning. He's clearly outnumbered
at every turn. (And the fact that he reads and posts to
uk.transport.london - not uk.transport.kent - in the first place
shows that deep down even he doesn't really believe his
claims! It's that hypocrisy more than anything else which
annoys me!)

You must be even more annoyed that there is a regular poster who lives in
Australia!

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

--- John Rowland said...

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message

(And the fact that he reads and posts to
uk.transport.london - not uk.transport.kent - in the first place
shows that deep down even he doesn't really believe his
claims! It's that hypocrisy more than anything else which
annoys me!)

You must be even more annoyed that there is a regular poster who
lives in Australia!

But at least our overseas posters don't claim to actively hate London,
or insist that they want as little to do with it as possible. And then
*still* read and post here.

:-)

In article , Solar Penguin
[snip]

But at least our overseas posters don't claim to actively hate London,
or insist that they want as little to do with it as possible. And then
*still* read and post here.

:-)
I must admit to some mixed thinking here. I am in favour of
efficiency and doing things well, and transport in London (and elsewhere)
being done as well as possible in the interests of the inhabitants.

That's why I have posted on the benefits of belts (rather suitable
for buiding as part of new developments such as the Barbican, as well as
distributing passengers from the big south bank stations like Waterloo to the
city centre) and linking between routes which cross without interchange, such
as the North London Line and the Northern Line.

But I am also aware of the political dimension of projects like
Crossrail and Thameslink, which won't benefit Londoners very much, far less
than the projects I discuss above. Crossrail and Thameslink can never be
viable in terms of paying back their capital, and they can only be justified
in cost-benefit terms if they attract vast number of NEW travellers into
London. A decision to build them at government expense is a decision to
abandon the rest of the country and concentrate all development in the South
- East. As a Northerner, I am against that. And maybe you should be too.
Remember what happened to capitals which get too far out of step with their
countries, like Paris in 1871. The Paris municipality ("commune" in French =
"municipality" in English: our failure to translate this word has led us to
serious misunderstanding of this event) was crushed by the provinces. Think
hard!

Michael Bell

--

Michael Bell:
But I am also aware of the political dimension of projects like
Crossrail and Thameslink, which won't benefit Londoners very much, far
less
than the projects I discuss above. Crossrail and Thameslink can never
be
viable in terms of paying back their capital, and they can only be
justified
in cost-benefit terms if they attract vast number of NEW travellers
into
London. A decision to build them at government expense is a decision
to
abandon the rest of the country and concentrate all development in the
South
- East. As a Northerner, I am against that. And maybe you should be
too.
Remember what happened to capitals which get too far out of step with
their
countries, like Paris in 1871. The Paris municipality ("commune" in
French =
"municipality" in English: our failure to translate this word has led
us to
serious misunderstanding of this event) was crushed by the provinces.
Think
hard!

But London has received _enormous_ underinvestment for decades - that's
why the transport system is so overcrowded. London puts far more into
the British economy than it gets out.

Now that's the way it should be - I'm not complaining, I realise that
London is the engine of this country's economy and consequently should
be expected to pay more than its fair share for investment elsewhere
that couldn't be paid for otherwise.

But major infrastructure projects like Thameslink and Crossrail are
needed in London, and I'm not sure I like the implication that they
should be abandoned because the rest of the country doesn't like to see
money spent on the capital. London _needs_ it - and if London were to
lose its position as a worldcity, it isn't just those inside the M25
that are going to be affected when the economy suffers.

Jonn Elledge

In article .com,
wrote:
Michael Bell:
But I am also aware of the political dimension of projects like Crossrail
and Thameslink, which won't benefit Londoners very much, far less than
the projects I discuss above. Crossrail and Thameslink can never be
viable in terms of paying back their capital, and they can only be
justified in cost-benefit terms if they attract vast number of NEW
travellers into London. A decision to build them at government expense is
a decision to abandon the rest of the country and concentrate all
development in the South - East. As a Northerner, I am against that. And
maybe you should be too. Remember what happened to capitals which get too
far out of step with their countries, like Paris in 1871. The Paris
municipality ("commune" in French = "municipality" in English: our
failure to translate this word has led us to serious misunderstanding of
this event) was crushed by the provinces.

Think hard!

But London has received _enormous_ underinvestment for decades - that's
why the transport system is so overcrowded. London puts far more into
the British economy than it gets out.

Now that's the way it should be - I'm not complaining, I realise that
London is the engine of this country's economy and consequently should
be expected to pay more than its fair share for investment elsewhere
that couldn't be paid for otherwise.

But major infrastructure projects like Thameslink and Crossrail are
needed in London, and I'm not sure I like the implication that they
should be abandoned because the rest of the country doesn't like to see
money spent on the capital. London _needs_ it - and if London were to
lose its position as a worldcity, it isn't just those inside the M25
that are going to be affected when the economy suffers.

Jonn Elledge


I'm afraid we'll have to agree to differ.

Michael Bell

--

In article , Michael Bell
wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
Michael Bell:
But I am also aware of the political dimension of projects like Crossrail
and Thameslink, which won't benefit Londoners very much, far less than
the projects I discuss above. Crossrail and Thameslink can never be
viable in terms of paying back their capital, and they can only be
justified in cost-benefit terms if they attract vast number of NEW
travellers into London. A decision to build them at government expense is
a decision to abandon the rest of the country and concentrate all
development in the South - East. As a Northerner, I am against that. And
maybe you should be too. Remember what happened to capitals which get too
far out of step with their countries, like Paris in 1871. The Paris
municipality ("commune" in French = "municipality" in English: our
failure to translate this word has led us to serious misunderstanding of
this event) was crushed by the provinces.

Think hard!

But London has received _enormous_ underinvestment for decades - that's
why the transport system is so overcrowded. London puts far more into
the British economy than it gets out.

Now that's the way it should be - I'm not complaining, I realise that
London is the engine of this country's economy and consequently should
be expected to pay more than its fair share for investment elsewhere
that couldn't be paid for otherwise.

But major infrastructure projects like Thameslink and Crossrail are
needed in London, and I'm not sure I like the implication that they
should be abandoned because the rest of the country doesn't like to see
money spent on the capital. London _needs_ it - and if London were to
lose its position as a worldcity, it isn't just those inside the M25
that are going to be affected when the economy suffers.

Jonn Elledge


I'm afraid we'll have to agree to differ.

Michael Bell

Yes, OK, you deserve better, but I felt weary last night.

I find it hard to believe some statements, such as that London is
carrying the rest of the country economically. I look at the work and
activity in some places - is it really all nothing? Or does the statement
"that London is carrying the rest of the country" simply reflect the fact
that work may be done anywhere, but profits are reported by Head Office in
London? There is so much spin, most of it not simply party-political, that it
is hard to know the truth.

There is a great deal of London being bound up in itself. For example
you can read in the newspapers a plea to "save" a museum or suchlike (from
total destruction?) by being moved out of London and this is addressed to a
provincial readership who "of course" see it that way! I read once a
statement that "the further you get away from London, the more irrational the
spelling of place names become", Ah, yes the home counties, that hotbed of
phonetic spelling, with Slough, Reading, Greenwich, Islington and of course
London itself - rhymes with "cotton"! And the statement that the DTI
overcomes the "local" (ie, non-London) opposition to "National Companies" who
cannot get work outside London. The dreadful thing about this kind of thing
is that it is not deliberate and thought through, it is unthinking because it
is unchallenged because the papers and broadcasters and everybody they meet
are London.

One particularly vicious groups is "London First" whose policy is
exactly that, London FIRST! If London can't have it, then nobody should have
it, ie, its policy is to be a dog in the manger. I think that is simply
unacceptable in a democracy.

There is a great deal of favouratism for London and holding the North
back. London has unitary control of its local transport. Provincial cities
are not allowed to. In an act of great smallness Mrs Thatcher abolished
the GLC just to unseat Ken Livingstone and to hide this underhand motive, all
the other metropolitan counties of England too. After she was unseated, the
GLC was effectively re-instated. There was a lot of newspaper support for
that. But the other metropolitan counties were not re-instated. The garden in
and around London dug better. Governments have held back the developement of
Northern airports especially Manchester because they want to keep Heathrow as
a very dominant airport, partly for its own sake and partly to have a big
bargaining chip to use to preserve the position of the "national carriers" BA
and Virgin. I could go on, but I won't bore you.

You may like to think that London cares deeply its provinces. On the
Tyne it is widely claimed that the Jarrow march has held back the North-East
because it puts the North-East in a bad light as seen from London. And this
is believed by the London loyalists. Whether this is the TRUTH is very
difficult to test, but certainly it is widely BELIEVED. No matter what you
think the mechanism of this is (the inner workings of London are hidden
to folk so far away, they just have to look at the inputs and outputs and
treat London as a "black box"), you must come to see London as a
grudge-holder, a spiteful and vindicitive entity, though people don't like to
face up to it.

The FACTS may be hard to find, but let me do a little experiment to
test YOUR ATTITUDES.

Why is London so domininant? It is not a natural geographical
advantage, eg being on an important estuary, otherwise why is Goole not more
important? London's advantage is man-made. One thing that man has made
is that it is so big and so many transport links focus on it. It is big
because largely subsidised transport links have allowed its growth (Before
the war, the LNER built up commuter services from the West Riding to the
sea-side at Scarborough, about the same distance from Leeds as Brighton is
from London, but after the war, the services were abandoned as "not
worthwhile". No such questions about the London-Brighton service. Of Course
not! How could you think such a thing?) And rail routes focus on London and
outworn rolling stock was cascaded to "cross-country" routes - well, MPs
travelled on them! Transport is certainly one factor, and the subject of
this newsgroup, there may be other factors, such as political control, and
the London media were pretty stongly against a North-East assembly. And
whatever man has made, can be made again.

John Prescott, before the labour victory of 1997, proposed a new
North-South Shinkansen going London - Birmingham- Potteries - Manchester -
Leeds - Newcastle - Edinburgh - Glasgow. Let us say this route is built and
whatever other steps are necessary to enable this new megalopolis to function
on the same level as London are taken - what would your reaction be?

Would you applaud, and say it is great that this country now has two
cities functioning at this level? If "yes", then you're a patriot!

Or would deplore it and say "But that detracts from London" If "yes",
then you're a London Firster. A dog in the manger.


Michael Bell
--

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

--- Rich Mallard said...

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message

I only ask because when people are trapped in a losing argument
(especially in Usenet) they normally start bluffing about
non-existent
rights. It's the stage before mentioning Nazis. So I do tend to
get a
bit cynical when people start mentioning strange rights that
no-one's
ever heard of before...

It doesn't look like a losing argument to me.

Well, Nick definitely isn't winning. He's clearly outnumbered at every
turn.

Yawn. Have you actually got anything to say on the subject we're
discussing, rather than making petty comments on the sidelines?

(And the fact that he reads and posts to uk.transport.london -
not uk.transport.kent - in the first place shows that deep down even he
doesn't really believe his claims! It's that hypocrisy more than
anything else which annoys me!)

I take it you'd like all people banned from posting to this newsgroup unless
they live in London and promise not to say anything bad about it? Get over
it.

snip other stuff

Nick

--- Nick said...


Yawn. Have you actually got anything to say on the subject we're
discussing rather than making petty comments on the sidelines?

I don't think anyone's got anything interesting to say in the
discussion. If you can call it a discussion. It's just variations of
"It is in London!", "No, it's not!", "Yes, it is!", "No, it isn't!" etc.
If you're yawning, it's this debate that's doping it to you. I'll stay
in the sidelines where I can keep awake.


I take it you'd like all people banned from posting to this newsgroup
unless they live in London and promise not to say anything bad about
it? Get over it.

Oh, look. You're building the "censorship" straw man. How predictable.
You're just half a step away from calling people Nazis!

Let's see your score so far: --

* You post to a London newsgroup to say that London "is a polluted, grim
urban toilet that festers with high levels of anti-social behaviour."

* You keep adding to the argument, refusing to quietly agree to
disagree, even (or especially) when it's clear that most of the group
does disagree with you.

* You resort to trickery like inventing imaginary rights and building
straw men to aid you in the argument.

Hmmm.... If it posts like a troll, and it argues like a troll, then it's
probably a troll. Enjoy my kill file. **PLONK**!

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

--- Nick said...


Yawn. Have you actually got anything to say on the subject we're
discussing rather than making petty comments on the sidelines?

I don't think anyone's got anything interesting to say in the
discussion. If you can call it a discussion. It's just variations of
"It is in London!", "No, it's not!", "Yes, it is!", "No, it isn't!" etc.
If you're yawning, it's this debate that's doping it to you. I'll stay
in the sidelines where I can keep awake.

If you want to stay on the sidelines then stop sticking your oars into the
thread when you have nothing useful to say on the subject.

I take it you'd like all people banned from posting to this newsgroup
unless they live in London and promise not to say anything bad about
it? Get over it.

Oh, look. You're building the "censorship" straw man. How predictable.
You're just half a step away from calling people Nazis!

That's the second time you've accused me of being "steps away" from calling
peolpe Nazis on absolutely no basis whatsoever. I'm sure others will draw
their own conclusions.

Let's see your score so far: --

What do you think you are, some kind of self-appointed umpire?

* You post to a London newsgroup to say that London "is a polluted, grim
urban toilet that festers with high levels of anti-social behaviour."

Never let the actual wording get in the way of a misleading post eh? I
didn't say all of London was a dump, but much of it is (I take it you think
London is some kind of paradise, despite the fact that it has pockets of
some of the most extreme deprivation in the country?).

* You keep adding to the argument, refusing to quietly agree to
disagree, even (or especially) when it's clear that most of the group
does disagree with you.

You are not in a position to assert or judge whether the group agrees with
me or not. Most of the people reading this group don't even post, so you
are in no position to know. Neither am I.

* You resort to trickery like inventing imaginary rights and building
straw men to aid you in the argument.

Trickerly, lol, I love it.

Hmmm.... If it posts like a troll, and it argues like a troll, then it's
probably a troll. Enjoy my kill file. **PLONK**!

Well, I won't be killfilling you; I'm interested in other people's points of
view, even though I disagree with them. Shame you can't cope with reading
any opinions other than your own.

Nick