Old Tom

@JoeyMannarino It’s not so bad. Europe is evolving, I grant you. I have done São Paulo, Milan, Turin, Munich, Paris, Madrid, Chicago, Compton, Jacksonville, Atlanta, San Fran, San Diego….they all had bad reviews but were pretty good in reality. The Carribean is a shit hole. Avoid.

Imagine being 65 right now in this world and waited to travel. You saved your whole life and did things the right way and now you can finally start to travel after retirement. And where the hell can you travel to? Europe is a rape-filled Islamic shithole. All the great cities you wanted to visit look like Pakistan. What a scam. Who wants to see a bunch of Moslem inbreds?

@The_FJC And your contribution to team America is what, exactly? The official rage bait author?? I fear that your rhetoric will be the reason most level headed Europeans will be waving the USA ‘assistance’ a fond farewell.

Let's be honest about something the world is too proud to admit. Without America: Europe speaks Russian or German. South Korea doesn't exist. Kuwait is still occupied. Israel is surrounded with no ally. The Pacific belongs to Japan or China. Every nation that sleeps peacefully tonight does so because America is awake. You're welcome.

@flaminhaystacks Didn’t wear suits like that, then love. I fear your interpretation is foolish.

The new Banksy statue is in Waterloo Place in St James's, an area that celebrates British imperialism and military dominance in the 1800s. Very impressive work

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ No worries. I did quite well out of TRW / Goodrich. I didn’t want to raise the spectre of immigration, so thought it prudent to concentrate on industry. Such a shame we lost our way. Re-industrialisation is the answer.

@yampymon @AllForProgress_ I wish I’d never inadvertently brought back such memories for you, but I couldn’t let the OP’s statement (which I found rather strange and muddle-headed) pass by without response, particularly as it referred to my home-town.

Bank Holiday Sunday in Burnley town centre. The chain shops are open, the family firms are gone, the Wetherspoons does steady trade, and the Weaver's Triangle stands a hundred yards away as a heritage site, like Pompeii. A century ago this town ran close to 100,000 cotton looms. More than any other town on Earth. Burnley wove the cloth of half the British Empire out of the bottom of a Lancashire valley, and the people who did the weaving came home each evening to streets that they owned, that they had built, that hummed with the activity of a town that knew what it was for. The looms are gone. The activity is gone. The streets are still there. Four decades of slow decline have taken the shops on them one at a time, until what remains is a parade of the same dozen chains you would find in any other emptied town from Grimsby to Stoke-on-Trent. The standard explanation is "globalisation." But this is a lie that has had thirty years to harden into a doctrine. Bavaria still builds cars. Lombardy still spins textiles. Lyon still weaves silk. The Northern European cities that once competed with Burnley are still in the productive economy because their governments decided their industrial base was worth a fight. Britain decided otherwise. Specific people, in specific rooms, with specific names attached to specific Treasury submissions, decided that a country could subsist on financial services and call centres, and that the towns which built it could be left to manage their own decline on whatever Levelling Up grant happened to fall out of the next reshuffle. Many families in Burnley today carry four, sometimes five generations of closure notices: pit, mill, foundry, factory, depot. The decline is intergenerational. It is also a choice that gets renewed every parliament. There is no mystery about what built towns like Burnley. Productive industry, paid honestly, generating enough surplus that a working family could afford a terraced house, a few shillings to put by, and the dignity of a Sunday best. There is no mystery about what would rebuild them. Cheap energy. Real wages. A state that bothers to defend its industrial base when foreign competitors come knocking with subsidies the Treasury is too embarrassed to match. It's time to put talks of 'levelling up' to death. The phrase stinks, always did; it belongs to a class of politicians for whom the town has always been a photograph behind a podium, a mere optimisation problem (and an unappealing one), rather than a working economy. It's time to bring productive industry back to these places, not as a sentimental sop to them, because it can be done, and because it ought to be done. Because the country needs it built, and with the right people in charge we can build it at a scale that makes the return of confident, good work visible in the lifetime of the people now grown tired of being told it that, for them, prosperity is the stuff is pipe dreams.

@The_FJC Better to have Europe on side than against you. What on earth are you guys doing? The us bases are a launchpad for us Middle East operations. You really want to lose that?

Germany has the 4th largest economy on earth. Built entirely under American military protection. Trump pulls 5,000 troops and they call it a betrayal. Betrayal. America rebuilt Germany from rubble in 1945. The nerve of these people is absolutely staggering.

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ Astounding! I recall he was steeped in stale tobacco and had awful stained teeth. 50% management gone overnight. Essentially he killed Lucas Group and divested the profitable aerospace side to Goodrich. Automotive Lucas then sank to obscurity. Goodrich was swallowed by UTC.

@yampymon @AllForProgress_ I interviewed him when working for the evening paper in W’ton. Just churned out corporate cliches. No soul. No vision. Just about *rationalising* and *introducing efficiencies.*

@GlennMatthews1 @DeborahMeaden The laws of thermodynamics….you use the same amount of power in the closed cycle. 10x indeed 🤣 Better to hang on a line. No cost. Wind and solar.

@DeborahMeaden The same thing happened in 2017 when the govt banned high wattage vacuums. There was outrage from people who hadn't bought a new vacuum in decades. A new tumble dryer, even after the law is introduced, will probably be 10x better than one bought in the 90s/early 00s.

Or just keep the one you have until it is time to replace and then buy one which will be cheaper to run…. I think JRM is losing it..

@ukboomers Clickbait. Get the ‘post boomer’ generations enraged, get paid for it… What a shocking way to earn a living. I can see why the young ‘uns hate you though.

If you can’t afford a rent increase from £1,271 to £1,500, you shouldn’t be renting.🇬🇧

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ USA funds programs that attract engineers. They have a single mindedness about them. The country is spectacular. The politics are a bit wild, but if you want to work, play and get paid properly, it’s the go-to. Yes, we let our innovations / engineers go far too easily.

@yampymon @AllForProgress_ Sadly … it’s been a British story for decades. Invent the tech. Fail to realise its potential. Watch the talent head overseas (most obviously the US) and see it successfully evolve in a different environment. Not that anyone would want to relocate to Trump’s version of the US.

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ I met him when TRW merged with Lucas. He came to inspect us and decide our fate….scary.

@yampymon @AllForProgress_ True … but the Lucas management arrogantly rejected the innovative, detailed and radical proposals put forward by their unions, which led to their steady decline until a clown from Canada (Rice) bought the remnants.

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ But the seeds of SM2 and GMLRS were planted in Burnley. I can’t tell you what that stuff does but it’s bloody clever, and so were the guys who relocated.

@yampymon @AllForProgress_ I was a trainee at t’Burnley Express when Lucas was awarded the Harpoon contract. Pestered folk at the press launch asking what element was made here, and realised it was the *bit that fell off* as the missile left the submarine. Lucas, one of many, ruined by crap management.

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ The other issue of course was the consolidation of aero industries up north into ‘British Aerospace’. That one move strangled a thriving & innovative industry. No indigenous aircraft now. All collaborations.

@yampymon @AllForProgress_ Many towns in the developed world declined because they failed to transition from labour-intensive industries of the past to technology-focused ones of today. Burnley’s decline began when Midland firms who’d established major ‘shadow’ factories there during WW2 quit the town. 1/2

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ The deconstruction of UK manufacturing continues - the Wolves site became American before it was sold to the French. Slow erosion…

@TheIanHalstead @AllForProgress_ Indeed. I worked with Lucas Burnley and Hurel Dubois on missile / Aerospace programs, 30 years ago. Both companies had a proud back history before acquisition by Lucas and the French. Lucas Burnley was integrated into Wolverhampton. W’ton is now Safran.

@euromaximal Nonsense. A rose tinted idealised image of European city life. Now the streets are filled with vape / chicken / kebab / booze or barbers. It’s not very cosmopolitan🤣. All the interesting shops are gone, replaced by out of town retail. It’s the same all over the planet.

One of the reasons why living in Europe is so much better than North America is that cities are built for people, not cars. European cities, besides being beautiful, provide all amenities at walking distance. Groceries, shops, cafes, restaurants, entertainment. All nearby. They are also a lot better to build families and communities. Children can walk to school, live near their friends, and enjoy a variety of activities close by. Adults can also form long-term bonds with neighbours, shopkeepers and visit relatives frequently (and also easily dump their kids with their grandparents for some needed rest). Our cities are built to be seen and enjoyed, while america-style suburbs feel soulless and dystopian. We should keep it that way.

@SimonMagus A great many farmers destroy the kissing gates and remove the stiles / way posts to actively prevent public access. One landowner actually got the public path closed (but they were Lords, big influence on council ). A nice set of bungalows on it now…

There are something like 120,000 miles of public footpath in England all maintained for our benefit, for free, by landowners. And 300,000 acres of public park. There is no need at all to allow free access to private land.

@EmmyGisa3 All fun and games until you get your fingertip pinched 🤣

🔩Precision like this makes all the difference.

@TheRealJamieKay Artistically, very amusing. Politically, provocative.

Thoughts on Banksy’s statue?

@varrock They do it because they can. They are not thinkers, they do not contribute to normal society, they are primitive, immature mindsets. A better question would be: ‘why do we tolerate this behaviour?’. Identify, punish, sanction. Get a grip.

Why do black teens in every country organize into huge mobs and then fight/do crime? Literally every western country with a large Black population has these "teen takeovers" with gunfights, stabbings, drugs, etc...