Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Admiral Yi]

I definitely mostly use mate when I'm speaking down to a moron.

Shelf, would you agree that the word mate is used more frequently in adversarial situations than friendly ones?

 

[Sheilbh]

It's a weird word in that I find it's most commonly used with acquaintances. Neighbours, friends of friends, folk you barely know, than actual mates.

Yes. Although it's used there too but less- "oh mate" can either be genuinely very sympathetic or sarcastic/taking the piss.

Also helpful if you're at a party or BBQ or something and have been introduced to loads of people. And I always catch myself using it a lot when I've been introduced to someone's boyfriend

[Tamas]

I definitely mostly use mate when I'm speaking down to a moron.

Shelf, would you agree that the word mate is used more frequently in adversarial situations than friendly ones?

 

That depends on the individual. I hear it used plenty in a positive context.

[Josquius]

Could be a regional thing too.
We have marra up here filling a similar niche for proper use with actual friends.

[Richard Hakluyt]

When I was down the coal mine we used marra for our workmates. You owed each other loyalty and had to be prepared to endanger yourself to help them out if things went pear-shaped (never happened while I was there). Interestingly you didn't have to like your marras but the solidarity thing trumped that.

The one thing that wasn't accepted in a marra were dangerous working practices; again I never encountered this because the code was so strong.

[The Larch]

The bit with truss and the cheese...

The face of surprised self-satisfaction she makes is just... pure cringe.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The bit with truss and the cheese...

The face of surprised self-satisfaction she makes is just... pure cringe.

Yes, idiocy on public display 

[The Larch]

I definitely mostly use mate when I'm speaking down to a moron.

Shelf, would you agree that the word mate is used more frequently in adversarial situations than friendly ones?

 

That depends on the individual. I hear it used plenty in a positive context.

And who can forget Right said Fred's "You're my mate", which is undoubtly positive in tone? 

[The Brain]

Man must have his mate.

[mongers]

When I was down the coal mine we used marra for our workmates. You owed each other loyalty and had to be prepared to endanger yourself to help them out if things went pear-shaped (never happened while I was there). Interestingly you didn't have to like your marras but the solidarity thing trumped that.

The one thing that wasn't accepted in a marra were dangerous working practices; again I never encountered this because the code was so strong.

Thanks RH, very interesting.

[Sheilbh]

And who can forget Right said Fred's "You're my mate", which is undoubtly positive in tone? 

I know that there is no group more prone to conspiracy theories and lunatic politics than musicians and actors. But I was surprised to see Right Said Fred come back to prominence as massive covid-sceptics etc.

Other "mate" song that came to mind - similar topic, different tone

[Sheilbh]

Interesting piece on fixing the sewage issues - and another issue in Britain that is basically about old infrastructure:

Sewage spill solutions are all a bit stinky
Britain can engineer its way out of the problem of overstretched pipes but it is going to cost
Tom Whipple, Science Editor
Monday August 29 2022, 12.01am, The Times

'It's not about the poo," Matt Wheeldon, a member of the government's storm overflows taskforce, said. "The problem is the rain."

The problem, more specifically, is that both are mixed together and, if we were to start from scratch, they would not be. As bank holiday tourists look today to see if theirs is one of dozens of beaches that have had sewage released, while the government demands that water companies meet what it calls the toughest ever pollution targets, it is clear that this is now a problem to which Britain demands a solution.

For Wheeldon, who also works for Wessex Water, the question is, what? How do you unmix what is mixed?

"It's really easy to chuck stones," he said. He confessed that the past fortnight had been a frustrating time to be reading the newspapers. "It's far harder to explain why we are where we are, and the best way out."

The problem

The original sin can be traced to Sir Joseph Bazalgette.

In 1858, as in 2022, there was public outrage about the waterways. Sewage was flowing into the Thames, killing wildlife and inconveniencing MPs, who had to convene next to what became known as the Great Stink. They were, The Times wrote, "forced by sheer stench" to do something about it.

So Bazalgette built a really big pipe to take the sewage far from London. When he did so he used a design shortcut. Rather than try to keep rainwater out, he accepted that it would flow in. On the rare occasions when, in this city of three million, a storm meant that the pipes were full, it emptied through overflow pipes. Then, a little of the Great Stink would return.

Today, across the country, much of our sewage still runs on Bazalgette's systems, or those modelled on them. In newer houses, sewage systems are separated from storm ones but still often end up mixed together when they reach the older infrastructure. And that infrastructure is creaking.

In England alone we have 15,000 storm overflows. They were designed for a smaller population, whose front gardens were not paved, whose back gardens did not have impermeable plastic grass and whose storms were not made worse by climate change.

Now the country is noticing what that means: at beaches and rivers sewage is spilled far more frequently than we would like. It is, campaigners say, outrageous. But outrage is not enough. The question is: can we stop it? The answer is that it is possible, but it will not be cheap.

Solution 1: stop it at source

When rain falls on Llanelli — and, even these days, rain often falls on Llanelli — a lot of thought has gone on where it goes next. If it lands on roofs there are planters and channels into which it can first soak, then soak away. If it lands on car parks, there are holes in the tarmac so it can seep into the ground.

In this part of south Wales there are 14 large basins to collect stormwater, nearly nine miles of kerbside drainage to keep it from the sewers and 10,000 trees planted to slow its progress. The goal is not so much to solve the problem as to prevent it becoming one.

During a single storm the roof of one house can easily collect a hundred times the amount of water that comes from its lavatories, sinks, washing machines and baths. This rain should not end up funnelled and siphoned, rushing underground in pipes to the river or sea. It certainly should not mix with sewage.

Really, that rain should stay right where it is. It should soak into the soil and slowly filter into the groundwater. As it now does in much of Llanelli.

So why is it not stopped at source everywhere? One reason is that it involves your consent. The injustice, as the water companies see it, is that the problem originates in part of the network that is not theirs: your home. The other reason is that it is pricey: Llanelli has spent £115 million.

Solution 2: work with nature

In an idyllic part of Wiltshire, in an idyllic chalk valley, you will find Hanging Langford reed bed. Here, amid the reeds, birds can nest, invertebrates can breed and a little bit of nature can be restored.

Every now and then, amid this idyll, there is an influx of sewage. Or rather, sewage overspills: 95 per cent clean water, mixed with sewage that is also 95 per cent water.

Before these reed beds were built the overspill went straight into the river. Now it is slowed by the reeds. In eddies and vortices it mixes with the bacteria that help it to settle and eventually neutralise it. By the time it has passed through, tests show that it is cleaner than the river it is entering.

This is, as one of those involved in the project put it, a clear win-win but it does have one downside: it needs 2,000 sq m of space to work, and a lake near by to top it up when there is no overspill.

Solution 3: brute force

The Thames Tideway is a modern marvel. Standing in this super sewer, fifty metres beneath the Thames in a tunnel seven metres wide, even hardened civil engineers are a little overawed. "It's such an impressive achievement," Roger Bailey, the tunnel's technical director, said.

This tunnel, which spans the width of London, is here because, at last, it is time to retire Bazalgette. These days as little as 2mm of rain can cause his sewers to reach capacity. When they do it is not pleasant.

"If you've got a large dump of sewage, along with wet wipes and goodness knows what else, into the river in summer, when fresh water flow is low and the temperature is high, that can be extremely damaging to the ecology," Bailey said. "It's quite disgusting."

The reason the tunnel is so big is not to take that much flow, it is to store it. The super sewer is, in effect, a vast elongated reservoir under the Thames. After it opens in 2025, this parallel hidden river will fill when it rains and the water will be slowly discharged into sewage works instead of the Thames.

This, then, is the ultimate foolproof solution to sewage overflows. Like the Victorians before us, it is possible to engineer our way out of the problem. As the Victorians found, though, doing so will not be cheap.

This project has been 30 years and £4.3 billion in the making. Water companies have been told they must spend £56 billion over the next 25 years to fix overflows. The government estimates that to bring in solutions like the Thames Tideway across the country would cost more than £200 billion and, thanks to the concrete involved, blow a significant hole in our net-zero obligations.

MPs and water companies are, once again, being forced by sheer stench to act on sewage. There are, though, few options that are not a bit stinky.

I love a big engineering project so obviously I'm a big fan of building loads of new sewer systems to replace the Victorian ones

[The Larch]

But I was surprised to see Right Said Fred come back to prominence as massive covid-sceptics etc.

They're hardly the best public health advocates.

Right Said Fred have launched a new campaign to encourage people to get tested for hepatitis C, speaking candidly about steroids, sex parties and sharing drug-taking paraphernalia.

Starring in the video are Richard and Fred Fairbrass, who talk about sharing needles to take steroids in the 80s, about sharing straws to take cocaine and how easy it is to pick up hep C.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know - that one seems okay/good to me. They were in the communities likely to be exposed, they did behaviour - like others - that was high risk and are encouraging people who did the same to get tested. I suspect that's a better advocate than an accredited outsider who's a bit of a paragon of virtue in terms of their health.

Edit: It's like with monkeypox - I have found the discourse really frustrating and exhausting - but I think the best messages are from men who have sex with men, which is maybe a bit of a (welcome) shift of approach from previous formal public health messages aimed at the gay community.

[celedhring]

They're hardly the best public health advocates.

I think you could say the same for 80% of bands that had their heyday in the 1980s    - hardly a stick to use against them. I found their Covid-19 stance pretty disappointing, though.