Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

Do they think criminals just go to bed early if this place isn't open? I get places that sell alcohol like bars.

[Sheilbh]

Your semi-regular reminder that 30% of Brits thought nightclubs should be closed forever after covid - even if we developed a treatment/vaccine that meant covid was no longer a risk

Adding this to my risk of an ageing population list.

[HVC]

You don't get rid of enough of your puritans

[Sheilbh]

I know and it's not even really puritanism in the American sense. There's no moral component. Their issue isn't that people are sinning it's that they're happy. It's just curtain-twitching, kill-joy stuff.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I have become convinced, over the past decade, that about 30% of the population are joyless vindictive bastards who hate anybody who deviates from their pasty beige net-curtained norm.

[HVC]

Aren't Anglicans just catholics in denial? how'd you get the killjoy streak from mainline Protestants?

[Sheilbh]

Aren't Anglicans just catholics in denial? how'd you get the killjoy streak from mainline Protestants?

Yeah the 30% of joyless curtain twitchers aren't particularly religious - not many people are. We don't have HOAs in the UK like they do in the US (thank God - or we'd have accidentally become totalitarian already), but from what I've read of them it's more along those lines than anything religious. They would just like everyone to please conform in the same way.

In my area (which is one of the more religious areas in the country like the rest of London), Anglicans are mainly Nigerian

I would say that at the same time there's also been an increase in anti-social behaviour which I think ruins social, public goods for everyone. So I tend to want  relaxed late licensing for shops, bars, cafes, restaurants and better public transport but also bring back the birch for people who threaten or are abusive to public transport workers, or evade fares or litter

[Josquius]

From the curtain twitching kill joys files I remember seeing this one lately...

BBC News - Fake Durham County Council note in Stanley banning ball games - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23p75lvnlvo?app-referrer=deep-link

And man does that sound familiar to me.
I remember when I was a primary school age kid trying to play football on a reasonably flat bit of grass near my parents place... Only to have an old man telling me to stop because the ball was hitting a wall and would disturb the lady in the house - not his house, she actually didn't care. But doubtless he heard the ball hitting the wall from in his house across the street and couldn't be having that.

The UK isn't the worst on this. Switzerland is an absolute joke. But it annoys greatly.

[HVC]

Old man takes ball has been a cliche for decades. old people are cantankerous, we have examples on this very forum but the UK seems to take NIMBYism to extremes. Then again it could just be my bias based on the sources I have.

[Sheilbh]

Lord Dening on this (normally a great writer, but wrong - in this case, rarely, a great writer and right, but in a minority in the Court of Appeal so still wrong ):

In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighboring villages. On other evenings after work they practise while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70 years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there anymore. He has issued an injunction to stop them. He has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket. This newcomer has built, or has had built for him, a house on the edge of the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle grazed. The animals did not mind the cricket. But now this adjoining field has been turned into a housing estate. The newcomer bought one of the houses on the edge of the cricket ground. No doubt the open space was a selling point. Now he complains that when a batsman hits a six the ball has been known to land in his garden or on or near his house. His wife has got so upset about it that they always go out at week-ends. They do not go into the garden when cricket is being played. They say that this is intolerable. So they asked the judge to stop the cricket being played. And the judge, much against his will, has felt that he must order the cricket to be stopped: with the consequence, I suppose, that the Lintz Cricket Club will disappear. The cricket ground will be turned to some other use. I expect for more houses or a factory. The young men will turn to other things instead of cricket. The whole village will be much the poorer. And all this because of a newcomer who has just bought a house there next to the cricket ground.

There's been a trend of this in London of people about my age buying flats about 10-15 years ago in the areas they loved to go out in. And now they're older and they're putting pressure on local councils to turn down or reduce the licensed hours for nightlife in those same areas. It's been a bit of a contentious issue in Hackney - but sort of true with Westminster too and balancing the interests of nightlife and the night economy and the people it serves (who don't necessarily live there) and residents who do (and have the vote).

My broad view is that if you move to Soho or Dalston, it's like moving to Downing Street and complaining about Big Ben. It was there before you, it should be there after you. (For example, I think local residents really opposed the pedestrianisation of Soho which was great during covid so it's now been cancelled Admittedly I don't think people who live in central London should be allowed cars )

[Sheilbh]

Old man takes ball has been a cliche for decades. old people are cantankerous, we have examples on this very forum but the UK seems to take MIMBYism to extremes. Then again it could just be my bias based on the sources I have.

It definitely is from me

[crazy canuck]

I have become convinced, over the past decade, that about 30% of the population are joyless vindictive bastards who hate anybody who deviates from their pasty beige net-curtained norm.

Only 30%

[HVC]

By your logic if cars were there before they should be there still


Which is logic I agree with, cars and all

[garbon]

By your logic if cars were there before they should be there still


Which is logic I agree with, cars and all

Cars for all!

[Sheilbh]

By your logic if cars were there before they should be there still


Which is logic I agree with, cars and all

There's no logic. Cars are bad. Same reason why building grid and wind farms and solar farms and houses are good

But broadly speaking I'm with a degree of protection for the vibe of a neighbourhood.