WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Twinkletoes]

It will be nice to see the "eyesore" of Bank Street be demolished. I live on Bank Street and walk past the site frequently. It will be a breath of fresh air to see it tidied up

[Stanley]

Wendy, your bang may be the same as my flash which looked like an isolated thunderstorm to the north, heard nothing but I have good double glazing. Looked like lightning.
Nice one Ian, yes it was 1983 and I was starting two years in charge of interpretation and research connected with exhibitions. Interesting job and I went on from there to Ellenroad for nine years saving the engine. It all stemmed from the degree course at Lancaster 1979/82. A busy time and I was on a steep learning curve! Funny thing was that both appointments were more a matter of chance than a direct result of the degree. Like today's graduates, there was no automatic track into a better job, it all looked like luck to me.
Nicola, I agree. The shop has deteriorated slowly ever since David Hoyle retired and married my wife...... One of the results of any new build will be the change to East Hill back street which at present terminates on a shabby black wooden shed, the back of the joinery shop.

[Gearce]

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

Concentrate on the walking man in the masthead ...... Notice anything?

[Big Kev]

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

Concentrate on the walking man in the masthead ...... Notice anything?

There's a walking text man in the masthead. Sorry, I can't see anything else...

[catgate]

I found this interesting:-

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... at-sun-is/

[Whyperion]

The growth of tall buildings, at one time in most places the tallest building would be the Church/Abbey or Castle , with the odd storage or vent tower . Now our desire for intensive commercial development brings excessive clustered close built tall offices and residences to our towns where most people live. Perhaps doctors should prescribe a walk around letcliffe in T Shirt and Shorts to all 5 to 10 year olds.

[Gearce]

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

Concentrate on the walking man in the masthead ...... Notice anything?

There's a walking text man in the masthead. Sorry, I can't see anything else...

He appears to twist his right leg each time, just before he brings it forward ...... At least that's what I see

[Doc]

This is the walking man in all his glory, but I can't detect a limp or any other abnormalities except that he his made out of various characters.

[Belle]

Gearce if you look at him long enough he appears to be doing change step change! maybe he's a scot dancing!

[Gearce]

This is the walking man in all his glory, but I can't detect a limp or any other abnormalities except that he his made out of various characters.

Gearce if you look at him long enough he appears to be doing change step change! maybe he's a scot dancing!

The mind plays tricks ...... Still see it here DOC ...... You're right Belle.

[Bradders Bluesinger]

I think it might be a good idea to slow him down a bit....
....far too energetic....
Give him a (black) dog ,too !

[Stanley]

Replace him with a logo? Have we had enough votes yet? Executive decision needed Doc!
Saw Jack Bradley ( remember the death sentence on the cockerels?) with his lady and the new dog. It's settling in nicely and looks 100% better than when they got it. It's still a scruffy bugger but I like it and it's so nice to see a good dog being brought back to a happy life. Reminded me of Gracie and Wendy's recycled battery hens. Treasures in Heaven I reckon. Jack was impressed by the Crombie, he's old enough to remember when owning a Crombie by Crombie was the peak of a man's ambition! Anyone remember the role the new overcoat played in 'The Cure for Love'? If so, you must be as old as I am.

[Nolic]

Doc, please keep the walking man. I like him and he brings the site to life...Nolic

[Gearce]

What have I done? ...... I wasn't complaining ...... Simpy making an observation ..... No drastic action necessary

[Stanley]

I must have misunderstood. I thought Doc said that the space had already been allocated to a logo and we were voting on it.

[Callunna]

Funny isn’t it? Once the novelty wore off after about 3 nanoseconds I found the walking man a distraction and of no relevance to the website.

However, an animated logo could be designed. The disc (for example) could revolve or spin, or if none of the existing proposals are suitable then the designer could take on board what people like and dislike and come up with another solution. It’s actually helpful for a designer to get constructive feedback.

[Belle]

I don't dislike the wlaking man, though i do find him distracting, my biggest problem is that he is out of keeping (and scale) with his background and the photo's are so lovely and say so much more about Barlick. I think a moving logo would be distracting too...perhpas we could make each picture a "where's wally" type competiton by incorporating a little mans sillhouette, to scale in each one..that way we would look at the pics more too!

[Bruff]

What attracted my attantion today was Robert Peston on the radio this morning regarding Mr Hester's bonus. As is the standard narrative these days, Mr Hester as a banker is a very clever chap and we need these very clever chaps to understand the complex world of finance, paying them accordingly so as to ensure their talent remains here. A few things occurred.

John Lanchester noted far better than I ever could the base stupidity of these types in his book 'Whoops'. He noted the CEO of Goldman's opining on the 2008 crash being a 25-sigma event; that is, an event expected once in timescale many, many, many, many orders of magnitude longer than the known life of the universe - billions upon billions of years longer in fact. Apparently, the moneymen viewed the crash in '87 as a 10-sigma event, that is once in a timescale many, many orders of magnitude longer than the life on the universe; the Russian debt default of '98 a 7-sigma event - many orders greater etc (I hope my 'manys' there illustrate the differences.......).

So? Well, apparently these very clever people to whom many millions in remuneration is deemed necessary rely on models that predict the impossibility (essentially) of things going belly-up when things have gone belly up three times at least in 20-odd years. The CEO of Goldman's noted that in 2008 these 'impossible' events were happening every day for a week! A quite amazing achievement as I'm sure most would agree.

These are not clever men. They are profoundly, irredeemably stupid men who understand nothing. But by all means pay them at a level comensurate with their talents....

Richard Broughton

[catgate]

.......These are not clever men. They are profoundly, irredeemably stupid men who understand nothing. But by all means pay them at a level comensurate with their talents....

Richard Broughton

I would take issue with your "understand nothing" claim.
They understand how to wheedle their way into positions where they can use their understanding of how to fool and fleece Joe public, and at the same time use their understanding of the workings of the political mind (well...what passes for a mind) to their own advantage.

[Tardis]

.......These are not clever men. They are profoundly, irredeemably stupid men who understand nothing. But by all means pay them at a level comensurate with their talents....

Richard Broughton

I would take issue with your "understand nothing" claim.
They understand how to wheedle their way into positions where they can use their understanding of how to fool and fleece Joe public, and at the same time use their understanding of the workings of the political mind (well...what passes for a mind) to their own advantage.

I would simply take issue with the narrow and rather parochial focus on something which to many is incomprehensible. It is always easy to point fingers in hindsight, real life isn't that easy.

Boiled down to it's simplest form, these people have many trillions passing through their businesses everyday. These transactions both ease the world of commerce and allow the banks to make their profits. They also allow much of the population to go about their normal daily business. Theft is about opportunity and motivation, and banking has always paid people to ensure that they keep their fingers out of the till.

The fact that we still have a credit crunch has as much to do with Brown and Darling saving the world and not allowing the banks to go to the wall (good capitalism which the banks understand) so that a phoenix could arise from the ashes. None of our 'bad' banks had losses caused by casino banking (except maybe Barclays)

I would simply ask anyone. How much would you want to be paid, when over an 8 year period you have to bring a bank back from the point of insolvency, renew international banking confidence in that institution so that they will once again lend to it, improve morale and actually ensure good leadership at all levels, and repay the hundreds of billions of £ back to the exchequor so that the country makes a profit.

Why have such an issue with the banks, based on the amount of money flowing through businesses their profitability is at about 2-3%. The market leader is Tesco with nearly 10%, but banking coughs up rather a lot for HMRC too. Much, much more than Tesco.

Plus, Bob Peston is the son of a Labour Lord, and a beeboid numptie

[Tardis]

The other bit that attracted my attention today was whilst I was having my consult.

Even though the clinical records on computer was abandoned by the government as a contract, it appears to still be going ahead at Airedale.

Then I found, that the actual bit which has been there for many years, tried and tested, and benefitted many patients, will not actually reach Airedale and Barnoldswick for another 18 months at a time of budget cuts. Because my Consultant is from Bradford apparently they are already in the system and they will try to drag everything through that portal for me, and it means all my blood tests will have to be done at clinic, instead of here That effectively means that the consult is always referring to historical data rather than 'now'.

[catgate]

.......These are not clever men. They are profoundly, irredeemably stupid men who understand nothing. But by all means pay them at a level comensurate with their talents....

Richard Broughton

I would take issue with your "understand nothing" claim.
They understand how to wheedle their way into positions where they can use their understanding of how to fool and fleece Joe public, and at the same time use their understanding of the workings of the political mind (well...what passes for a mind) to their own advantage.

I would simply ask anyone. How much would you want to be paid, when over an 8 year period you have to bring a bank back from the point of insolvency, renew international banking confidence in that institution so that they will once again lend to it, improve morale and actually ensure good leadership at all levels, and repay the hundreds of billions of £ back to the exchequor so that the country makes a profit.

I imagine there will be more time spent on understanding how to avoid as much paying back as possible than there will be time spent on how to achieve it.
The trouble with the sticky finger section of society is that they look upon lending something they do not have, in return for something they have not earned, as a "normality".
Every home should have one.

[Stanley]

Richard, I agree with you, except that I might substitute arrogant for stupid. Their biggest failing has been that they never seem to entertain the prospect of being wrong. How many times have we heard the claim, from them and the Tories as well, that they 'understand money'. The evidence is that they don't and further than that don't need to because they have ensured that the banks are so big that they can't be allowed to fail as this would destroy the economy. In this respect they were anything but stupid!
Just finished reading 'Paper Promises' by Philip Coggan and he lays out in detail the sequence of events from the 18th century to the present day. I shan't paraphrase him, read it for yourselves neither shall I get bogged down in statements of the bleeding obvious but after making a very convincing case for his thesis which is that the Lords of the Universe were influenced heavily by policies that favoured creditors over debtors and in the process losing sight of their core functions, he comes to the conclusion that the western economies have hit the buffers and on best case face twenty years of austerity culminating in a far lower standard of living. Well worth a read!
What grabbed me was mail from Moh who has been on holiday for three weeks and wanted advice on how she got back on the site. I see she has registered so she must have worked it out for herself. She will be doing what we all did at first, stumble round in the undergrowth while she gets the hang of things but I'm so pleased to see she is back. Persevere Moh, it will all become clear eventually. Fell free to mail me if you hit any barriers.

[Bruff]

I know it was most likely tongue in cheek, but for every Economics Editor at the BBC who is the son of a Labour peer, there's a Political Editor who was Chairman on the Young Conservatives at Oxford. Neither of these loses me any sleep. There's no bias. Whenever I see complaints of bias at the BBC, then as an impartial public service broadcaster I know it's doing its job right. Accusations of bias at the BBC are back-handed complements, frankly.

Richard Broughton

[Belle]

Just before you all launch back in to the daily politics show, I will tell you what caught my attention today, I inadvertantly clicked a link which took me back to the old site, and the nostalgia was palpable.