Curious what the Brits of the Board think about this?

[OUTSIDER]

yeah but....

if you now imagine that those American houses are somewhere like Cape Cod or Carmell or some old picturesque part of the US and you'll see why people in this country get so uptight about bypasses, the UK is really short of space and getting shorter as the rest of the European union allow floods of refugees free passage to the UK because we have a good or at least better social care service than where they are coming from.

The UK now has a population of 50 or 60 million, now look at a map of the US and compare the size of the UK to some of state's in the US and you will see why we get uptight about anything that use's up room.

 

[Closet Desire]

Agreed in pricinple...

I think actually that's my point...effective use of room. I have always thought it a noble idea to preserve the heritage and tradition of architecture, but on the other hand I think it is sometimes a foolish economy to build something in the year 2000 that has all the faults and limitations of something that was built in 1850.

I live in a three year old house near the town centre and while it is not a bad house, the building ordinances were so restrictive that it doesn't make as good a use of the available space as it might have otherwise. On top of that it cost nearly $250,000 which puts it out of reach of many people.

What was most noticable to me when I arrived here in this metro area of about 300,000 people was the lack of high density housing...we call 'em apartments in the US...for people to rent (I know...a four letter word in England). There is a serious lack of affordable housing for young people, single people, students, and, economically challenged people which could be met by apartment complexes as they are in many other countries. Council housing is quickly being unloaded and many Councils are unable to maintain those that remain much less consider building new ones. I view going through many of them with the same trepidation that I viewed of the housing projects in New Orleans.

Aparments might not conform to what is traditional, but building affordable, rental housing would relieve much of the pressure to continue building single family dwellings on greens, farmland, and the few remaining open areas. They can also be attractive and comfortable places to live.

Having just returned from a holiday in the midlands via the rolling car park known as the M25 I'm all too aware of the population density of 40 million in England (by comparison the State of Arkansas is about the same size and has a population of fewer than 3 million).

Times change and needs change. Sometimes we have to be happy with keeping a few of the traditions around for posterity and realising that the practical sometimes should prevail.

Only my opinion...

PS...I do enjoy living here...on a ten point scale with Florida as a 10 and Oklahoma as a 1...I'd give it a 5!

 

[OUTSIDER]

rent is a 4 letter word.....

in the UK because we do it so bad, they are to expensive compared to buying, badly designed (especially compared to some other places like the US) and poorly sighted and served .
and we get a whole five woohoo.

The UK good comedy shite houseing DOH!!!!!

[Edited by OUTSIDER on 10-25-2000 at 03:49 PM]

 

[insideShiraz]

Mummie...

Cane 'oye 'ave chips fo' Brake-fust?...

Hi, Cheyenne...

 

[OUTSIDER]

Fuck me....

it's Dick Van Dyke. Goooor blymeeeeee Marrrrreey poe-pins.

 

[insideShiraz]

Re: Mummie...

Cane 'oye 'ave chips fo' Brake-fust?...

Hi, Cheyenne...

This is a true story.

I knew people from England when I was a kid. My friend's little brother actually said that. His Mummie said no, he was having eggs (poached [yuck!]), and he kept on insisting that he have french fries for breakfast. When he grew up, he lost his Brit talk, and became Lynrd Skynrd. But when we'd get fucked up, him and his brother could whip out the 'Ol accent at whim...

 

[Cheyenne]

Re: Re: Mummie...

Cane 'oye 'ave chips fo' Brake-fust?...

Hi, Cheyenne...

This is a true story.
...

Hey, I understood that one! Hi, Shiraz!

 

[Diablo 1]

You're right, of ocurse, about the higher price most of Europe paid during WWII, but just as it's silly for Americans to take all the credit, it's also silly to deny that without US involment the Axis would have captured half the world. That's nothing to sneeze at, and it's damn enormous thing to be proud of. Americans were in both theatres of war for four-five years, contributing a fantastic amount of resources, turning entire industries into war machines, forwarding a home campaign of rationing, bond buying, film propoganda production, etc. etc. -- a way larger measuring of effort than 20%. No one invade the U.S., made our citizens do forced labor, or bombed our cities (if you put aside Pearl Harbor), but it was not a "clean" war for the U.S.. We didn't treat WWII like McDonald's opening French Franchises. The U.S. suffered not as much and gave not as long, but its effort was monumental.

Americans do forget that Russia and England held out for so long, under such terrbile loss, and that if they hadn't the Americans would never have been able to enter the war like they had. Europe owes everything to England. As for Russia and its Iron Curtain, I won't go there...

But I think Europeans sometimes forget that there were two wars. While Americans fought in Europe we were also Island hopping to defeat a vigorously imperialistic Japanse army which no one was stopping. When Americans get all puffy and say "We won the war" they include the Pacific Theatre.

 

[Diablo 1]

You're right, of ocurse, about the higher price most of Europe paid during WWII, but just as it's silly for Americans to take all the credit, it's also silly to deny that without US involment the Axis would have captured half the world. That's nothing to sneeze at, and it's damn enormous thing to be proud of. Americans were in both theatres of war for four-five years, contributing a fantastic amount of resources, turning entire industries into war machines, forwarding a home campaign of rationing, bond buying, film propoganda production, etc. etc. -- a way larger measuring of effort than 20%. No one invade the U.S., made our citizens do forced labor, or bombed our cities (if you put aside Pearl Harbor), but it was not a "clean" war for the U.S.. We didn't treat WWII like McDonald's opening French Franchises. The U.S. suffered not as much and gave not as long, but its effort was monumental.

Americans do forget that Russia and England held out for so long, under such terrbile loss, and that if they hadn't the Americans would never have been able to enter the war like they had. Europe owes everything to England. As for Russia and its Iron Curtain, I won't go there...

But I think Europeans sometimes forget that there were two wars. While Americans fought in Europe we were also Island hopping to defeat a vigorously imperialistic Japanse army which no one was stopping. When Americans get all puffy and say "We won the war" they include the Pacific Theatre.

dont forget how many of our brave soldiers died in slave labor camps
their familes never will

 

[OUTSIDER]

Anyway....

the question was should the US be worried about the UK joining the EU, and I'd have to say that at the moment if the referendum were held tomorrow most of the UK population would vote "no" but who knows how they will vote in the future if the US and UK let the relationship they've always had slip ?

 

[Closet Desire-able]

Re: Anyway....

the question was should the US be worried about the UK joining the EU

The UK joined the EU decades ago! (Remember the referrendum under Edward Heath?) It is not a question of whether the UK joins the EU but whether it joins the majority of the EU countries in using the Euro, agreeing to a European monetary system running alongside the pound sterling just as they have in France alongside the Franc, Germany alongside the Mark etc.

If there was a vote today I suspect most people would not understand what the vote is really about! There have been many scare mongering headlines but not much explanation.

 

[OUTSIDER]

CD you are....

of coarse right, what I meant when I said EU was the single currency but I was being lazy and didn't want to type all that out, and your right again when you say that most people are ignorant of the real issuses involved and if you read back you'll see that I said all the two sides feed us is bull shit but the point is should the US worry about the UK becoming more closely aligned with Europe and would this compramise the special relationship the US and UK have had.

 

[MunchinMark]

I could have sworn that I posted on this thread yesterday. WTF?

 

[Myrrdin]

Well post it again M.M.
Coz we,ve gone round in a big circle, and ended up back in the same place where we started out from.

 

[Closet Desire-able]

So Outsider

What do you think the special relationship is between the US and UK? There is certainly a military one (remember the cruse missiles and the protests about being the 51st State?). Economically I am not so sure.

What are our links to Europe? I suggest that we have ambivalent feelings about Europe. We want to trade, interact and join in but at the same time we have a feeling of mistrust (and superiority)for all those "foreigners". Xenophobia still rules in this country it seems to me but we don't like to talk about it. What do you think?

 

[OUTSIDER]

Ok I can only speak for myself on this one but I believe that we gain a hell of a lot from Europe and we would be fools to turn our back on it "but" if we sign up to the single currency we become part of a federal Europe in all but name and once we'r in theres no getting out.

I fear that we would just become a small cog in a big wheel and parts of our way of life we hold dear might be lost because of new Euro rule's and reg's also how can we trust our fellow European's when we know that they have shown little for us to trust in them, take the French (PLEASE) their police stand by and do nothing while British truck drivers are harassed by striking farmers and their loads are burnt in front of them by uncontrolled mob's.

Then there is the fact that French official's actively help illeagal immagrants by turning that blind eye again to people with no papers as they climb on ferrys and train's bound for our already over full island.

Then there is the German's who openly admit that they want to take away all our business from the London stock exchange, they'v even gone on record as saying that if we don't join the single curreny they will change the EU rules in their favour and take our work away.

How can we join a group who are so bent on doing us down, no I don't think we can trust the European union 100% yet so let us trade with and holiday there by all means but as to a shared currency I don't think so, not yet.

As to the US and the UK I think that people often like to talk the US down and act like "old money" but when thing's got bad and we needed a friend who was there for us, I like to think we don't forget our old friends.

 

[MunchinMark]

Well, what I said was...

I said that I wasn't not overly bothered about changing currency, as the present one only dates from the mid 70's. But I would not want to join a currency which has persistantly dropped like a lead balloon.

But the English (not necessarily the Scottish or the Welsh, although I rather suspect that the same is true with them) are used to a stable, sovereign state; which has not existed for either the French or the Germans, who are the principle powers in the EU. That is to say that the histories of both France and Germany have been one of annealment, so they have less concern over centralisation of power in Europe.

And of course the English are portrayed as the bad guys. It siuts our tastes far better. Well, if given the choice of an island with a few hundred bikini clad women and a missile base, oh, and a swivel chair and white cat, or a NY police job, a christmas trip to see the wife and a dirty vest, I know what my choice would be.

"I don't expect you to respond; I expect you to die...
So, your name is Pussy Galore, and why is that?"