A17

Part of the problem is a few slackers ruining it for everybody. Some people work far less effectively at home. They like to say that they are meeting their deadlines and doing what is needed, but in a professional business it is hard to track (you can't measure widgets produced per day easily). In an ideal world management should be able to identify the bad people, and enforce a return to the office for those individuals. However, to identify one person out of a larger group and single them out would need to be heavily documented and justified, and could lead to claims of discrimination. A bad apple doesn't recognise that it is bad, and can certainly make a managers life very difficult. It often leaves companies with no real option other than enforcing a return to the office full time. I also think there is some game theory involved in peoples' minds. My office is doing a hybrid schedule - minimum of three days a week in the office. Some people are coming in a lot less than that, and it isn't strictly enforced for now. In the long run I can see the hybrid schedule being cancelled for everybody because of the overall poor attendance, but in the short term you can maximise your working from home. Why bother to come in now if they are just going to cancel it for everybody in the future?

So how does 2024 compare to 1994 and 2014?

All elections now are a choice between two options 1. We offer simple solutions to complex problems. 2. We don't see any problems whatsoever.

That's been the way even before though. The people who were born in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and so were 50 to 80 years old in the 1950s and 60s would have seen the TVs, household telephones, automobiles and would have been shocked at how many luxuries the young could spend their money on that were unimaginable when they were growing up. And going back further, I imagine in the early 20th century people were complaining about people frittering their money away on electric light bulbs and wireless radio sets, when all we had were oil and gas lights and the newspaper to read!

Usual sob story in the Guardian. Single mother of four. Family with five children. Why have so many kids?

Not saying its a bad thing - it's quite nostalgic inducing!

Place looks like a time capsule. I don't think it has been redecorated since it has been built.

If the world warming opens up vast swathes of Canada and Russia for agriculture, isn't it a good thing?

No easy way of getting to London - the nearest railway station is miles away. The town is too ugly to be a chocolate box village, too small to be interesting and have things to do, but too large to be peaceful. Worst of everything really.

Whilst it is decent, a 2% pa return is hardly riding the boom, and making a huge profit

Ramping article from the BTLegraph However, lets look at the numbers in more detail. Purchased 7 years ago (2014) for £675,000, marketed in 2021 for £875,000. Net profit - £200,000. Lets assume that the purchase was before December 2014, and so they are liable for 4% stamp duty: £27,000. (Actually checked - sold December 2013 so close to 8 years) They say that they have had an extension and renovations. I am going to be very conservative and say £50,000 spent as I can't see any extension. Let's also say a 1.5% estate agent fee to sell it: £13,000. So net profit is a not insignificant £110,000. But over 8 years that is a 16% return on investment, under 2% pa compounded (and that is ignoring any post COVID countryside boom) And the photos don't do it justice - the front of the house is on an A road! https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/109274231#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/dream-south-africa-now-tatters/

The problem is the same with any form of "Independence Party", whose origin was to lead the opposition and fight against one-party authoritarian rule. They tend to slip very nicely into the position of the authoritarian party they replace. After all, they fought for your freedom, why would you oppose them?

One of the reasons I have been told that South Africa has been more successful than other countries in that part of the world is that it has avoided some of the tribal divisions that other countries suffer from. You are South African first, and Zulu/Xhosa/Tswana second, rather than the other way around. It allows for somewhat more stability, and perhaps takes some of the edge off the corruption that is seen otherwise. Maybe it is changing.

Not many people seem to bother with a dropped kerb on that road. You can see the pavement kerb crumbling in some places. Always a sign of a bad neighborhood. People break the rules, and the council are not intervening for whatever reason.