[CARTOON] New Year's Eve 2008

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

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West Wycombe Park

Sir Francis Dashwood

Off then to get rid of the Turkey flab after Xmas on a walk to the top of West Wycombe Hill which contains at its apex two striking structures connected with the Dashwood family of West Wycombe Park, the Dashwood Mausoleum and St. Lawrence’s Church with the striking golden ball on its spire which can hold eight people! As well as a wonderful viewpoint over the Chiltern Hills down to High Wycombe and over the stylised grounds of the Dashwood Mansion West Wycombe Park the car park at the summit is a good starting point for walks in the Chilterns.

These walks take you through the countryside estates of West Wycombe, Bradenham and Hughenden where there are fantastic views, magnificent beech woods and carpets of bluebells and wild flowers. You can see places of great architecture and historic interest and wildlife such as red kites and muntjac deer.

http://www.chilternsaonb.org/site_details.asp?siteID=391

Today we headed down from the summit to the West Wycombe Caves which housed the notorious Hell-Fire Club and then on to the National trust village of West Wycombe. West Wycombe Hill has views and access to caves of the Hell Fire Club, Dashwood family mausoleum and West Wycombe Park. West Wycombe is a small village three miles due west of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England and is the home of the West Wycombe Caves and the Italianate West Wycombe Park - a stately home accompanied by 5000 acres (of land which was built upon in the mid 18th century by Sir Francis Dashwood, founder of the Dilettanti Society and co-founder of the Hellfire Club which was held within the caves. They were a natural formation which was excavated in the 1750s by Sir Francis Dashwood to give work to the local community, straighten the road to London and to provide him with a private meeting place for members of the secretive Hellfire Club to meet.




Dashwood Mausoleum

The 18th century Church of St. Lawrence, with its golden ball on the top of the hill, is a well-known landmark, visible for many miles due its hilltop location, visually dominating the village. The ball can seat up to eight people and gives a panoramic view of the area. The church was remodelled by Sir Francis Dashwood inside and out and it has a spectacular ornate painted interior. The hill is known as 'West Wycombe Hill' and was an Iron Age hill fort. Also situated on the hill is the hexagonal flint and stone Dashwood Mausoleum, inspired by the Arch of Constantine in Rome. The Dashwood Mausoleum near the church was built in 1765. It is a vast hexagonal monument built of Portland stone and flint. It is the final resting place for members of the Dashwood family and the urns are meant to contain the hearts of the members of the Hell-Fire Club.


St. Lawrence Church

The West Wycombe Caves were a natural formation which was excavated in the 1750s by Sir Francis Dashwood to give work to the local community, straighten the road to London and to provide him with a private meeting place for members of the secretive Hellfire Club to meet. His aim was to provide an extraordinary addition to his landscape gardens, no doubt inspired by his Grand Tours of Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Many of his fellow dilettantes were building great Estates and landscaping gardens and temples above ground but no others dared venture underground in this way. The chalk was used to build the main road from West Wycombe to High Wycombe. This also provided employment to the Villagers of West Wycombe following a succession of harvest failures. The achievement is a true feat of engineering and quite remarkable considering they were all dug by hand. You can still see the individual pick axe marks on the walls.




Wycombe Caves Entrance

On entering the Caves, long winding passages lead deep underground for over half a mile, through the great Banqueting Hall and past various chambers. In these you will find scenes with various members of the Hellfire Club. The final destination is the Inner Temple which is reached by crossing the River Styx. You are now several hundred feet below the Church on top of the hill.

The largest cavern in the caves is known as the “Banqueting Hall”. This cavern is 40 feet in diameter; it is about 1,000 feet from the entrance and about half way down the caves. It lies a short distance to the East of the Mausoleum. In the ceiling is a hook from which a lamp was hung in the 18th century. The compass-like design of the Hall with its four niches is clearly symbolic. The statues are from Italy. After its restoration in 1973, one of the first visitors, Mr Brooks of High Wycombe, found a lump of chalk embedded with coins dated from 1720 to 1754. This suggests that work was proceeding on the site to provide foundations for the houses which Sir Francis was building in the village before the 1748 excavation began.


Banqueting Hall



The splendid flint entrance was designed to look like a Gothic church to be seen from West Wycombe Park which is across the valley. It must have been built after 1752, when the new road from West Wycombe to High Wycombe (the A40) was finished. A stone pedestal, which still stands, was erected at the junction of this road and the Aylesbury road (the A4010) to record the event. The inscription in Latin on one side reads: “erected by Sir Francis Dashwood in 1752” and on the other side: “Oxford 22 miles, Aylesbury 15 miles, City 30 miles”.


Tearoom, West Wycombe Caves

The house itself is among the most theatrical and Italianate in England, its façades formed as classical temples. The interior has Palmyrene ceilings and decoration, with pictures, furniture and sculpture dating from the time of Sir Francis. The lavishly decorated house has featured in many recent films and television series, including The Importance of Being Earnest and Vanity Fair.


Drawing Room




West Wycombe Park

The Palladian house was built in the early part of the 18th Century by Sir Francis Dashwood the Premier Baronet of Great Britain. The Dashwood family still live in the mansion, it is now the home of Sir Edward Dashwood Bt., the 12th Premiere Baronet of Great Britain. The 11th Baronet, Sir Francis Dashwood, devoted much of his life to restoring West Wycombe house and grounds to the glory of its original design.

The main features of the grounds at West Wycombe are relics of the artificial Rococo style, offering an enticing mixture of water and solid ground which provide straight avenues, serpentine streams and winding paths in the woods. The Temple of Music and the many other follies at West Wycombe were inspired by travels of the first Premier Baronet all around the world. Various countries, but especially the classical structures of ancient Greece, Rome and the Mediterranean area are reflected here. Not all of the follies were built just for looks; the Temple of the Four Winds was originally constructed to supply water to the park via a complex system of waterwheels and pumps. The temple also sits on top of the estates icehouse now long since redundant and forgotten. This structure was where ice was gathered from the lake and river during the winter months and stored to act as a rudimentary fridge freezer during the warmer months, this system of food storage actually worked surprisingly well in the days before electricity and refrigerators.

The park still contains many follies and temples. The "Temple of Music" is on an island in the lake, inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Rome. It was designed for Dashwood's fêtes champêtres with the temple used as a theatre; the remains of the stage survive. Opposite the temple is the garden's main cascade which has statues of two water nymphs. The present cascade has been remade, as the original was demolished in the 1830s. An octagonal tower known as the "Temple of the Winds" is based in design on the Tower of the Winds in Athens.


Temple of Music


The Temple of Apollo was originally a gateway and later used for cock fighting

West Wycombe village was sold to the National Trust in 1929 by the Dashwood family to raise cash following that year's Wall Street Crash. The village is rare in its architecture, with cottages and inns dating from the 16th to 18th centuries. The hill, with its fine views, is surmounted by an Iron Age hill fort and is part of the original landscape design of West Wycombe Park. It is now the site of a church and the Dashwood Mausoleum. The village centre, despite being on a main road (the A40), retains much of its historical charm, and being National Trust-owned for the main part, has resisted modernisation. The High Street consists of a number of 'old-fashioned' shops (in appearance at least), as well as three pubs, some small offices and a well-utilised village hall.




George & Dragon Inn


West Wycombe Village

On his return from his travels on the continent Sir Francis established the famous Hell-fire Club which subsequently held chapter meetings in the Caves and whose members included Lord Sandwich, John Wilkes and other senior aristocrats and statesmen. Sir Francis later became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Benjamin Franklin was a close friend and visited West Wycombe often.


Inner Temple - The members of The Hell-Fire Club

Sir Francis Dashwood was succeeded by his son, Sir George was to become the Whig Member of Parliament for Wycombe for 31 years and supported, in opposition to his Tory father, who had been an MP for 37 years, the Great Reform Act of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and Catholic Emancipation. West Wycombe and its surroundings are a lasting memorial to the Dashwood family and are even more remarkable that the family connection is maintained to this day. It is well worth a visit for the many places to see and for the superb setting in this very fine part of England just off the M40 and as the plaque on the entrance to the caves attests, just 30 miles from the City of London.


River "Styx"

Today, West Wycombe Park serves a combined role of public museum, family home, and film set. During the summer months, the paying public can tour the ground floor room to view the architecture and the antique contents of the house still owned by the Dashwoods, many of which have been re-purchased and restored to the house by Sir Francis Dashwood, 11th Baronet, in the late 20th century, following their dispersal during the various sales of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The present head of the Dashwood family, Sir Edward Dashwood (born 1964), lives in the mansion with his wife and three young children. Sir Edward runs the estate and house as a commercial concern, in order that the entire estate can be retained and maintained. The house is frequently let out as a filming location, and, in addition to agricultural enterprises, there is a large pheasant shoot with paying guns.

See also; "Chiltern Spring"

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/chiltern-spring.html


The Dashwoods of West Wycombe with the House and Grounds

[CARTOON] Cold out

Cold Calling Techniques: That Really Work

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Routemaster to perdition?

Foster / Aston Martin "Green" Routemaster

The competition launched in July to find a new Routemaster bus for London has found its winner. Well two of them. Warwickshire-based sports car maker Aston Martin, along with architects Foster and Partners, won the £25,000 prize jointly with Wiltshire bus maker Capoco Design. A Transport for London spokesman said the first of the greener and more accessible, hop-on hop-off, double-deckers could be in service by 2011.

If you believe the press releases from City Hall LONDON'S new Routemaster came a step closer as Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled the winning designs for the next generation of the bus. A streamlined space-capsule bus, designed by car-maker Aston Martin and architect Lord Foster, and a Fifties style vehicle by bus designer Capoco shared the top prize. They will each be awarded £25,000 although it was unclear whether their designs would have more than a glancing influence on the bus that ends up on London's streets.

Mr Johnson will set out the next steps in delivering his new bus during an awards ceremony in central London. "When I launched the competition, I asked for stylish and imaginative designs which would resonate with Londoners," he said. "We have had a phenomenal response, with ideas submitted from around the globe, and we now have, in our joint winners, two stunning designs that allow us to go forward and produce a truly iconic bus fit for 21st century London.

"I know that, like me, Londoners will be waiting eagerly to see how these ideas evolve into the final design that will appear on our roads." The winning designs will be passed on to bus manufacturers to develop into a final design. Transport for London expects to award a contract to build the first new bus for London towards the end of next year, with the first of the vehicles on the streets by 2011. The Mayor initially said the new Routemasters would cost £8 million to run with conductors but was later forced to admit the figure would be nearer £100 million.


Boris the Busman

Routemasters were phased out by former Mayor Ken Livingstone amid concerns about accessibility as well as safety questions over the "hop-on, hop-off" platforms. Mr Johnson made bringing in a new generation of the popular bus a key pledge of his election campaign. The winning design had to include an open platform to let passengers board and alight "quickly and easily", show "good use of interior space" and "accessibility", as well as including green technology and having a conductor. The judges particularly liked the rounded rear of the Foster/Aston Martin bus, designed by Todd Hutton, and its nod to the heritage of the original Routemaster by including wooden floors.




Capoco Routemaster Design

More modern aspects included solar panels built into the glass roof -although there have been concerns this could steam up in winter and make the bus top-heavy. The Capoco submission was praised for its technical excellence, in particular its light-weight structure and hybrid propulsion. It also had a separate door for wheelchairs and pushchairs. The bus would seat 66 passengers with room for 14 standing, compared with 72 seats and five standing on the old Routemaster. More than 700 entries were received for the competition.

The judges were the Mayor, his transport adviser Kulveer Ranger, Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy, TfL's head of surface transport David Brown, Clare Kavanagh and Mike Weston from London Buses and bus expert David Quainton.

Now the Celtic sage has previously cast a rather cold eye on the “New Routemaster” competition for it does rather beg the question if the “New Routemaster” is the answer what is the question?

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/bend-it-like-boris.html

Speaking as Boris Johnson announced the winners of his design-a-bus competition, Labour's transport spokesperson Val Shawcross said the "Routemaster" competition was not a serious way to make transport policy.


The Real Deal

"The design competition may have been fun and the winning designs are extremely impressive, but this is not a serious way to make policy and not a worthwhile use of public money. If Boris actually used London's buses or talked to those who do, he would see that London's existing fleet is modern, accessible and well-designed. I have yet to hear one convincing argument for why London needs a new double-decker bus and until Boris comes up with some Londoners will see this as little more than a vanity project. There is understandably a lot of nostalgia for the old Routemaster but nostalgia doesn't get people to work on time."

So what happens now?

Well the Mayor has sort of fulfilled his Manifesto commitment.

• There may be a new bus once somebody redesigns one

• And then builds it

• At some point in the future when the Mayor is safely out of office!

But here is a not untypical comment from the Evening Standard;

"Bendy buses are atrocious. I don't travel on them but they look so dangerous and it's like cattle class with nowhere to stand."

And that tells you great deal about the Bendy 'debate' – much of the debate has been informed by people who don't use the buses but now believe they can't sit down on them, can't stand up on them and that they might veer off the road and murder their children at the drop of a hat. So we end up with a pointless, expensive and patronising solution to a problem we don't have. As for the Routemaster debate let’s agree that the Routemaster (and the RT) were revolutionary 40 years ago with their narrow, compact design, light weight due to the use of aluminium (and a fibreglass bonnet) responsive engine and automatic gearbox. But they were a product of their time (and a massive centralised organisation which military style rebuilt them every 7 years) and the lack of access and running costs of having a conductor (who with Oyster would NOT take fares) cannot be justified today. More seriously what are the public safety implications of an open platform, who NOW designs a transport solution with a known fatal risk factor? It would be interesting to have a crystal ball and earwig how that one would play in a future court case?

And why do we believe that there is something so unique about the streets of London that it requires a special bus which by its very nature would fly in the face of procurement efficiency? Is this not a solution which would have obsolescence built in, another in a long line of British World Beaters which never beat anything?


The production model?

[CARTOON] Santa in Rehab

Product Details from Amazon
I Saw Mommy Kicking Santa Claus: The Ultimate Holiday Survival Guide



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[CARTOON] Prison Walls

An attempt at combining an optical illusion with a cartoon. If you can't see the illusion, try setting your monitor resolution to 1024x768, or come to my place.

Official "Prison Break" Calendar 2009 2009

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The Wonder which was Woolies

Woolworths is due to close some 99 years after the first UK store opened on 5th November 1909 in Liverpool. For many years the slogan invited you to experience the “Wonder of Woolies”. Growing up in Dublin the large Woolworth’s store on Henry Street was a wonderland with a huge retail area and a display far slicker than its Irish rivals. It was also the shop where you could find everything with a far wider range than any other Irish retailer and for a kid it had the biggest and best range of toys. It also had the best store cafeteria in Dublin, a gleaming example of modernity compared to its home grown rivals. For many it was the benchmark in retailing and with its structured training programme (when such things were uncommon) it is where many in the retail industry learnt their trade.

However Woolies, under Kingfisher and its asset stripping management, pulled out of Ireland destroying their flagship store by subdividing it for development. However it has been trading elsewhere on its laurels for years with a lack of identity and the whole shop became a “Pick & Mix” of strange products few of which it was competing on effectively as more nimble retailers and the supermarkets eat into its market share. Shoppers who flocked there for the “50% Closing Down” sale have been disappointed as the “up to” in small letters on the poster meant popular lines such CDs were only reduced 10% and many of these were not mainstream as in “No name sings Perry Como! Ironically, its closing down offers produced the best sales figures in its 95-year history. The chain took a record £27million on the first day of the sale.

In Ireland there was a further twist to the Woolworths tale. Just as Dunnes Stores copied Marks & Spencer with its "St. Bernard" brand imitating "St. Michael" in Northern Ireland there was a copy cat operation with the same "look and feel" called "Wellworths" a name they were able to keep despite several legal actions by Woolworths. Indeed they thrived with 16 stores and were bought over by Tesco 3 years ago.

Sir Geoff Mulcahy, the chairman of the British Retail Consortium and the man who ran Woolworths for two decades, has attacked the retailer's administrator for allowing the group to fail. Sir Geoff branded as "disgraceful" Deloitte's decision to close down all 807 of Woolworths' stores with the likely loss of 27,000 jobs. He said the chain could have been saved.

Deloitte said yesterday that all the stores will close by January 5, barring an unlikely last minute intervention from a buyer. The administrator is in talks with other retailers to sell the stores individually, but the Woolworths name is all but guaranteed to disappear from Britain's high streets in 18 days' time. Sir Geoff, who bought Woolworths in 1982 and demerged the chain from his Kingfisher conglomerate in 2001, said: "The whole thing is disgraceful – there are a lot of losers in the situation. The whole administrative process needs to be looked at as there are two businesses here that could have been made profitable."


Woolworths, Grafton St. Dublin

The second business is Entertainment UK (EUK), Woolworths' distribution division that is also in administration. Deloitte is still talking to possible buyers. Some retail historians will see Sir Geoff's comments as surprising. One of the last things that Kingfisher did prior to demerging Woolworths in 2001 was to sell 182 of the chain's freeholds, saddling the retailer with rents. Some observers claim that this move sowed the seeds for the chain's long-term demise.

Woolworths' stores will close between December 27 and January 5 in tranches of 200 for logistic reasons. Staff have been told and will be paid until the end of the year. Deloitte has put the Pension Protection Fund, the Government's pension’s lifeboat, on alert about the closures. It has also set up a specialist team in Edinburgh to deal with redundancy claims. More than 500 former suppliers to Woolworths and EUK have made claims for money to Deloitte.



Going into the sale in my local Woolies I was there mostly out of curiosity because recently I have only bought bits and pieces there. It has been a cruel year for retail with names like Rosebys, MFI, Ethel Austin, Mark One and now Woolworths disappearing. And the predictions are that there will be many more casualties in the New Year proving the truth of what Warren Buffet said “When the tide goes out you know who has been swimming naked!” It was hard not to be amused by the remnants of corporate hubris; The security stickers saying “We are protecting our product to protect the price” and the new slogan “Woolworth – Well Worth it.” Well no buyer thought so. But even in its last days there was evidence of how bad a retail proposition Woolworths has become. From many examples I could pick I’ll stick with one. It had the James Bond DVDs priced at £12.00 less 10% which is £10.80 each. Elsewhere in the centre HMV, which is not closing down, had them priced a £5.00! I left without buying anything, for me there was no longer any Wonder at Woolies.

Tennis stances

As mentioned before there are basically four kinds of stances. In an open stance, the back leg is out to the side at the top of the backswing. It is mainly used for shots out wide on the forehand side.

Tactical stance
one can use an open stance on either the forehand or the backhand side to make the best returns against a strong server.

Sideways stance
One can reach the balls that are played either short or deep when the legs are positioned in line towards the net.

A closed stance
This is when the front leg is across the back leg. It is opposite to an open stance and is mostly used on the backhand side.

[CARTOON] Obi-wan Kenobe

Wookiee Cookies: A Star Wars Cookbook

Oh Dear!

"Righteous Kill" poster at Stockwell

Jurors in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest on the 23rd September 2008 stood in silence at the spot where the 27-year-old Brazilian was shot dead by police marksmen. The six-woman, five-man panel was retracing Mr de Menezes's final steps and went to Stockwell Tube station where the shooting took place. And, Oh dear, here was the poster on the wall behind them!

Here is what the Advertising Standards Authority said, as reported by the BBC;

"A film poster sited at Stockwell Tube station during the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest could have caused serious offence, a regulator has ruled. The poster for Righteous Kill was displayed at the station where Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Its tagline read: "There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."

The Advertising Standards Authority said it breached guidelines on decency. "We understood the siting of the poster at the station was unintentional, but nevertheless considered that the text had the potential to cause serious offence in that location," the ASA said in its adjudication. It added that the poster, which also featured stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, breached rules on social responsibility."

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-in-london.html

[CARTOON] Jean-Luc Picard Advertising

Star Trek: 2009 Wall Calendar

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Stepping the footwork of tennis

All the techniques of making the shots is important, the steps however kind of like the footwork is important as well. For successful shot-making, a player must take a step during the backswing. Stepping positions you to take the best possible swing at the ball. One can step in any direction chose but remember to tailor the stance to the oncoming ball. The correct stance will ensure that you are able to play the ball successfully and with enough power and accuracy to win points against your opponent.

Grotty Gatwick - Part 2

Well, as the Celtic Sage has predicted the abysmal airport operator BAA is being forced to sell part of its privatised monopoly of the British airport industry. The Competition Commission has said it will require BAA to sell Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh airports. The decision is subject to a final consultation, with the final decision due in February or March. There are substantial reasons why the regulators, and more importantly, the travelling public are unhappy with BAA – a cash cow subsidiary of the troubled Spanish Brick manufacturer, Grupo Ferrovial which also owns Amey plc, a British contractor and major investor in Tube Lines, one of the London Underground infrastructure companies.

BAA has controlled Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports for more than 40 years and has owned Edinburgh and Glasgow airports since the early 1970s. The Competition Commission is concerned about a lack of competition between airports in the south-east of England and central Scotland, and says BAA's common ownership of airports there is largely to blame. It believes this has contributed to a poor level of service to passengers and airlines as it reduces incentives for improvements.

BAA has already put Gatwick up for sale with an estimated price tag of £1.8bn (€1.94bn), but it had hoped that by doing so it would be able to keep Stansted, where Ryanair is the biggest customer. The two airports will have to be sold to different buyers under the Competition Commission's ruling, a move that will please Michael O'Leary.

Chairman of the enquiry into ownership of the airports, Christopher Clarke, said that under separate ownership, the new operators of Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh airports will have "much greater incentive to be far more responsive to their customers, both airlines and passengers". BAA handles 91pc of passengers in south-east England, where overcrowding and the chaotic opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow led lawmakers and airlines to demand the company's break-up. The Competition Commission said it's also planning measures to require more investment at the London airports and will make recommendations on a new system of regulation.

BAA, it says, has been slow to develop new routes at some airports and has been sluggish in its approach to investing in new terminals and pushing for extra runways. It contrasts this with the performance of other airports, such as Manchester and London City, which it says have been more responsive to customers' needs and have managed to both expand and have lower charges.



Despite this summer's outcry about airport standards BAA airports are still continuing to treat travellers with such disdain. The airports have a 27-point list of performance standards they are supposed to uphold for airlines but BAA has had the audacity to ask for this set of standards to be put on hold for the opening of Terminal 5. With that lack of accountability passengers are going to be left completely in the lurch.

But now it turns out that, as I predicted in October, Gatwick is worth nothing like the figures quoted and BAA is touting the possibility of selling it with a go ahead for a second runway despite entering into a binding agreement with Sussex County Council not seek to construct a second runway for 40 years. As I said then;

“As for BAA thinking that Richard Branson will give them £1.8 Bn before they go bankrupt for the damaged goods called Gatwick, they must be deeply delusional. Branson won’t offer anything like that and will bring in somebody with him to share the risk, He will discount the income for he’ll have to rip out half the forgettable retail clutter to make the airport work well and ease the passenger’s journey to and from the plane (the PURPOSE of an airport; make a note BAA). However the chaos which is Gatwick shows why BAA does not understand the Airport business and why this smug privatised monopoly is lacking in the core skills to run ANY UK airport. The sooner Grupo Ferrovial and the Gang of Cash Cow Gringos it has bought in the UK with its junk bond status debt goes down the better for UK PLC. Their comes a stage when it is kinder for Old Beasts to be quietly and humanely put down to end their suffering and the upset of those who have to witness their sad and jerky movements.”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/grotty-gatwick.html

BAA, which is now trying to sell the airport in Sussex, has sent confidential documents to potential buyers including one headed "Gatwick builds a second runway”. The revelation is likely to reignite the debate over whether Stansted, Gatwick or Heathrow should be the first to have another runway.



The Competition Commission, which in effect pushed BAA into selling Gatwick, has said that the Government should not be too restrictive and should consider "the ambitions of the new owner of Gatwick airport, including the possibility of a second runway after 2019". BAA signed a deal with West Sussex County Council in 1979 promising not to construct another runway for four decades. However, at least one bidder - German firm Hochtief AirPort - is said to want to re-open negotiations to start work on a second runway before 2019.

A third runway at Heathrow, if given the go-ahead, is not expected to become operational before 2020 at the earliest. Developing Gatwick instead is likely to affect fewer residents and to have less of a pollution impact. Around 26,000 more residents would suffer aircraft noise above 54 decibels, according to experts, compared with 118,000 under the Heathrow expansion blueprint.

The package BAA is sending to bidders for Gatwick includes a map with a second runway around two thirds of a mile south of the existing one and just 400 metres from residential areas of Crawley. It also explains how Gatwick's capacity could be expanded from 45 million passengers a year to 80 million, compared with the 67 million who used Heathrow last year. Other organisations interested in buying Gatwick - the second largest in the country - include the Manchester Airports Group, the German airports firm Fraport, Vancouver Airports Authority and US pension funds.

The Competition Commission does not go far enough and BAA should be broken up in its entirety. It is a virtual monopoly created to fatten up the airports when Thatcher’s government sold them off and the taxpayers of Britain have been cheated on two counts – In the assets being sold at an undervalue as part of the great privatisation rip off and then in the subsequent years when airport users have paid a premium price for an inferior service as BAA turned the airports into tacky and unwanted shopping malls before flogging the lot at a ridiculous valuation to the Spanish Brick company. Now that the game is up they in their desperation are shown to have deliberately lied that approving terminal 5 at Heathrow would not lead to a demand for a third runway. Similarly the sell offs of Gatwick and Stanstead will only make sense for BAA if they build second runways at both airports.



Either credit crunched BAA should be taken back into the Public Sector so the airports can be run in the public interest or they should be sold off (with the increased value from extra runways going to the taxpayer) to people who have expertise and a feel for the business and who realise that the primary purpose of an airport is transport not a wonderful “shopping and dining” experience. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say, good riddance to BAA and its well paid army of oily lobbyists and slick PR wallahs!

[CARTOON] Curling

Product Details from Amazon
Curling For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies))

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