Odd to see the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) presented in such a positive light.
As an engineering project Crossrail became famous for being repeatedly delayed (eventually opening four years late) and many billions over budget.
Since opening the Elizabeth Line has been beset by high numbers of service cancellations and poor punctuality (usually blamed on having to share track outside the central tunnel section with other operators).
By most accounts the Elizabeth line in its operational phase has been a great success.
According to the ORR's (Office of Road and Rail) first annual report after opening the central section of the Elizabeth line, passenger numbers have exceeded their "post-pandemic optimistic scenario" and the line is on course to be revenue-positive within a few years.
It's not perfect but better than the older alternative. Londoners will always grumble about transport, because they pay a lot of money and commuting is a pain no matter how nice the trains are.
As someone who lives on the lizzy line, it's definitely far from perfect. It is improving however, and I cannot overstate the blessing that it has been on my life.
Same as those advancing the anti-motorist policies mentioned in the article.
Buy property on the cheap because it’s on a busy road. Campaign to have the road fully/partially blocked to motor traffic, and/or speed limit reduced to something ridiculous (20mph) so motorists end up using other routes to make progress.
If challenged, claim it’s all about the safety of children walking to school. You’d have to be a monster to deny those windfall gains.
For small shop owners it’s a vicious cycle. They don’t want to take in Scottish notes because many customers won’t want them as change. Customers don’t want them as change because a lot of shop owners won’t take them.
As per the article, they’re not legal tender so no one is required to take them as payment.
That's not what legal tender means. Legal tender is what must be accepted in settlement of a debt. Buying something in a shop does not involve any debt and the shopkeeper can accept or not any form of payment they like including legal tender.
If you work on the factory floor and produce all your widgets in 4 days instead of 5 then it doesn't matter what day you take off - it probably makes sense for everyone to take off the same day.
If you're talking to customers 5 (or 7) days a week (restaurants, sales, helplines, healthcare), then the company needs to provide continuous cover.
Not where I am! Rather, it's a negotiation with your manager to see what works best. That way, we can ensure we have coverage across the week. We're all "on" for Mondays and Tuesdays, and then people take Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday off according to preference and suitability.
Yes, more people take Friday than Thursday, but quite a lot of people enjoy the zen-like lack of distraction when they work Fridays. Or so I've been told!
If you don't know what a "stat day" is (I didn't), it apparently stands for "statutory holidays" which is like public holidays.
During my brief time in the US, I observed that over there the public holidays tend to be something like "nth Friday/Monday of so-and-so month"; that way you get a long weekend. This is how it's done in some other countries as well.
Unfortunately not in my country (where I'm lucky to have both Saturdays and Sundays off! (I should probably move...) ); if a public holiday falls on a Wednesday, you get the Wednesday off. But on the bright side, there's plenty of holidays here.
The employer can fix up the imbalance -- if there are N bank holidays in the year, give all 80% part time workers 0.8N extra days of holiday allowance above their usual amount (etc), and mandate that they cover the bank holidays with days from their allowance if they would normally work them. (My UK employer does this.)
It’s time and a half and a day in lieu for working a stat where I am. If you work it much outside 8.30-5 penal rates rise, but that part is employer specific rather than legislated.
It mentions a fish and chip shop and an education facility.
I’d guess that the bulk of fish and chips are sold outside 9-5 Monday to Friday, and that there would be rioting in the streets if school days were reduced 20%.
> there would be rioting in the streets if school days were reduced 20%
Why not move schools to a four-day week, too? If it works for adults at work, I'm sure children would see similar benefits. We already know that typical school hours deprive children of much needed rest.
I absolutely hate it when parents respond to questions like this, but…
Do you have kids? I love mine completely and unconditionally, but a day off being an employee and a parent (well half the day at least) sounds like bliss!
Because unless the kids were all off on the same day each week, which wouldn't work for their parents who have to fit in with their employers needs, then everyone would need even more babsitting cover than they already do.
If the kids were not all off on the same day, then teachers would struggle to get consistent teaching because 20% of the pupils would always be missing from a lesson.
Just a theory but in a downturn I could see a lot of companies increasing their ad spend as they lose existing customers and find they need to work harder to acquire new ones.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to advertising which is just gratuitous brand building.
This is opposite. Marketing budget is second to be cut first being building (space expansion). The R&D budget however goes up mid recession.
Here is how the cuts work
R&D, space expansion, marketing, parties, raises, new product building, warehouses,
Beginning? There have been parallels for weeks now allowing for variations of detail and scale: a rich so-and-so with not exactly leftward tendencies and an interest in Dutch Tulips who, being a heavy user of such-and-such, buys such-and-such. Employees of such-and-such depart in droves, both sides hold their peace concerning differences of opinions over said departures, distressing details of the so-and-so are dredged up, and much popcorn is had by the ever-industrious Little People. Oh, and yes, so-and-so banning anyone who mentioned going elsewhere. Other parallels could doubtless be found, but that would require doing some actual research. "Debacle" could well apply to both.
There are major differences; a notable one is that the Libera switch was mostly a quick host:port change for users; Twitter and such appear to be a tad complicated, but that's the modern web moderning. Thus, Twitter users may not have ready and viable alternatives to switch to, and probably specific differences could be found between "folks who IRC" and the general population. Also Twitter is a tad larger than Freenode, so will doubtless take longer to break up in the water, or may have better salvage value if, somehow, things can be set aright.
As an engineering project Crossrail became famous for being repeatedly delayed (eventually opening four years late) and many billions over budget.
Since opening the Elizabeth Line has been beset by high numbers of service cancellations and poor punctuality (usually blamed on having to share track outside the central tunnel section with other operators).