The first thing I can not help thinking is why do we want to spend £80 million on something like this and not instead use that £80 million to help the people getting injured serving for our armed forces now in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Battle of Britain was a turning point in our modern history and that should not be forgotten, But nor should all the times the RAF has been called into action.

I totally agree with people that say it looks a monstrosity, But my beef is really the price. I feel certain something better could be achieved for far less money than this, And as others have pointed out why just for the Battle of Britain surely any new structure should be able to show the young the whole story of the RAF during World War II or even better the whole history of the RAF to date.
For example if this beacon was to chart the history of the RAF (Fighters only because bombers would be a bit big) starting with how it was formed and then showing aircraft through its history up to the present day as you go higher and higher up the beacon. Maybe that would be more useful.

I am personally not totally against hanging airframes from the ceiling so to speak as long as it is done well and tastefully without long term damage to the aircraft used. If such presentation of the aircraft is done well it affords the visitor close up looks of the aircraft from different angles, Something just not possible with normally displayed museum aircraft.

I would say improve Hendon by all means but not at such costs for a structure that will simply look out of place in the surrounding area, And not by just choosing one point in history to cover.

RIP
I had not realised he was ill.
I saw him as a warm up act for Alice Cooper many years ago with hid Dio band.

In the long term I can not see it working out. But for the moment maybe it is what the country needs.
Due to needing to compromise to get things done it may well mean a more balanced style of politics. But either way they need to make some really tough decisions and due to this they will become a very unpopular government over time.

I still expect they will call another general election next year in an attempt to get a Conservative majority. It will depend at the time how strong Labour are at the time.

I just hope things can stabilise soon, Labour ran out of ideas and lost direction just like most parties do after being in power for a long time, And real and truly the Con/Lib pact is proving the only way forward.

Lets just hope we move forward not further backwards.

My wife is Thai, so we will need a Schengen visa for her. The form I’ve downloaded from the Italian embassy says that it’s free to the spouses of EU citizens, but you need to prove the relationship. Doesn’t say exactly how, so I guess you have to send the marriage certificate, or hopefully just copies of same? Thanks again for any advice.

They will definitely want a copy of the marriage certificate, They will did ask us for photographs of us both together too and proof we were together like bank statements etc.
We often invite my wives friends or family over and have to supply all of the above to get them an English visa, But in these cases they want the statements to see we can pay for the visitor if needs be.

Just a UK passport suffices for entry into any EU country, This as far as I am concerned is the best thing about being in the European Union.
As to the Schengen visa this as others have written is really for non Eu citizens, My wife is from Belarus so we had some fun times with Schengen visas in the past.

Accidents happen in all fields of life and aviation is no different, OK today the accident involved an aircraft towing a banner that does not make banner towing dangerous per se. I can not think of any other accident with a banner towing aircraft in recent times.

I say let the investigators doing the reporting on this one and don’t judge without evidence.

Not seen that before very very funny.