I really used to enjoy the Trip Reports however the last report was September 2015. Maybe everyone’s stopped travelling?

Maybe they can’t afford to. How many trips have you made in the last seven months?

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205163243

Is this image working for anyone else, or is it just me?

Metrication of our system of weights and measures costing untold expense in converting cash tills, some road signs, and where imperial does not match metric, as in some timber dimensions, being forced to buy metric oversized to then trim down to the imperial equivalent. What an unbelievably stupid exercise in EU musclle flexing.

(Psst – there is only one ‘L’ in muscle these days, and ‘ye’ has given way to ‘the’ as well, in modern language…)

Oh dear. You’ll be wanting pounds, shillings and pence back too, despite the cost of converting tills and the confusion it will cause.

Does it tax your conscience that children can now understand and, heaven forbid, be able (should they wish) to work out weights, volumes and measurements? The fact that the metric system is a much simpler system, easy to use and understand matters not to you – just that it was unjustly forced upon dear old Blighty by dastardly foreigners, and must be repealed.
The last people taught solely imperial measurements in Britain (in state schools, anyway) will be on the cusp of retiring, if they haven’t already; are you really going to propose that the whole thing be upended again just so that the elderly can happily retire to a coffin measured out in feet and inches? Might you remember when children’s TV programme Blue Peter held a poll to decide whether to continue to include imperial with the metric measurements for their craft and cookery projects, before deciding that since the vast majority wanting imperial were retired and their target audience was school aged and being taught metric measurements anyway then they would avoid confusion and not pander to their secondary target.
As for wood products you may order them by the foot but plans will be in metric – unless you’ve dusted off something older than your carpenter.
And where abouts are those road signs with metric distances on them, again…?

Three of the above, acceptable only if you believe in man made global climate change – which, obviously, you do.

Global climate change is the work of the EU? That should turn the heads of those anti climate changers in America…
Now you don’t think that, maybe, the reason for restricting power levels might be something to do with reducing the amount of electricity required to power the item and thereby reduce the cost of using it, do you? I realise you don’t like sharing but power is a finite source and we should be doing what we can to conserve it; I mean, look at the MPG (KPL?) of your first car and compare it with your current model, assuming your first wasn’t a horse.

Frankly, I do not know how many EU inspired laws there are or, how many will eventually be repealed. I would guess that there are quite a number.

And many tears will you shed…

My question has been answered but there is still the question why FP does not appear to proofread articles before publication.

Lack of sub editors to proofread, lack of time, lack of personal knowledge, belief in the knowledge of the writer/contributor, possibly coupled with a different person checking in each of the stories, being tired, being distracted, being interrupted, etc.

That said, it would be easier if every writer checked their facts (it is generally what they are paid for) prior to submitting the story but many of them will claim they don’t get paid enough to maintain a library with which to consult, let alone their time – if they are paid, of course.

But not replying to a query smacks of don’t-give-a-damn ignorance or couldn’t-care-less high-handedness. Or an office where there is so much being piled onto too few for anything out of the ordinary, that has nothing to do with getting the publication to the printers, to be worried about.

I can’t think of anything worse than ‘forcing’ (or coercing) people to vote; that’s hardly likely to produce a result that is more representative of what the electorate actually care about, given that currently, many of them don’t care enough about anything to even bother voting!

Wouldn’t taking away the actual right to vote be worse? That has been suggested (probably not terribly seriously) due to the consistantly low (and probably uneconomically poor) turnout.
But.
If they had to vote do you seriously think that they would just tick the first box they see, or might they actually take notice of what the candidates/parties represented so that they choose one that might carry their views forward?

I also don’t see how it would make politicians ‘clean up their act’ or that low turnouts allow politicians to get away with ‘treating the public like idiots’?

If you were forced to vote would you vote for the politician who rides roughshod over your views, promising but never delivering, who takes the mickey with things like expenses and his/her disregard for the voter? The MP who has two constituency surgeries a year is disrespecting his constituents; the MP who takes up high paying jobs in the city – in addition to their political positions – is he/she really able to concentrate on their constituency or their political role unbiased by their paymasters? Cronyism and corruption would be difficult to implement or continue
A poll that is backed by a 100% turnout is going to grab the attention more than one where the winning majority was from less than 20% of the potential voters (imagine how the Scottish independence vote would have been regarded by all sides had the turnout been less than 50%, with all claiming that the propaganda from the other side convincing their supporters not to vote. Or something).

I agree. Very few countries have mandatory voting and fewer enforce it. I cannot see that obliging people to do something they do not want to do will produce a “better” result.

It works rather well(!) in North Korea; the dear leader always has a strong and unarguably clear majority, but let us ignore that.
Yet Argentina, Brazil and Australia all have compulsory voting and therefore their political masters have a genuine mandate to govern – something that has been questioned in the past in Britain and currently in the US by those not in favour of a black president. Other countries (like Peru, Singapore, Uruguay and Cyprus) also have compulsory voting.

Hmm. Cut back on the number of voters – what a magnificent idea. The number who participate is embarrassingly small enough now, without reducing it further…
A better option might be that everyone is legally required to vote on pain of financial incentive, as happens in some other countries. There is a feeling of disenfranchisement from some parts of the demographic so, whilst there could be moans about forcing the population to participate against their will, the politicians would have to clean up their act knowing that they could no longer rely on the large proportion of no-shows that currently allow them to get away with treating the public like idiots.

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