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Forum quiet, peoples priorities


Chancer
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Well, I've just been out and about with my camera (and so is half the village) and we're now top spot on the news, with Ben Nando's or whatever he's called parked in the village centre along with half the world's media (or so it seems) taking photos of everything and everyone.

Hilariously, I spent a good few minutes being entertained by a bunch of kids with a rubber dinghy who were surrounded by the media all wanting photos and film of them rowing through the village. Only problem is that the water's just not deep enough for a boat, so every time they jumped aboard, the bottom was scraping along the tarmac. So when you see that on the news, it's all a con.

A Big Blue Lorry has turned up and free sandbags for all are now on offer, and everyone's grabbing their supplies. Our road is closed, whether we try to leave it by turning left or right, and the railway lines look like a canal. But it's OK, there aren't any trains.....or replacement buses....

Just now it's dry and a bit sunny, but nevertheless the waters are still rising and we're due more rain tomorrow.

If you really want a picture of what is happening chez moi, the BBC is using our village as today's poster boy for the flooding, so you couldn't do much better.

We are now officially on an island.

ETA: AND it's just started raining AGAIN.

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The news is hysterical, the PM stating he has supplied everything asked for. The point of management is to plan and think ahead not knee jerk.  Restaurant feet under water with a tiny little pump doing nothing.  Oh crikey I feel for you Betty and RH with the sort of idiots collecting salaries for being totally incompetent.  Chris Smith used to be normal size now he looks like a bloated frog, time to put these fat cats on diets. they are far to comfortable in their world.

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I wonder who they blamed in 1947?

To be honest (and, being in the middle of it, I guess I can say this with impunity) I don't think it's anyone's fault. My house was built in the 1850's and may (I don't even know for certain) have flooded once before, yet we're within spitting distance of the Thames. I expect then there were a few hundred people living here, now our village population is about 16 thousand. The worst flooding here is on crown land and the local golf course, and I guess if we didn't have so much green belt around us the situation would have been significantly worse. If we flood, we flood, but I'm saving my energy for the task ahead rather than waste it looking for someone to shoot.

Someone said on the news this morning that of the x thousand (not quite in the double figures of thousands, IIRC) homes flooded thus far, something like 60 are on the Somerset levels...yet the media circus which has accompanied it all - and which I'm now witnessing first hand - is baying for someone's blood. Well, this morning in our village you couldn't take two steps in any direction without falling over someone wearing a High-Vis vest sporting the Environment Agency logo, and they're doing everything they can. We get phone calls every time there's a slight chance of flooding, usually with no noticeable outcome or effect. I now hear people complaining that the flood relief scheme that's already been built here is causing THEM to be flooded, so even when action is taken, someone else is peed off or perceives themselves to be badly done by or disadvantaged.

S**t happens, unfortunately. Like it does all the time in Japan, Florida and all over the place. This time it's our turn, and I just don't see how there's much anyone could have done about it.

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So sorry for those of you who are having problems. We're having extremely heavy rain in our part of the south of France, with gutters overflowing and very wide waterfalls falling from them, but nothing at all compared to what parts of UK and of France are suffering from.

Very interesting photos, thanks Teapot and thanks Russethouse for letting us know where some of them are in and around Reading and Henley. Our son works on the Winnersh Triangle, Wokingham, and he cycled to work one day last week, as he reckoned there was such a problem around there with cars when it's flooded (they built a multi-screen cinema and car park on the flood plain, despite so many of us telling them not to!) I receive alerts from Wokingham council, and this weekend they warned that many extra roads in the area were closed due to flooding, with the cinema roundabout having only one lane open and no traffic lights working there due to the River Loddon rising. By today it's all clear and the traffic lights round the roundabout are working too.

It sounds bad around the general area, but in other parts of the country things are so much worse. Those in charge are blaming one another, but whoever/whatever is at fault, things need sorting ASAP. There must be money from Europe available, and maybe some of the funds we send abroad to support others should be used. Another alternative is to put a stop to HS2 and use that fortune to help people and businesses affected, plus boost railway lines around ther country.

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Have to agree with both of you, sh it does happen.  Just wait for the hose pipe ban in a couple of months!  If it weren't for the Victorians, in particular the stench invading the houses of impairment,   we wouldn't have a sewer system. we are now building a super sewer as the old one cannot cope.  Time to build the super storm drain system and resevoir.  If that means no HS2 so be it, is 30 mins off the journey time really that important?  They saved some money not doing the work, now they will spend even more.

Now where was that thread showing a map of the areas if the water level rose a metre we were discussing a while back?

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I am having trouble opening threads today and then replying.

Betty, the best of luck with the flood waters and you too RH. I just cannot imagine how awful it would be to be flooded out. The only little flood we had was in our sous sol when a pipe burst whilst we were out and that was clean water and for all there was damage, it was soon sorted.

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 Thanks idun, but if we flood Reading will be under water, Betty is far more likely to be affected than me....

The frustration locally is that the floods occur at the places were Reading Council, Wokingham Council and South Oxforshire council, meet....they seem completely unable to get together to tackle anything, even something as simple as re phasing the traffic lights to make traffic flow better, plus for many years SODC has stood firmly against a third bridge over the Thames on the Sonning side and now everyone is paying the price with these mammoth traffic jams.  GG Church Road was at a standstill this a.m, both ways..

Both my children have to travel to work and it worries me because although both have ben safe drivers so far, these hold ups are frustrating and can make people impatient...impatience can lead to accidents....

In addition my mothers carers have to make huge detours to get to their clients...luckily my mother is not affected by the water, but Cookham village is cut off, something that I can never remember happening before and as Betty says people tend to blame the Jubilee relief scheme.....

 

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Theiere,

Oh whoopie, a bronze medal in a 'sport' nobody had ever heard of until it was included in the present Olympics. I swear if her dog could speak, they would interview it on the BBC. I now automatically turn over to the Food Channel when they mention Jones. Of course, I could be missing an interview with Jenny Jones the politician.

David

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[quote user="NormanH"][quote user="NickP"][quote user="Chancer"]

I understand, if I want to comment on things like that I use another forum where people may be more interested, otherwise it could be like talking to yourself on a deserted island.

However if I want to discuss the finer nuances of or ask questions about the French language with those who are learning and pay an active interest in doing so this is still by far the best the forum to do it on.

[/quote]

Your only posting this today chancer because your "other forum" has crashed, and you are bored because you can't read the thoughts of a halfwit/Troll who feels a bit french, or you miss seeing people verbally bullied by the know all experts. [:D]

[/quote]

Such as this chap?

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

[/quote]

I thought this was a very interesting article, but then I'm no expert.

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My daughter who lives in Shepperton has had the red alert phone call from the Environment Agency, and her road is closed already at one end. Apparently the danger is if the water comes bubbling up from the saturated ground below and allows sewage from overloaded drains to rise up. I'm worried for her, meanwhile a couple of miles we are an dry island surrounded by four flooded towns. Our little river was forced underground to build a roundabout and bypass, and is surfacing in other places than my town.

Think we could blast the jetstream back on track? 

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Theiere,

I just noticed the water going down the drain on your 'profile'. Did you see that little plastic toy called a rattleback on QI that spins in one direction, but not the other? (google it if not) It, however, is not caused by the same thing (?coriolus effect) as water going down the drain in different directions depending on where you live.

David

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[quote user="dwmcn"]

Theiere,

Oh whoopie, a bronze medal in a 'sport' nobody had ever heard of until it was included in the present Olympics. I swear if her dog could speak, they would interview it on the BBC. I now automatically turn over to the Food Channel when they mention Jones. Of course, I could be missing an interview with Jenny Jones the politician.

David

[/quote]

If you had turned on earlier she was in gold medal position and that was really exiting. Have you never seen the Red Bull x fighters/sports flying planes etc?

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[quote user="dwmcn"]

Thibault,

When I was in the US, I used to do lawn bowling (bowls) and a lot of bowlers did curling in the winter. Some of the ones I knew were of Scottish extraction. They also hunted wild haggis.

David [/quote]

I understand, if Scotland votes for independence, the wild haggis will apply for political asylum in England.
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