I had prostate cancer in 2017 but survived. Dying and death is a natural and normal event and need not be feared. We don't have to suffer to the bitter end without morphine. Doctors already administer it, anyway and, in the process, it does hasten death. FINE!
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Monday, 18 November 2024
Our side is killing many more of our fellow humans than Russia is
1948 can be seen as our side's 'illegal invasion and occupation' of Palestine. Britain retreated from Palestine and relinquished the mandate in the face of two years of violence from the Jewish terrorist gangs.
The West and Israel should not have profited from an opportunity to gain territory out of aggression and by rewarding terrorism.
2014 saw Russia take back Crimea after over-enthusiastic Western/European/NATO fanatics overthrew the pro Russian and fairly elected President Yanukovych.
Western expansion into the largely Muslim Middle East (Israel taking, holding and expanding land in Palestine over 76 years), together with American/NATO wars over that time, must have seen much more death and destruction than Russia has inflicted all around the world.
RAILFUTURE SAYS on 10 November 2024:
"On the issue of connecting Dudley to Stourbridge Junction we do agree with you about the need to provide some form of co-ordinated transport between these two places. Our preference is for this to be rail based and eventually we would expect the tram service to do so, whilst retaining also the possibility of heavy rail usage. As an interim a VLR solution or even dedicated electric bus might be appropriate for some years so that connectivity was provided as soon as possible.
"I will certainly raise this with my committee when we next meet with a view to pursuing it with TfWM and/or WMRE."
Dr Stephen Wright
Railfuture – Chairman, West Midlands Branch
This makes it clear that, as was the case in the 20th century, Railfuture want heavy rail, light rail and very light rail or, whatever is on offer - nothing has changed!
I want an injunction ...
... to stop the official policy of converting bus and train services into TRAMWAYS by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and West Yorkshire Combined Authority. 200 years ago, UK tramways were being replaced by railways. Present policy is backward, stupid, and is similar to our ancestors allowing the superb road network, bequeathed by the Roman Empire, to fall into wrack and ruin.
Sunday, 17 November 2024
So sorry to miss you this morning
Hi Andy
Pastor Michael Youssef of Atlanta, Georgia voted for Donald because saving the unborn is his more important issue, according to his interview on the 'Sunday' programme on Radio 4.
Why are the large majority of born-again Christian believers on the side of Israel, regardless of their War of Self Defence on the defenceless non-combatants, must be regarded as yet another War of Aggression, fueled by the Wicked Wild West?
Why is replacement theology denigrated when it is the State of Israel that is acting with impunity and contrary to the wishes of the international world order, certainly, to the Laws of the Sermon on the Mount?
AND, BELOW, SOMETHING ELSE! WMCA = W Midlands Combined Authority
Monday, 4 November 2024
WMCA involvement in Lebanese/Palestinian slaughter
Dear friends
Saturday, 16 November 2024
Transport for Greater Manchester report extract = conflicts with ecology and Climate realities
Emerging priorities for new tram and tram-train lines, faster bus routes, and an underground service being considered to sustain long-term growth and economic prosperity
DO WHAT JAKE THRUSH ADVISES but use the existing Metro tram
JAKE ADVISES:
"This suggests that the feasibility of tram-train, from Stourbridge to Brierley Hill, and then onto Dudley, Wednesbury and Walsall needs to be explored further."
BUT, IF YOU IGNORE YOUR OWN JAKE THRUSH and persist with the WBHE into the Waterfront and Merry Hill, abandon the route along the centreline of the canal embankment at Merry Hill and choose the easier line along the top of the embankment next to the canal towpath. It is sufficiently wide for a double track of standard gauge.
This can be achieved by bringing the tram onto the top of the canal embankment after it soars over the Level Street roundabout but before the Merry Hill tramstop at the top of the concrete steps down to the road. Exit the tram off the TOP of the embankment by swinging it over the canal to bring it into Cottage Street. My vertical guerrilla garden is thus saved, more of the housing land too and some of the existing Scots Pine.
HERE IS CONSENSUS - JAKE THRUSH HAS GOT IT!!
Dear Neil
1. While the option presented by Tim Weller could lower costs for the WBH extension, it would
not directly stop at Merry Hill and The Waterfront, two of the line’s main attractors. This
would impact patronage and thus the overall viability of the scheme.
Friday, 15 November 2024
Weller's Last Ditch Stand
Dear Cat - my plea, my last ditch stand, in blue
Best wishes
to Robin Vincent
Dear Robin
It was great to meet you last night at St Peter's Baptist Church.
What was the name of the film you wanted me to watch, please?
Was it because you felt that my getting that perspective would help my understanding. I certainly must watch it, Robin.
Why were you wondering if I thought you were racist? Or, what on earth was that all about?! Help my recall, please!
You said you were in the Police for ten years. I was a little concerned that you were proud to mention you had been in the Police. I have heard the most distressing cases on Radio 4 News in recent months and years. It gives me no confidence that the Police are as honourable and as upstanding - or even as competent - as I would love them to be.
Far too many gross misconduct cases, miscarriages of justice like Andy Malkinson. Shoot to kill I don't like either, Robin.
My initial question to Rob was this:
What do you consider the more important issue: The life of the unborn or the life of the born in Gaza, Lebanon and in Judea/Samaria?
How do you account for something like 70% of American evangelicals voting for Donald Trump this month?
Pastor Michael Youssef of Atlanta, Georgia voted for Donald because saving the unborn is his more important issue, according to his interview on the 'Sunday' programme on Radio 4.
Why are the large majority of born-again Christian believers on the side of Israel, regardless of their War of Self Defence on the defenceless non-combatants, must be regarded as yet another War of Aggression, fueled by the Wicked Wild West?
Why is replacement theology denigrated when it is the State of Israel that is acting with impunity and contrary to the wishes of the international world order, certainly, to the Laws of the Sermon on the Mount?
Private Operators and TfWM working in Direct Partnership
Save the money for FFPT.
Use the savings to cut fares and improve services DIRECTLY by filling the bus operators teeth with gold.
Financial inducements DIRECTLY to get them to do what we want.
Full local and regional council control in the 1950s completely destroyed the first tram network and, in the following decades, obliterated much of Beeching's very properly CLOSED, LOSS MAKING LINES, as we all rushed out to buy cars.
Local and regional councils are poor/hopeless at commercial enterprises/investments. Look at Dudley's ghastly commercial LOSSES!
Leave it to the private sector to take the substantial financial risks that comes with bus franchising.
Thursday, 14 November 2024
for Leigh Day - FAILURE TO ACT over the UK's biggest finance/transport scandal
1. A brief chronology of events, including dates.
1981 Metro tram network announced, to be rebuilt 20 years after completing the total destruction of the first tram network. 1980s plan to get 200 Kms, 10 lines by the year 2000.
1990 Merry Hill monorail built but never connected to the Black Country Mainline Railway only 400 metres away. It should have had its passenger trains returned then but it remains for freight, only. TfWM/WMCA want trams, only FIRST, as the only way to get the full train service returned!!!
1993 The Swiss built monorail closed and may still be in use in Queensland, Australia.
1999 First Metro line of 20 Kms opened. 19 Kms on the first mainline railway were destroyed to get the 20 Kms of trams.
2016 Metro tram on the Camp Hill line on the Brum to Bristol mainline railway was abandoned. Half hour diesel service to be introduced but nothing appeared, so far! 3 railway stations are being rebuilt - very slowly!
2017 West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Mayor, Andy Street was elected and boosted work on Metro tram expansion, at the expense of trains reintroduced on the remaining 100 Kms of existing, unused or freight only W Midlands railway lines.
2019 Work on the ground finally started to destroy the UK's last principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" on the former and popular mainline (for 100 years) in the Black Country between London/Cardiff and Edinburgh. It is called Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension (WBHE), aka the Dudley Tram.
2019 WMCA declared a Climate Emergency. Resolute intention to deepen the Climate Emergency with trams taking over buses and trains continued apace!
Jan 2020 Andy Street announced a £15 BILLION programme of works to build underground and overground tramways to 2040 of 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops.
2020s Postponements, cancellations, reprogramming of Metro tram projects after dire financial constraints emerged.
2. Confirmation as to what it is you want to challenge.
SCRAP Metro expansion programme and concentrate on getting car commuters, who clog up road space for six hours a day, five days a week and have them use Fare-Free Public Transport to free up road space for essential vehicle users - LIKE BUS DRIVERS!
3. Confirmation as to what it is you want us to do for you (i.e.: what your goals are).
INJUNCTION TO STOP WHBE tram wrecking nature, public open space, housing land and my magnificent guerrilla garden. Work on the ground starts in January 2025. NO TIME TO LOSE!
4. Confirmation as to how you would propose to fund any assistance (i.e.: legal aid, ‘no win, no fee’, etc.).
No win, no fee.
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Climate and the poor get subordinated to power, privilege and wealth
17 April 2024
Hi Siobhan
Monday, 11 November 2024
to Leslie K
Very many thanks, Leslie for your encouragement and support. Wonderful! You are the first - almost!
Over £1 BILLION to destroy UK's last principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" = SCANDAL
11 Kms of tramway for £660.8 million PLUS cost of Wednesbury to Flood Street 5.5 Kms = over £1 BILLION total = idiocy and incompetence when the railway is
Saturday, 9 November 2024
Why HS2/Metro/Sprint thinking should be anathema to all right thinking people
Hi Carol - thanks so much for writing. Lovely to hear from you and of your concern.
Tram expansion is stopping our remaining railway lines from getting their trains back. What a waste! No more 'Restoring Your Railway' because you good councillors and MPs prefer tramways built on railways and bus routes. Extraordinary. And we are all so entitled, wealthy and well provided for, compared with the Global South!
For another £261.4 million for only a maximum ONE KILOMETRE (1 Km) of the route from Waterfront to Merry Hill, is SCANDALOUS! And it is deepening the catastrophic Climate emergency instead of urgent mitigation, that is still not seen (apart from my house that is a warm home).
The £15 BILLION to 2040 (Jan 2020 figure) for ourselves in the W Mids, is taking money away from returning passenger trains to our freight lines and, both to the other forgotten, empty, wasted railways in our region.
You councillors, led by Cllr Phil Bateman in the early 1980s and Richard Worrall, turned your Bilston railway station into a shuttle tram stop with Metro. Bilston was on the mainline railway from Snow Hill station to Shrewsbury via Wolverhampton Low Level station. It is now a popular tramway. But it was a popular railway and could have had its trains back in the 1980s instead of waiting for the trams when the tramline eventually opened in 1999 - and TRAINS for a fraction of the price, too! And, it was a lie that it would reduce congestion on the parallel A41. It has not because it took bus passengers off the road and not car drivers with their polluting cars. What a deception by members and officers at the time - and it's still going on with WBHE!
The full scandal is recorded here and Bilston is mentioned. Can you find it?:
We all stick our heads in the sand and hope for the best!
For 200 years, we have known that burning finite fossil fuels emits global warming gases. Out of sheer self-interest we need to act more sensibly and show a lot less greed and selfishness and much more self-restraint.
Friday, 8 November 2024
to David G
Dear David - not once, since the 1990s, has Railfuture given me any support whatsoever - just total disapproval - askance at my impertinence - from beginning to end. It really IS such a glorious giggle!!
The £15 BILLION to 2040 (Jan 2020 figure) going into 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops for ourselves in the W Mids, is taking money away from returning passenger trains to our freight lines and, both to the other forgotten, empty, wasted railways in our region. SEE your own brochure:
and,Does the Railfuture committee approve of the Black Country and the Staffordshire/Derbyshire section of the principal mainline railway between London and Edinburgh being turned into HR use, LR Metro use, a 2 Kms VLR test track, an extended 20 Kms cycle-walkway and fresh air, David?
What is the policy of your branch of Railfuture on what is going on, please?
What do you, personally, want done, David?
Please select, copy, paste and send to customerservices@tfwm.org.
"SAVE MERRY HILL SHOPPING CENTRE AND IMPROVE CONNECTIVITY FOR STOURBRIDGE
Tim
Thursday, 7 November 2024
from Peace and Justice Project
This US presidential election result is a grave concern for the planet, marginalised communities, refugees and Palestinians trying to survive Israel’s genocide. Trump's abhorrent rhetoric must be resisted at every opportunity and our movement must succeed where the arrogant Democratic establishment failed.
We must organise globally, stand in solidarity with those targeted by the awful politics of fear and division and build an alternative of hope and unity.
READ THE BOLD, if short of time or inclination. I have serious concerns, even though no-one seems bothered
INSTRUCTIONS FOR LEIGH DAY, SOLICITORS - and for the W Midlands Combined Authority (good not bad) Governance Officer, Dan Essex.
- Only Albert Thomas, Richard Worrall and I use our right to attend your committee meetings as members of the public.
- However, we are not allowed to say a dicky bird. And, Albert and Richard are allowed to go straight up on arrival, I believe but I have to wait until just before the meeting before I am escorted up from reception by your good self. This is to minimise my chances of approaching an officer or member to spill the beans!
- At the end of the meeting, I am then quickly ushered out and away from the VIP top brass on the Committee - by your good self, Dan once again! Officers and members must NOT be tainted by my (Trump) garbage.
- Yet, Albert Thomas told me to "Fuck off" when I asked him to remind me of his name last Monday 4 November.
- Before Covid, when he was Council Leader of Wolverhampton City Council and the Transport Lead, (name forgotten!) told me to "Stick it up your arse" when I invited him to take a leaflet from me. Ignorance and intolerance are rife.
- Many or, certainly, too many of your councillor members on all the WMCA committees and boards change once a year. This means that no sooner do they get up to speed with their brief, than they are moved off altogether or, go on to a different committee or board. Or, get voted off in a yearly election.
- The members are meant to check, challenge and question. However, many also hold down jobs or, are old geezers like me who are well past our prime.
- Therefore, how do you expect us to read the most voluminous reports of great erudition, witten in professional jargon and in much detail?
- In the summer, the seven leaders were presented with a 500 page report on bus franchising, I believe. The Coventry leader, I think it was, said he would take a look at it in his summer holiday - by then too late. The decision to continue the expensive process was agreed by the Seven (or, is it Eight with Richard Parker?) at that same full Board meeting!
- Had the seven leaders actually agreed for the 500 pages to be written and the long, expensive process to franchising be started?
- Or, was it an initiative started by your top officer(s) to make sure the W Midlands was not left behind by go-ahead Greater Manchester, with no approach to even a single Council Leader?
- After 43 years of very well-intentioned endeavour started by your continuing and respected member, Cllr Phil Bateman, how is it we are still fragmenting two regional mainline railways into part tramways in a densely populated conurbation that needs important railway lines used for railway trains?
- Understandably, I think, I am very angry that my 1990s vertical guerrilla garden, with the passive permission from all the owners of Merry Hill since the 90s, is soon to be wiped out, buried by your £100 million, 400 metre tramway viaduct. It also destroys the rest of nature, public open space and housing land at Merry Hill.
- The sensible, cheaper and less Climate damaging alternative is to keep the tram, from Flood Street, Dudley town centre, on the former principal mainline railway to connect with the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct.
- Your Top Director, Anne Shaw is saying that work on the ground (planning started in the 1980s!) will finally start in January 2025, to take the Dudley Tram off the railway line into the Waterfront. Or, is this a euphemism for bringing the tram into Merry Hill, at even greater expense of taxpayers' money and even more tragic, unnecessary destruction? As in these PHOTOS. These trees, and much else on either side of the photo, get wiped off the face of the earth by the 400 metre, Climate worsening concrete and steel tramway viaduct:
Most of the trees, below are my planting and tender care over the decades. Nearly all will be lost: - I am now approaching Leigh Day, the solicitors with expertise in these matters, to seek an injunction from a Court of Law to put a stop to the Dudley Tram wreaking havoc on the land between the main car park at Merry Hill and the Dudley No 1 Canal.
- The beautifully landscaped Level Street roundabout is also obliterated by the Dudley/Merry Hill tram because a further double track tram viaduct has to be built over the top of it. See top right hand corner in their PLAN, here
- I am prepared to spend a maximum of £10,000 of my lifetime savings for judges to put a stop to the idiocy that trained, professional transport planners have been intent on since the 1980s.
- About 1980 was when BBC 1's 'Tomorrow's World' first alerted me to what Climate scientists had been reporting since the 1820s. Yes, the 1820s! Do your research, as I have, if you don't believe me.
- On Monday, 4 November, Anne reported to the meeting that she was "moduly agnostic" over the public transport mode that is chosen to be used to take over from buses. In other words it could be any mode out of heavy rail (HR), light rail (LR), Very Light Rail or Ultra Light Rail (eg, Stourbridge Shuttle).
- Why does a "bus on rails" (UK Tram Promotion Group at your own HQ!) have to be used at all when we already have TRAINS for railway tracks and BUSES for roads? USE THEM! And, remember, Anne is "moduly agnostic", ie, she doesn't mind which transport mode is used - anywhere.
- NO! I think she should get it right - regular buses and trains, from now on, at least as good as the average on the mainland of Europe.
- Don't spend £15 BILLION by 2040 (Jan 2020 figure) on 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops in the West Midlands when your accelerating Climate Breakdown has just been seen in Valentia, Spain. And, fast melting glaciers in the high mountains of the planet!