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Post by Repat Van on Mar 25, 2024 11:20:46 GMT
Agreed. It's absolutely roasting here in Harwell. The female PhDs are out in force in their short skirts, but then so is the lollipop lady outside the campus creche, happily airing her varicose veins. We're having a site-wide barbecue at lunchtime, where Carlos Santana and Stephen Stills are touted to provide the music, Anthony Hopkins will perform the Steward's monologue from Macbeth, and there is a rugby invitational in the afternoon between the Barbarians and Oxfordshire Farmers Veterans Seconds. So the Beeb can just knock it off with all that "Light rain and moderate breeze" b*ll*cks. It’s freezing cold in London.
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Post by flatandy on Mar 25, 2024 14:22:16 GMT
Did I ever tell you about my time at Harwell working building on models of the UK's potential nuclear waste dumps.
I didn't? Good, because I think I had to sign the Official Secrets Act to get the gig, so I'm sure I can't tell any more.
More recent Harwell interactions are usually meetings that the European Space Agency sets up there, although I almost always give those a miss and let my colleagues do the leg-work of talking to actual humans.
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 15:07:54 GMT
Lovely Spring day in Sussex.
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moggyonspeed
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Post by moggyonspeed on Mar 25, 2024 16:18:33 GMT
Did I ever tell you about my time at Harwell working building on models of the UK's potential nuclear waste dumps. I didn't? Good, because I think I had to sign the Official Secrets Act to get the gig, so I'm sure I can't tell any more. More recent Harwell interactions are usually meetings that the European Space Agency sets up there, although I almost always give those a miss and let my colleagues do the leg-work of talking to actual humans. Yeeeeeeeeees! I can't remember. We still have two old pre-UKAEA atomic piles (Dido and Pluto) cooking away nicely here, albeit they're pretty much void of any real nasties. That said, they're still "behind the fence" and are patrolled by people armed, shall we say, with rather more than a truncheon and a can of pepper spray. Seriously, you may be astounded by the level of construction work going on here, as the ESA has just had two more premises built pretty much next door to it, RAL Space is now fully up and running, STFC/Diamond now has 43 instruments on it with the associated number of beam lines having been expanded too, the Rosalind Franklin Institute has now been built, opened & commissioned, and is now actively seeking staff, the Moderna Centre for research and production of mRNA vaccines is being built as we speak etc. etc. etc. ... All-in-all, very vibrant - European and other international science as it should be.
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 16:22:00 GMT
Hang on .... wait .... what?
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Post by flatandy on Mar 25, 2024 16:27:55 GMT
Has Didcot become less of a crappy dumphole as a result of all this highly educated Eurocash rich science population moving in, or is it as bad as ever?
The villages around were always nice - an acquaintance lived in East Hendred which I remember as being lovely - but Didcot was not.
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mids
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Post by mids on Mar 25, 2024 16:36:28 GMT
Building work? Don't talk to me about building work! Actually quite a lot is finished. The new Papworth hospital and the Astra Zenaca HQ are done. Still quite a lot of ancillary buildings getting built. God knows what most of them are. The Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute is one. Hearts and lungs, no doubt. The new train station is still getting built though.
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 16:57:38 GMT
Hang on though .... isn't UK suppose to be a wasteland, unfit even for panzer-practice?
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Post by flatandy on Mar 25, 2024 16:59:35 GMT
Not the areas around pro-European Oxford and Cambridge. It's Foreignphobic Brexit Britain that's the wasteland.
Of course, the Brexitmeansbrexit crew were all fully committed to leaving ESA along with Erasmus and everything else that involved cooperation. Fortunately, they didn't get their way.
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moggyonspeed
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Post by moggyonspeed on Mar 25, 2024 17:02:25 GMT
Has Didcot become less of a crappy dumphole as a result of all this highly educated Eurocash rich science population moving in, or is it as bad as ever? The villages around were always nice - an acquaintance lived in East Hendred which I remember as being lovely - but Didcot was not. Imho - and this is only my opinion - Didcot is still a bit of a dump. Yes, they're building more houses to cater for the influx of scientists to the area, but that is also dragging London prices (for both purchase and rental) into the area, which means that, increasingly, local families without the education and/or the income cannot live in the area. Is this deliberate? I genuinely don't know, but I'd like to think not. As with a lot of housebuilding around the UK, the local authorities want the council-tax revenue and local employers want the people, but in so many cases the infrastructure to support this increased number of people (health centres, schools, roads etc.) appears to be treated as an afterthought. To cite your very example, what this means is that when, say, the A34 is closed or otherwise compromised, most drivers merely use their SatNav to navigate their way around the hold-up, so the East Hendred road becomes a carpark too. Ditto housebuilding in Wantage, Abingdon, Wallingford etc., all of which struggle with making sure the supporting infrastructure is fit for purpose. Mrs. Mogg and I are looking already for places to which we can retire in a couple years' time - and the Didcot area (even Oxfordshire as a whole) hasn't even made the long list!
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 17:09:40 GMT
What about France?
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 17:12:08 GMT
Not the areas around pro-European Oxford and Cambridge. It's Foreignphobic Brexit Britain that's the wasteland. Of course, the Brexitmeansbrexit crew were all fully committed to leaving ESA along with Erasmus and everything else that involved cooperation. Fortunately, they didn't get their way. Yeah, even if that were true, we were told that these things wouldn't be an option and that all UK IP since the Industrial Revolution was to be forfeited to the EU, in perpetuity.
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 17:14:28 GMT
Neuton, Breunel, Flemming etc.
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moggyonspeed
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Post by moggyonspeed on Mar 25, 2024 17:27:51 GMT
Whilst it's perhaps tempting to say, "Well, quite" or "Yes - what about France?", it just isn't my tasse de thé. I very much fell in love with Crete every time I went there, though I'm not sure that Mrs. Mogg - a dour Scot - could cope with all that sun without necessarily pointing at it every day.
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Post by perrykneeham on Mar 25, 2024 17:32:42 GMT
I've never been to Crete, but it sounds good. Hot rock, mountains and the Med. My sort of thing.
Not sure Greek culture's my thing though. I'm a Latin type.
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mids
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Post by mids on Mar 25, 2024 17:42:41 GMT
Crete's good. The South, away from the Eurotrash, is the best bit.
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Post by wetkingcanute on Mar 29, 2024 15:51:19 GMT
Crete is fabulous - been twice.
A few hours ago sat at home peacefully with me Lady wife eating Tuna fish and cucumber sandwiches with a reasonable bottle of Chablis.
Where I really wanted to be, of course, is stuck in a 20 mile traffic jam inching past Stone Henge.
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Post by marechal on Mar 29, 2024 17:08:58 GMT
There must be about 5 of us here around the same age. I'm looking at retiring in roughly two years as well and trying to figure out where.
I love the SF Bay Area but it's damn expensive (and too crowded for my taste). Would like a warm climate but no way would I live in the South.
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Post by flatandy on Mar 29, 2024 17:34:51 GMT
I'm a decade or more away, but I'd pick San Diego, Perth or Cape Town, for a combination of culture, scenery, climate and language reasons. Perth is a bit too remote, Cape Town is cheaper but has the potential to turn to sh*t quickly. San Diego would be way too expensive if we didn't already own a small house here.
If I less of a moron in younger days and actually learned to spoeak foreign, Crete or Morocco or Spain would have a lot of appeal.
Maybe when I'm older the brutal heat of the US southern desert would become less repellant, but I'm pretty sure I'd never handle anywhere that's got hot and humid like the US south or South-East Asia. I'm all in for Mediterranean dry coastal climate.
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Post by marechal on Mar 29, 2024 17:46:25 GMT
I like the San Diego area but yes, expensive and I like wooded areas.
We'll probably spend a few months a year in Japan (most likely spring and fall) since the wifer has a house there.
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