Andrew Motion Says Make Second Homes Very Expensive
It is reported that former Poet Laureate; Andrew Motion has said that second homes must be made very expensive to stop sucking the life out of villages. The full story is here in the Guardian.
I have owned and lived in two houses a couple of times in my life. At one time we were living in Cromwell Tower during the week and also had the house at Debach in Suffolk for the weekend. And then we had Les Ondes in Antibes.
I think in truth,neither arrangements worked out for C and myself, as we were incessant travellers. And fixed bases are not compatible if you want to go long distances abroad for a couple of months a year.
Before we moved to Newmarket, we were not using the house in France, but were flying everywhere in my Cessna 340A. If we hadn’t bought Les Ondes, we might have visited some of the places, I now regret we didn’t.
So my argument against second homes, is that they may look good on paper, but spending the money you save by having only one home, on say travel or something you enjoy is probably better.
Since C died, I’ve been to a few places, where she never went, that to have flown to in a light aircraft would have been fun. For a start on my cruise, there was Corunna.
There is also two other arguments against second homes.
By having a second home, you are effectively denying someone else or another family, a home. That is morally indefensible in times like these, where we don’t have enough homes.
There is also the climate change argument, in that loading a 4×4 up with half your worldly goods each weekend, isn’t a way of cutting CO2 emissions. All it does is create profits for oil companies.
I could throw in a few other arguments too, like the fact that I believe spontaneity and impulse are good for you and do you want to be involved in the various NIMBY arguments that plague the countryside.
Perhaps though, most people don’t think logically about life as I do, and they have so much money, they can’t spend it creatively.
So is Motion’s idea to make second homes more expensive is the only thing, that might curb second home ownership and put more houses on the market for those, who don’t have a nice place to live? But no government would bring in the legislation, as it would be a catastrophic vote loser. Just look at the protest, when Ryanair chopped all those routes to France a few years ago, as it cut the cheap route to second homes.
Similar arguments can also be applied to those individuals from abroad, who buy up desirable properties in the UK and leave it empty.
We need more housing and as we haven’t got the space to built much more, we must maximise our use of what we already have.
A Gibraltarian Surprise
If you asked me a month ago, which side of the road cars were driven, I’d have said that it would be the left like Britain.
Gibraltar Drives On The Right
As the picture shows, I was wrong and all cars are left-hand-drive and they drive on the right.
Times When I’m Glad I Don’t Own A Car – 2
Last night was cold and we only got a few flurries of snow.
But my gas kept coming through the pipe and the electricity kept coming through the wires.
For most of the last forty years, the worry was could the gas tanker get through the snow to the remote houses I lived in, in Suffolk.
As I don’t drive any more, I wasn’t tempted to venture out in the snow towards Sussex.
I suspect some of those who did, are regretting their actions. After all, these days, there is no excuse not to know that bad weather in on the way.
I also wonder how many of those were commuting home from work. I’ve never understood why anybody commutes, as I’ve worked at home since 1970!
Nick “Loophole” Freeman On Chris Huhne
Nick Freeman aka Mr. Loophole has just pronounced on the Chris Huhne case on BBC Radio 5.
He said that in 2003, there was probably all sorts of errors in the summons and he could probably have got Huhne found not guilty.
You could say that he would say that wouldn’t he, but it does appear he usually gets his clients the result they want.
Perhaps, though Huhne didn’t want to employ a solicitor, who went to Uppingham School and whose father was in retail.
Times When I’m Glad I Don’t Own A Car
Today, according to this article on the BBC web site, the Dartford Crossing has been closed to traffic for seven hours. This article doesn’t say why, but it was a man threatening to jump. In the end according to this article after four hours of negotiating he jumped and later was pronounced dead in hospital.
I’m not going to question the man’s motives or suggest that the police should have taken more radical or forceful action, but why is it, it’s inevitably men, who climb on buildings and bridges and threaten to jump? I can’t remember an incident, where it was a woman, who was the prospective jumper.
I’m just glad though, that I’m a non-driver, as I can’t remember this sort of incident with trains. Perhaps, the men who threaten to jump are frightened of getting smashed into small pieces by something like a Class 66. Thinking about it, most suicides on the railway seem to be with passenger rather than freight trains. I wonder why? I have travelled on passenger trains with freight drivers and they have told me that many that get killed by freight trains are thieves nicking cable and other things in the middle of the night.
Visitors Parking Vouchers In Hackney
I may be a non-driver these days, but it doesn’t mean, I don’t have visitors with cars.
Last week, I bought some all day vouchers and today, I bought some for two hours.
Would you believe that effectively you have two separate accounts for each voucher?
The guy behind the desk in the Parking office thought it was crazy too!
Surely systems should be devised to be the most convenient for everybody. I can’t imagine that this is convenient for anybody!
A Real Advantage Of Not Having A Car
A friend of mine had their car stolen yesterday.
The day before the battery went flat and they had to call the AA to get moving. So when they got back home yesterday, they left the engine running so that their partner could drive the car to the garage to get a new battery fitted.
But when their partner went back outside, they found that the car had disappeared.
What I find so funny about this story, is not the fact that the engine had been left running on the street, but that the car is one of the oldest Homda Civics on London’s streets. But then it is difficult to understand the mind of the criminal. Perhaps they wanted it for cover for a ram raid on an old peoples’ home or to con someone out of a Zimmer frame.
And to make matters worse, I don’t suspect it had been properly cleaned for some time. So it probably wouldn’t impress the girl-friend. That is assuming it was stolen by a man! on the other hand it could have been stolen by a man with a sense of humour to get rid of his girl-friend!
You have to ask various question. Was it full of petrol, as this would give a motive for this serious crime? Did my friend, a non-smoker, keep pound coins for the meter in the ash tray? Both facts would have at least doubled the value of the vehicle.
My friend is seriously questioning the need to replace this car. Perhaps, it is a message from some supreme being, who feels that another non-driver is a good thing!
I shall keep laughing as this is possibly the biggest advantage of not having a car.
Walking to Brick Lane Music Hall
From Pontoon Dock station opposite the London Pleasure Gardens, I walked down to St. Mark’s Church, Silvertown or the Brick Lane Music Hall, as it is now known.
It is a walk, I have driven many times in the past and I regularly used to fill up my cars at the garage shown. But not at those prices, of which as a non-driver, who is scientifically-green, I heartily approve.
The flats seems good value to me. When C and I got married, we’d have never been able to buy something on a deal like that. you could get a 75% mortgage if you were lucky.
Children In Trouble
I’m just watching a recording of the BBC documentary; The Railway.
In one section, they have to go and tell a mother, that her son has been hit by a train and killed.
I might not have been a saint, but one incident in my life made my mother think the worst.
I’d been driving back to Liverpool University in my faithful Morris Minor; VKX 156, when just before Peterborough, a guy in the slow lane of the northbound A1, decided he needed to turn right. But he missed the turn and was hit fair and square by the car in front of me. I would have gone right into him, but for the quick thinking of another driver in an Austin 1800 in the slow lane, who slowed and waved me through in front of him. I then pulled directly on to the verge as I thought things would now go seriously wrong. They did, but not around me, as the car that caused the accident bounced across the central reservation of the dual carriageway and then hit someone going south.
The Police turned up some minutes later and I gave a detailed statement about what had happened.
Nothing further happened until that summer, when I was on a boating holiday on the Thames, when a Police Sergeant turned up at our house around midnight and said I was wanted in Court in the morning to give evidence about the accident.
Seeing him there, had given her an awful fright, as she thought I’d fallen in the Thames or a lot worse.
Obviously, that hadn’t happened, but it does show the sort of reaction expected, when something serious happens.
I know the heartbreak of losing a child, so we should all take care.
I certainly do, as best as I can, after all I’ve been through in the last few years.
They Do Things Big In Swindon
I’ve only ever been to Swindon once and thought it was rather a quiet inoffensive town. But last night someone or perhaps more, slashed the tyres on 150 cars in the town. The incidents are reported here on the BBC.
In some ways it just reinforces my view, that cars are an unnecessary evil, especially, when you have lots of buses and friendly taxi-drivers.
The Anonymous Widower 