flaps

I wonder about the old Wilko shop behind the Port Erin store. Also the Ballasalla Merc garage site, and the warehouse in Pulrose?

Jeezuss, there's some proper cunty comments on this thread... Some people are just absolute cunts aren't they? So depressing...

I'm sure a heavily policed speed limit would be more effective in reducing the woeful serious RTC statistics than banning cyclists. Lets face it - most cyclists don't go up there even when it's not TT. The high number of collisions is mostly due to excessive speed. You can argue about that if you want. It won't change the truth though.

Every TT there are a large number of serious accidents up there, with people doing excessive speeds on an open road, that's little more than a narrow mountain pass. The governments own statistics show dozens of serious injuries and a few fatalities every year. And our solution to this situation? Ban cyclists... Yeah, that'll help...

I'm all for the 50 on the Round Table road - I've seen some shocking driving along there. But - if that road justifies a temporary limit over TT, due to a couple of serious accidents, how come that the mountain, which has loads of serious accidents, is limit free? Some inconsistency there. If the road safety strategy is indeed taking an "Evidence based approach" like it says it is, then there's loads of evidence of excessive speed related collisions on the mountain, yet no attempt to curtail it.

Yes! I saw that and thought he let it slip there - after all the bullshit stories about flying airbuses, within seconds of sitting in the simulator the alarms were going off. When they asked the instructor if they thought Jeremy would make a pilot, they said, "Er, no..." Hilarious!

And those two have both left... I think it's fair to say we should not take anything he says at face value. You only need to look at his many social media accounts to see that he's fond of "embellishing" the truth. Wasn't he suspended last year from Christmas to Easter pending an investigation into his conduct? Then on his unexpected return the director resigned? There's obviously a lot more to this than what is in his resignation e-mail. We'll probably never hear the airport staffs side of the story, but I expect it would differ somewhat to his version.

In the Examiner this week, page 6, there's a piece about Civil Servant employments, related to Tynwald questions from Jason Moorhouse to Kate Lord-Brennan. from the article: Mr Moorhouse asked about pre-employment checks for prospective government employees during the application process. Ms Lord-Brennan said the standard checks include a collection of references, verification of essential qualifications via sight of original certificates or certified copies, identity and the right to work on island checks, in accordance with prevention of illegal working. Mr Moorhouse followed this up with a supplementary question. He said "If concerns are raised by a third party about an employees earlier status, why can existing materials not be reviewed or checks carried out, based on informal and unnamed tip-offs? A recent inquiry suggests that it is not possible even if an employee is holding a significant role within government. Is that the case, and if it is, could it be reviewed?" Ms Lord-Brennan said "I am not commenting on any individual case whatsoever. I can say though, if the Office of Human Resources is made aware of any concerns or discrepancies coming to light this will be investigated to verify information provided. That would be raised with the recruiting manager, if required , and any appropriate action taken". What is the recent inquiry Mr Moorhouse referring to?

I had covid a couple of weeks ago, and rang 111, where they persuaded me to get a PCR test. They're still issuing those legal isolate notices, saying you mustn't leave your home for 10 days, not even for exercise, or you'll be fined £40,000. And they contact you to check. I'm sure a lot of people, who are more savvy, or less socially concious, than me, will think "sod that" and just sort it out themselves with a LFT from the chemist. Which will make the official numbers a huge under-estimate. And if the numbers aren't right, then what's the point?

I think you're right about "courting Easyjet" being above airport management - that's the only explanation. Easyjet pay half the rate per passenger than Flybe did, so for every passenger they took off Flybe, the airport lost revenue. Not only did they lose revenue, but costs increased and huge amounts were spent on extras for them - an exclusive holding lounge, a £2.5M apron, widening the runoff areas etc. Another issue people will remember was the massive queues. In the Flybe days, the morning departures would be staggered. Say, 60 passengers, 30 seconds each through security, half an hour per plane. But if there's 2 Easyjets in at once, 300 passengers - hours to get everyone through security. So millions were spent on a new baggage scanner, building works to accommodate it and of course the ongoing costs of the contracted out staff to run it. Of course, all this would be OK if the island was chocka with tourists, due to the cheap flights, but it's not. The slight increase in passengers pre-covid was locals going away to spend elsewhere, not new visitors coming to spend here. And of course, we now have less services. Is it better to have a small plane every day to places like, say, Belfast, or a big plane once or twice a week? Is that better service for an island community with no alternative? We used to have 4 or 5 flights a day to Liverpool, similar to Manchester, plus a couple a day to Birmingham. Is one flight a day or less really what we want? Is that actually better?

Leaving him in charge is what's got the airport in the mess it is. While the Director was distracted with other Ports stuff, he's run amok with his schemes, spending, hiring, firing. It will be interesting to see how he gets on with the interim Director - he won't take no messing. Anyway, So now the Director job has been advertised, which forgotten reality TV nobody could join "Dr" Jez? How about Maureen from Driving School? Nasty Nick from Big Brother? Wagner from X-Factor?

Yep, totally agree. Even before Covid there was far too much chasing Easyjet, to no benefit. They didn't bring in any more visitors, as hoped, and because of their preferential rates the revenue has gone down, while costs to accommodate them, have gone up. Amazingly, the talk of "corporatisation" hasn't gone away, despite it being a no-hoper even before Covid. There's certainly no case for that now.

I'm amazed that road safety wasn't a bigger issue in the run up to the election. None of the candidates in my constituency gave it more than the briefest mention in their manifesto. I think it's seen as a contentious issue, so they are afraid to say anything. The interviews in the newspaper almost all said they wouldn't support an all island speed limit. A couple of years ago, just before covid, the new road safety strategy document was released, and it was a deeply flawed piece, full of contradictions. The vision for the strategy is: "A future where no-one is killed or sustains serious/life changing injuries on our roads". There's lots of talk of the fatal four, and safe systems approach etc, which is all good, but then there's stuff like "Speed Limits will not be considered on a blanket basis, rather on a case by case basis, informed by evidence". Well, clearly, if this was true, there would be a heavily policed speed limit on the mountain road, as their own evidence shows there is a high number of speed-related collisions; often single vehicle. So, the strategy is obviously just words on a page to look good, and not something that happens in real life. The figures quoted are sobering - averaging around 1000 RTC's per year, 238 with injuries (many will be more than one person injured, so the number of people injured will be much higher than the number of injury collisions), 58 seriously injured, and 7 fatals. So, roughly, there's 2 or 3 crashes (that the police know about) every day, one of which will involve injury. Someone seriously injured at least one per week, and a fatality every couple of months. Disappointingly, the accompanying Action Plan document has lots of waffle about gathering evidence, analysing data, reviewing strategy etc, but very little about actually doing anything. The problem with "gathering evidence", is that if you do that for, say 5 more years, that's another few hundred seriously injured and 35 dead. It seems to me that it would be better to do something now than faff about behind a desk looking at graphs for a few more years. In the 5 years 2013-17 29 dead, 217 seriously injured - and it would seem nobody is interested in doing anything about it.

The Close Leece Farm cafe is well done - an original cottage/barn with a modern extension out the back. Also Salmon Lake cafe by the Laxey Wheel. I agree re Watterson. Not said a peep about local issues for years, then suddenly pipes up about the Post Office and Cosy Nook when there's an election coming up.

Those MotoCyz bikes were well trick. Such a shame what happened with them. Bloke was a genius.