Roger Mexico

This one was active as recently as November: https://www.manxforums.com/topic/71416-minimum-wage/page/7/

Well I suppose the NSC had to give some information as to why the pool will be shut on what would presumably be its busiest day of the week and in this situation any information is going to appear Too Much. And IOM Newspapers would report the closure so that families in particular who wanted to use the leisure pool today could make alternative arrangements if they wanted to, so it's useful. The iomtoday site was just the first (and so the most useful) to report the press release, both Manx Radio and 3FM did so this morning. Which in itself is interesting as you'd think the 'live' media would be faster than a print-based one.

Bet you wouldn't say that to the Vikings who were complaining about it.

Actually it isn't. As I said the system is changed every time, usually to make it even more ridiculous. Nominations have never been secret and the nominator and seconder ('supporters are new inventions) were usually expected to make a speech as to why their candidate was suitable (though now they don't). Votes used to be secret, but they aren't, though people can vote for as many candidates as they want (Chris Thomas tends to vary between voting for everyone and voting for no one to show how daft it all is). And to prove it here are the nominations from last time in 2023 followed by the votes and who cast them (p 10 onwards). Which proves you should never believe what ChatGPT tells you.

Oh there's clearly been fairly extensive reforestation here and elsewhere in Western Europe over the last few centuries as wood stopped being the main source of fuel and coal and oil and so on were used instead. With regard to the Isle of Man this from the Isle of Man Woodland Trust gives an outline: https://woodlandtrust.im/historic-woodland-cover/ The lack of wood is a long-standing problem, in one of the Sagas someone has to send a ship to Anglesey to get some wood for building here.

Yes the real comedy here is that the DoI were trying to pretend that Cobb would be unable to give the correct information without Crookall's wise and informed guidance. But it's worth remembering that this isn't the first time they tried to prevent Cobb from speaking to the public and/or politicians. It was announced that he would be unable to attend the meeting about 'Jurby Airport' and then he went anyway. They were clearly scared that, as he was leaving anyway, he might let some cats out of the bag. There may have been something else as well. As I've remarked before, Cobb was always willing to speak on the media and to the public about the Airport and related matters. He simply saw it as part of his job, as it would be if he was in an equivalent position at a UK airport. This obviously made both the local politicians (who think all the attention should be on them) and the other senior civil servants (who think it should never be) unhappy.

Airlines are going to set their schedules to suit themselves and maximise their profits, not to suit the airports they deal with. Apart from anything else it's going to be difficult to reconcile all the competing demands of different airports. But a nice even spread of arrival and departure times will be vulnerable to planes being delayed or even early. Add to that the fact that passengers also all want to travel at the same times (and airlines will try to fit their schedules to that), then peak times are going to be inevitable. It's how they are dealt with that matters.

It's difficult to know if the increase is due to better counting or other factors. But it also depends what you mean by trees: However, an important distinction needs to be made between tree cover and forest cover. The study points out that industrial timber plantations, mature oil palm estates and other specifically planted forests add to global tree cover. On paper these areas compensate for the primary forest that has been cut down; 100-hectare loss of primary forest is perfectly offset by a 100-hectare gain on a man-made plantation, for example. But while they may be equal in area, they are not equal in biodiversity. Primary tropical forests and savannas harbour a wealth of flora and fauna which is lost when these areas are cleared. In addition of course the replacement commercial trees won't store as much carbon as the primary forest they replace or for as long.

Maybe they're just following the latest guidance to follow the old traditions and keep them up till Candlemas on 2nd February. (Of course to be consistent they shouldn't have put them up till Christmas Eve in that case)

Actually John's wrong here - not surprisingly as they change the way LegCo is elected every time and always make it more ridiculous with every change. According to the Guidance for Candidates: In order for an application to proceed to the next stage, a Member of the House of Keys must propose the applicant by submitting a proposal to the Secretary of the House of Keys before the deadline for proposals, which is Thursday, 13th February 2025 at 12 noon. The proposal must be seconded by a Member of the House of Keys and also be supported by at least two other MHKs. So proposer, seconder and two supporters gives you four. The latest lot of changes do make the whole process even more ridiculous - and indeed more like applying to be a member of some excusive London Club (Club Tynwald as some call it). Like there you need to nominated by existing members. They've now added on this meet and greet next Friday[1] where they get to mingle with the MHKs and they decide whether you are the right sort of chap or chapess to be an MLC. Like a Club you need sufficient members to back you in the election - they have as many votes as they want. Sufficient MHKs 'blackballing' you and voting against means you won't get in. [1] MHKs had been complaining that they didn't know who the candidates were - even though the candidates provided manifestos and went to hustings just like an MHK does when they're elected. Presumably doing the sort of research that the rest of us have to do when choosing an MHK would be too much like hard work for the poor dears.

I'm still not sure why the direct link doesn't work. They did improve the website so you could view documents without having to download them, but it maybe that they only provide temporary links to do so. The change to the map from planning website seems to be aimed towards those wanting to find out about existing planning applications. But of course even if you're wanting to engage with the current process you will be wanting to know the planning history of the site and maybe nearby ones as well, so it's a pretty useless 'improvement'. Luckily you can still access the full back catalogue via the DEFA Planning Map search on manngis. This has all applications going back to the early 80s, though the supporting documents for earlier decades may not always be online.

That's weird - I only just looked it up. I'll investigate further but the planning website has been updated fairly recently and may longer not integrate well with the general IOMG one. Here's the document in the meantime: 20_00496_B-2000496B_DEC_Decision_notice-328903.pdf Edited to add: As you can see permission was originally granted in 2020, so they had to start by last year so it didn't expire.

Those concerned about the Port Erin site may wish to look at the various conditions given to the developers in the Decision Notice that had to be satisfied before various stages (eg occupation) could be carried out and whether that happened or not (or has even happened yet).

You can drive all the way to Ramsey and then drive all the way back. The romance!

Actually the 'resettlement grant' (which makes it sound like they're being kicked out of their actual house rather than just the House of Keys) was always available irrespective of age. What happened was that Leonard Singer stood again in 2016, despite him being expected to retire (he was 73 and had moved into sheltered housing) and knowing he would lose (he came a distant third). Even our politicians realised this looked bad and modified the scheme so anyone over 60 couldn't claim. Unfortunately they did it in such an inept manner that it was illegal (they could probably have got away with it if they'd tied it to the pension) and Boot and Perkins were able to get it last time - though that was also marred by more incompetence from the AGs Office, who presumably also drew up the illegal changes. I'm actually confused by the latest proposal as (a) it looks like they are reducing it from six to four months not the other way round and (b) I thought they did that anyway at the time of the tribunal. But I try to sort out exactly what they are suggesting.