Non-Believer

9 hours ago, Gladys said:

A month or so ago, I tried to book a return sailing for July.  Several attempts over a couple of days and each time when it came to actually book, the site 'timed out'.  I rang the booking line to book and queried if the site was having problems. 

No, no problems reported, but there must have been.  Never had a booking time out before. 

I had this problem and contacted them. They reverted promptly by email advising that the site doesn't "like" Samsung and some other browsers and that I should used a browser such as Chrome and they were aware and are intending to address the problem. Their advice worked though, booking by Chrome worked first time.

On 5/19/2024 at 9:12 PM, Hairy Poppins said:

You'd also have people demanding a bus service up and down every avenue and cul-de-sac on the island. "Onchan has a 20 minute service, why can't Dalby and the Grenaby have one?". The usual Granny Farming MHKs would be inundating DOI with questions and demands. 

This is entirely true, about 10 years ago there were alterations, some by as much as a whole 5 minutes to timetables around the Douglas area.

Old dears from Pully and Anagh Coar marched on their MHKs residences (mainly Cretney) with lit torches and IIRC, a lot of the amendments were promptly pulled or modified. 

6 hours ago, The Phantom said:

So what skills are Tynwald going to get?

Budgeting?

Project Management?

 

Crayon and felt-tip control.

On 5/7/2024 at 1:45 PM, Two-lane said:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/mhk-brands-public-sector-overpayments-breathtakingly-incompetent/

"Mr Wannenburgh said the errors were 'at best negligence, at worst a dereliction of duty'"

"Ms Lord-Brennan, whose department has responsibility for the Office of Human Resources, says such errors need to be fixed as soon as possible by those responsible:"

Lord-Brennan: "It is not my job as cabinet office minister".

I suppose there is a description of what her responsibilities are.

But wait.....there's more....!

1 hour ago, Numbnuts said:

Official merchandising is £23 this year and I agree with you it’s expensive . But that’s totally down to Governments Motorsport division and the Merchandiser. There’s really good T Shirts from local outlets at around £12 or so with great designs. Ohhhh , and for the record most Tshirts come from Asia or the likes of Turkey as that’s just the way it’s been for years.  

It may be cheaper than last year but hopefully it won't leave us with a £225k and counting headache...

Moorhouse digging into hospitality and airport parking matters too. Let's see what bullshit Crookall's minions invent and give him to answer in respect of the latter.

2 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Or they spend it on useful stuff like schools, hospitals, the emergency services and the like.

Or £100M ferry terminals, extra funding for promenades that don't remotely resemble what was planned and promised.

Or a lack of oversight that allows Dr's. to be belittled, leading to £3M payoffs. Not to mention the £100,000 legal expenses, including futile appeals.

Or gas powered vehicle fleets that can't be used here. Chewing gum removers. Huge payoffs for civil servants who have patently failed in their duties and responsibilities.

They are just the recent ones.

5 hours ago, Cambon said:

The dock is ready now. Steam packet isn’t . 

The Steamie have only just found out that the vessel that will primarily using the facility requires modification to allow it to do so, with further trials then to follow.

That's not the Steamie's fault, it's indicative of a lack of consultation and collaboration with the SPCo during the Dock project.

38 minutes ago, CallMeCurious said:

They've got to expand revenue to pay for a new town hall. Pretty soon they'll be badgering King Chaz for city status too.

Times must be tough as I've not seen any hanging baskets out yet or is that only tarting it up for TT? Or did they blow it spending two weeks washing the pavements?

The present town hall was constructed 1998 - 2002 and there was a big rates hike at the time to cover the cost of construction,I remember one contributor to letters in the local press saying Ramsey Rates were now a, "King's Ransom".

Still awaiting the 2023 accounts.....

24 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

They've been trying that one for some years now on many others here, and it hasn't worked so far...

...you might have heard of income tax. NI and VAT?

...in fact the more money they seem to get, they seem to manage to scale up the woes proportionally.

On 5/17/2024 at 7:48 PM, HeteroErectus said:

Probably belongs to a first floor Town Hall employee...

19 minutes ago, finlo said:

Trouble is they want the revenue from both, ie leave your car at home expensively taxed yet still expect us to use the busses.

Meaning that it boils down to the same thing and it ain't nowt to do with saving the planet, certainly as a priority.

It's primarily to do with funding fat-arse pensions that far too many didn't contribute to, basically. And the expensive pipe dreams of elected egos.

6 hours ago, Happier diner said:

The game changer would be lower prices and availability of charging points. More would be sold and then our under rated electricity infrastructure will bring it to a grinding halt.

You've perfectly encapsulated it yourself as to why the technology is ultimately impractical.

Hydrogen will be the way to go, or "something" that hasn't been uncovered yet.

It's amazing how inquisitive Chris Thomas becomes when he's not a (DOI) Minister ...

1 hour ago, Steve_Christian said:

But if you make bus travel free, perhaps a lot of people would sell their cars - less car tax. They’d certainly buy less petrol, less vat and tax on that - so it would put a bigger hole in the finances. 

However, it would be a move towards the much-vaunted saving of the environment which is what we're all supposed to be aiming for now.

So the solution would be for Govt to be less dependant on that revenue from petrol, vat and appropriate tax. But we all know what that would mean so it won't happen. 

The "planet" comes second best on IoM.

I thought recent stats had shown a big drop in the number of school-age kids, or is Peel bucking the trend?

And Alex foresees sunlit uplands for hard-pressed electricity consumers...

2 hours ago, Amadeus said:

The good type of tourism. Supercars are coming next week. As for cruise ships: living proof that all the climate change talk from Tynwald is hypocrisy. 

Will we be getting visits from the electric supercar clubs too?

On 5/15/2024 at 3:46 PM, Moghrey Mie said:

I think they said people hadn't been working on the de-carbonisation of transport strategy because they were involved with bringing the Gaia exhibition over to the island.

Over 13k visitors to Gaia apparently...any advance on 13k?

If there were to be any sort of investigation into this, it would almost undoubtedly prove that there had been a total lack of political and executive oversight and control of IL, largely because none of them had the balls to stand up to his ego and arrogance. However, some of these people will still be in post so we'll spare them any embarrassment and not have an investigation.

What will need to be looked at is the size and scale of the bus fleet to include the reputed <100 Merc minibuses scattered around the island, some of which never seem to turn a wheel if RCH area is anything to go by.

1 hour ago, Andy Onchan said:

Not just Longtail. It would have required someone from Treasury to have signed off on all of the above. I don't think it was just down to Longtail.

No, there was no Treasury or political oversight. This is a news report clipping from the post-election Budgetary promises of Alf in October 2021 where what had been going on in BV was laid bare. Nobody was properly monitoring or approving what Longworth was spending. A few months back during his DOI tenure, Chris Thomas tried to skirt his way around this too, I remember.

29 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Have they got some sort of medical condition?

Clearly not as serious as the psychological condition of one who sits in the Traf calling for the return of smoking in enclosed public areas and fantasising about David Ashford's political abilities (if not other fantasies about Ashford).

Britons were sold a pack of lies, pure and simple, in order to benefit a very small percentage of British society. They will be paying the costs for many years to come.

1 hour ago, woolley said:

Look, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I fear that some are in for a rude awakening.

Yes....Britain is experiencing it now.

The one question that my EU friends/rels repeatedly ask is, "Why did Britain do it? Why subject the country and economy to all the division and economic upheaval and grief, expense and extra administration?"

So I trotted out the standard reply of sovereignty, self-determination, independence, blue passports etc. All at any cost.

Their unvarying response is, "But we've still got ours while we're in the EU without all the misery". Then they start shaking their heads and laughing.

1 hour ago, Amadeus said:

https://consult.gov.im/infrastructure/review-of-the-bus-service/

Nice to see they don't even know where we are ( but are proud of wasting tons of money on shiny new Mercs): "Over the past decade Bus Vannin benefitted from a substantial capital investment in new buses, making the service one of the best in the UK. "

 

That reads like a precursor to a review of services (cuts) to everywhere outside of Willaston, Pully and Anagh Coar...

2 hours ago, woolley said:

Looking at events and speaking to people around Europe, I think the future of the EU is finite anyway. It probably has a lot more yesterdays than it has tomorrows.

I was in Europe a couple of weeks ago visiting friends and family (2 countries). They are quite happy to be in the EU and feel quite happy in its future.

Moreover, they regard the UK as a laughing stock following Brexit, in no uncertain terms. "Insular, backward and xenophobic" were just three of the adjectives used, this by people with close UK and family connections.