comment re rosemary tonks article

All things break, even things that once were coherent, coherence is beauty … and just as beauty… also fades. Sad to imagine her mind, so washed into the sway, of a paltry dire fiction, not her own. But we must not greave those brought back to the earth, by the gravity of their lives, in comparison with those who escaping, defy such bonds forever… such persons are rare and abnormal.

Mac such a heavily closed platform

This was an issue 2010 and it’s a worse an more urgent issue in 2015.

BBC still trying to defend beeching
1: Beeching could have mothballed the lines and stations, retained ownership of land and stations instead he expensively and deliberately destroyed them. Making the future re-instatement
And re-use of said axed infrastructure, cost astronomically more in the future privatised prices to rebuild from scratch.
2: He was from ICI, and merely applied the bean counting he learnt in chemicals industry to infrastructure, not an equivalent commodity in any sense, one can reorder chemicals into a warehouse pretty quickly, one cannot get railways back into stock that have have been expensively destroyed.
3: The cost saving and boastful proclamation of a return to profitability never occurred, in fact subsidy went up and up and even exists post privatisation, thereby making the cuts seem more pointless. also it’s not totally vital to make a profit on public infrastructure, that’s partly what taxes should be for?
4: He and his report was used as a convenient scapegoat by successive governments, to cut useful public infrastructure. Really no Englishman should have been found to entrench the governments preset agenda on railway closures.
5: the final truth was that the hand and money of the road building lobby and the car industry was largely behind beechings axe in the rail network, Beeching had to be selected from the chemical industry, as to come directly from the car industry would have been to obvious – though mcalpine had connections etc. and they’re dream of us fitting in with the ‘American car model’ thereby the branch line was set for extinction, as we can’t have small towns not congested with car traffic can we? And where do small towns with visitors which used to have a railway line, put all those cars ? Car parks.

Beeching or otherwise it never makes sense to throwaway and pay to destroy “public” infrastructure, that may become useful in the future with new technology, the same might be said of the coal mines also.

You the bbc were also complicit in playing beechings cause / ideology to the public, no BBC . . . you can’t make Beechings legacy acceptable palatable and you never will, no matter how hard and for whatever reasons you try.

A great series worth seeing as its trans national selective theme, shows how one river touches so many people, It comes to no strong conclusion as concerns the river projects, except to say the right thing – which is that – obviously a beneficial balance must be struck between progress the river and it environs and those people who depend on it.

I tend not to like programs that put the presenters name in the title, but at least you know what your getting, not that I wish to perceive any person as the brand or commodity for sale or to promote, as thats not my english cup of tea, this program isn’t about Sue Perkins, its about the Mekong, and Sue does a very serviceable job of representing the river and its various peoples to the viewer, her ideally suited personality to interact with the various peoples met, mild humour and simultaneous humility goes a long way in this respect.

This is a program worth watching – whilst its on iplayer to do so. I think Sue has proven herself worthy of perhaps a few more adventures, if she has the energy for it. episode one link below.

The Mekong River with Sue Perkins

Hopefully when the follow up program is made in 15 years time when Sue is older, this current mekong story will not be a record of disaster and loss.