All posts tagged: town

IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd on aliens, returning to a ‘broke’ and ‘down’ London, and his new show Small Town, Big Story | Ents & Arts News

IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd on aliens, returning to a ‘broke’ and ‘down’ London, and his new show Small Town, Big Story | Ents & Arts News

Published by skeptic

Actor and comedian Chris O’Dowd has described moving back to London from the US, finding people in the city are “down” after a decade of cutbacks. The IT Crowd star returned to London from Los Angeles with his wife Dawn O’Porter and their two children a year ago. “It’s just gone through 10 years of austerity, and you can feel it off it,” he told Sky News. “People are down, is the impression I’m getting. I don’t know if it’s because of the divisive political culture or whether it’s because people are broke as s**t because they haven’t put any money into public services for so long, and now they’ve said they’re not going to do it either because they’re not going to raise taxes, so I don’t know what they’re going to do. But everybody is… it would be hard to say it’s improved.” Asked if he sensed any optimism that things would change for the better, he replied: “Not yet.” O’Dowd said the decision to return to the UK “wasn’t because Trump got …

Six Dollar Marble Sculpture Could Earn Millions to Scottish Town

Six Dollar Marble Sculpture Could Earn Millions to Scottish Town

Published by skeptic

Invergordon, a small town in central Scotland, could see its coffers filled following a decision by county committee to sell a marble bust made by the French artist Edmé Bouchardon in 1728 that, a quarter of a century ago, was propping open the door of a storage shed. The bust, which was bought for roughly $6.31 in 1930, could fetch more than $3 million through a private sale brokered by Sotheby’s, which appraised the sculpture at the request of the local government last year.  While the sculpture was originally purchased for display, a series of mysterious events led to it be placed in a storage shed “with other discarded council paraphernalia.” Former Invergordon community councilor Maxine Smith, who now serves on the broader governmental body the Highland council, told the Guardian last October that she found the bust while digging around the shed for a set of ceremonial robes that had gone missing. Related Articles “I found the robes…” she said “and also a wee white marble sculpture thing holding open the door. It could have been binned quite …

Explore Burj Al Babas, Turkey’s Abandoned Town of 587 Disney-Style Castles

Explore Burj Al Babas, Turkey’s Abandoned Town of 587 Disney-Style Castles

Published by José

Burj Al Babas might have been con­struct­ed express­ly to attract the atten­tion of the inter­net. “Sit­ting near the Black Sea, the town is full of half-fin­ished, ful­ly aban­doned mini cas­tles — 587 of them to be exact,” write Archi­tec­tur­al Digest’s Kather­ine McLaugh­lin and Jes­si­ca Chern­er. Orig­i­nal­ly “planned as a lux­u­ri­ous, state­ly urban devel­op­ment offer­ing the look of roy­al liv­ing for any­one will­ing to shell out any­where from $370,000 to $500,000 for their own lit­tle palace,” it now stands as an unfin­ished ghost town. And though the project only broke ground a decade ago, it’s already set­tled into a ver­i­ta­bly eerie — and high­ly pho­tograph­able — state of decay. This, of course, more than suits the sen­si­bil­i­ties of an adven­ture-ori­ent­ed YouTube chan­nel like Fear­less & Far. Its explo­ration of Burj Al Babas — one of sev­er­al such videos cur­rent­ly avail­able — offers on-the-ground views of what we can only call the town’s ruins. “This fan­ta­sy par­adise land did­n’t sell,” says its host. “Some blame the Turk­ish real estate cri­sis; some blame the kitsch­i­ness of it all. …

Beautiful Lake District town ‘ruined’ by rude tourists | UK | News

Beautiful Lake District town ‘ruined’ by rude tourists | UK | News

Published by skeptic

The Lake District is increasingly overwhelmed by visitors who show little respect for the natural environment and treat it like a party spot, a lifelong resident has claimed. Tourism has always been a part of life on the banks of Lake Windermere. However, the impact of holidaymakers in the past few years has become so extreme it is irreparably changing the place and pushing locals out, according to local Keysia Mattocks. Born and raised in the national park renowned for its extraordinary beauty, Mattocks faces the prospect of being forced out of her hometown because of a tourist-induced housing crisis. “Me and my wife have been renting [our] house for seven years now, [but] the landlord is selling up and trying to find a house around here that will accept three cats is impossible,” she told the Express. “The places available are like six-month winter lets because they are holiday cottages in the summertime or peak time. “We were looking at [these properties] in desperation, but others were viewing it after us so it must …

‘We all get on well’: the town in England where cattle roam free | Animals

‘We all get on well’: the town in England where cattle roam free | Animals

Published by skeptic

A bright afternoon on Minchinhampton common in Gloucestershire. Ramblers, golfers, fliers of kites and model aircraft were enjoying the midsummer sun – and the sight of the Highland cattle roaming freely. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” said Mary Griffiths, who was searching for bee orchids in the knee-high grass, careful to dodge the hooves of a nearby group of cattle. “You learn to live alongside them. If you don’t disturb them, they don’t disturb you. It’s a matter of using common sense. If there are calves around, you have to be extra careful but they don’t cause a problem.” Cows, particularly calves, have been in the headlines after a Surrey police car rammed a 10-month-old escaped calf called Beau Lucy on a residential street in Staines-upon-Thames. Footage of the incident caused outrage, with the RSPCA calling the tactic “disproportionate” and the wildlife presenter and conservationist Chris Packham asking: “What sort of monster rams a calf?” James Cleverly, the home secretary, asked for a “full, urgent explanation” saying it seemed “unnecessarily heavy-handed”. “It was a silly thing …

Nigel Farage hopes this Brexit town will finally elect him to Parliament

Nigel Farage hopes this Brexit town will finally elect him to Parliament

Published by Sam

CLACTON-ON-SEA, England — This is a little Brexit town, straining against stubborn poverty, alarmed by rising immigration. It’s a faded seaside resort filled with empty arcades and shuttered shops. Ask the locals to describe their home and they often use the word “forgotten,” or an expletive. Clacton posted one of the highest “leave” votes in the 2016 Brexit referendum. About 70 percent of people here wanted to get out of the European Union and “take back control” of their laws and borders. Their member of Parliament then was a co-founder of the Vote Leave campaign. And now, the biggest Brexiteer of them all, super-disruptor Nigel Farage, is running to represent this slice of eastern England, promising to make himself a “bloody nuisance” in Westminster if he wins. Farage appears to have a decent shot in his eighth attempt to become a British lawmaker. (He was elected four times to the European Parliament in Brussels, which he said he loathed.) GET CAUGHT UP Stories to keep you informed As before, right-wing populist Farage is focusing on …

‘We’ve all got to mobilise against the far right’: inside a French town that voted for Le Pen | France

‘We’ve all got to mobilise against the far right’: inside a French town that voted for Le Pen | France

Published by skeptic

“Everyone is in total shock,” said Baptiste Lopata, a radiologist, sitting in his trade union office in the small northern French town of Soissons. “Now we’ve all got to mobilise against the far right.” When Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, far-right National Rally (RN) won a historic victory in the European elections on Sunday night, its highest scores were here, in the north-eastern département of l’Aisne, where it won over 50%, and even 60% in some rural villages, compared with a 31% score nationwide. The far right’s huge success was expected in this heartland area which is ageing, underpopulated, has higher than average unemployment and poverty and a history of factory closures. Instead, the real shock was Emmanuel Macron’s sudden decision to dissolve parliament and call a snap election. Two years ago, Lopata’s area of Soissons elected an RN member of parliament, José Beaurain, a professional piano tuner who was the French national assembly’s first blind MP since the war. Residents now feel that a snap election with the far right on an upwards trend could …

Glamour to ghost town: the fate of one Cypriot beach resort – in pictures | Art and design

Glamour to ghost town: the fate of one Cypriot beach resort – in pictures | Art and design

Published by skeptic

Once a glamorous destination that attracted the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Abba, the Cypriot resort of Varosha was abandoned on 14 August 1974 when Turkey invaded. For 50 years, the town has been deserted, but in 2020 it was opened up to tourists. British-Cypriot writer and editor Alex Christofi and his father were some of the first people to be granted admission, while Alex was researching his new book on the history of Cyprus. “I felt quite dissociated as it was difficult to process what I was seeing,” he says. “There was almost no one else there. With the rope barriers, it felt as if I were touring the set of a film about a disaster that had wiped out humanity. There is something deeply melancholy about what remains.” Source link