So you don't think it's a useful piece of information to keep track of?
With the growing levels of inactivity and obesity in children, I would have thought the decline in garden space is something we should try to reverse.
No well paid graduate would have produced this drivel but they would have instigated it. It would have needed authorisation from on high and budgets made before the go-ahead would be granted.
Then a team of grossly overpaid consultants at taxpayers expense to spend months collecting and analysing data.
At all times no-one questioned the necessity of this report.
Next week, there's a report out proving the sky is not blue, it's just a result of refracted light. But we need to be officially told.
I want a job in that department; I have some interesting theories about bears and the Pope which need a lavishly funded study, with plenty of lunch meetings.
Joseph K.
The only way to reduce the number of properties without gardens is to reduce the number of flats being built.
Considering that a plot of land in Docklands for a single home can now sell for millions, the only option is to build flats.
Anyhow, I would be more interested in knowing how many of the garden-less properties have children/families or feel deprived from not having a garden.
I live in a block of flats, and actually don't want a garden (far too much hassle) and am very happy with a balcony and a fantastic view over the city.
I'm still trying to visualise a large detached house that doesn't have a garden...
Some sort of warping of the space-fabric might do it, I suppose. Or having the house sited on a large roundabout?
"Isn't there something more useful they could do?"
For god's sake, Bystander, don't say that! Our one hope is that the countless echelons of cosy state-funded bureaucrats will spend their time doing precisely nothing useful. If you stir them up to do 'something useful', imagine what damage they could wreak on your courtroom...
"..I'm still trying to visualise a large detached house that doesn't have a garden..."
disgruntled
Try many of the large detatched homes in inner London, or any big city....
Yes, there is something useful they could do, which would prevent the chaos in the courtroom which Dodgy Geezer suggests might occur.
The authors should go to the top floor of a Defra Building - the Rural payments Agency building in Reading is several stories tall.
Without attaching any ropes or safety equipment, they should walk to the edge, climb over the safety barrier and perch precariously at the edge, ensuring there is no ledge or protuberance below on which they might break any fall.
They should then lean forwards, ensuring that their personal centre of gravity is over the edge.
The rest as they say, could be history.
If one is worried about people living in flats being obese, you could start by disabling the lifts. Nothing like having to climb 4 of 5 flights of stairs several times per day to get the blood pumping, especially with shopping.
My parents don't have much of yard, and they replaced most of it with a swimming pool. Does algae floating on the top during winter count as a "garden"?
I'm surprised so many flats have gardens, actually. I've only seen a few, usually very high-class flats in enormous converted houses in hugely expensive areas of Nottingham.
I would like to nominate this piece of research for an Ignobel Prize, the award given to spectacularly useless and obvious research findings.
To quote from the BBC website
The much-coveted spoof prizes are said to reward scientific achievements which "cannot, or should not, be reproduced"; achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think".
See also http://improbable.com/ig/
This is similar to the University study that found that those who injure themselves and then swear are easing the pain!
Did they count window boxes, Or would that make a mockery of the figures?
@disgruntled
I'm still trying to visualise a large detached house that doesn't have a garden...
The local council that rules the roost in these parts gave the ok for a developer to build 14, that's 14, detached houses on a plot of land that was once the site of a petrol station. These monstrosities are all 3 stories high with not a blade of grass or any kind of plant in sight. By the way, I don't live in London or a large city, this is a small market town out in the boondocks.
Why don't these grads examine ways in which gardens can be used to promote honeybee growth instead? That would be useful considering the massive recent decline of this important species.
The purpose of the report was to look into the phenomenon and effect of "garden grabbing" by developers and householders desperate to make a fast buck by sacrificing some of their land.
Given the serious impact that can have on the quality of the environment we all have to live in (unless you are lucky enough to have your own secluded private estate) surely that is worth investigating.
The facts which Bystander quotes so disparagingly are necessary incidentals to what seems to me to be a worthwhile bit of research.
I should imagine those houses without gardens are such, because they have put in swimming pools in place of grass - bet there was no mention of those statistics in this full and "ground breaking" report!
Errrrrm, What's your point BS?
That the journos should spend more time writing about what a good job the mags do of keeping nasty people of off the streets?
Whilst it is a truly lightweight piece of journalism (for the Torygraph at least) I don't understand why you are getting so worked up.
Go and sit in your garden and chill out!
That should of course read "off of"...
Or just "off".
What are the grammatical rules relating to such sentences ("get off there" / "get off of there")?
(Is it OK to talk about 'sentencing'?)
Thanks Bystander...that made me smile! A job where you're paid to state the obvious! Pah. It might be obvious to you and me (and all the other authors of the comments above mine) but to some, this is probably big news and interesting reading...
No?
@Hibbo
I expect the specific rules that apply there relate to conjunctions, between the verb ("keep X off Y") and the secondary object ("the streets"). Some dialects of English would insert "of", including some Northern ones (there are probably others), but the standardised dialect, aka "Queen's English", does not.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, some of the things that happen in speaking are:
* communicate ideas accurately
* giving indications of the speaker's background and capabilities
People will draw (typically adverse) conclusions about the speaker if they use non-Queen's English forms, even if the speaker has achieved the first point.
What is it about 'off-topic' that nobody seems to get here?
Oh, all right then, he said with a light laugh.
Mr. Grumpy (aka ed. (i.e. not Ed, for the hard of thinking))
Come on Bystander (not Ed), how can sentencing not be within to topic of a magistrate's blog?
Nice try, Hibbo. Wrong kind of sentence though, as I suspect you know.
"For god's sake, Bystander, don't say that! Our one hope is that the countless echelons of cosy state-funded bureaucrats will spend their time doing precisely nothing useful. If you stir them up to do 'something useful', imagine what damage they could wreak on your courtroom..." Dodgy Geezer sent that...
They are already doing it in our court rooms. They are called the OCJR (Office of Criminal Justice Reform.) Complete waste of money dreamimg up all sorts of hair brained schemes with no idea how they will be implemented or paid for. And hardly any of them have actually been inside a magistrates' court anyway!
We could save all the money in the court system we need by getting rid of that lot in one fell swoop. Then probation wouldn't have to be making cuts of 15% plus and could do the job they are supposed to be doing particularly monitoring the dangerous offenders that are out there walking the streets.
Re Dodgy Geezer (2007-13-09@1136)
You are right of course, a major "raison d'etre" of bureaucracy seems to be to make bureaucrats feel useful no matter how insignificant their contribution; that is to ensure that those intelligent and well-educated people do not use their education brains and ability to start thinking too deeply about what is really wrong with society, and how to put it right.
Another form of social control.
Michael
@Michael
I assume that in contrast, your education, brains and ability HAVE thought deeply about what is really wrong, and figured how to put it right?
As someone (not a graduate and not terribly well-paid, even though I am relatively senior to many in the civil service) who has commissioned, managed the research projects for, and even on occasion contributed to reports like the one currently disparaged, can I assure everyone that there is usually some good reason for the work being done.
It is rarely headline-grabbing stuff, and is certainly arcane - too tedious and technical for most of the Youtube and Daily Mail brigade who can only get their heads around Big Issues without understanding the myriad of smaller issues that go to make up the big stuff. But such is the nature of government (with a small g) in a complex, socially-responsible, mature democracy in a heavily-populated, multicultural island.
I gave one reason for this particular research project earlier in the thread. Another one which (without having read the report) which might be touched on, is the effect of building on land which is likely to be predominantly soil or lawn which is then no longer able to soak up rainwater. Tell the many thousands of people who were affected by the floods over the last two summers that this sort of detail is unimportant.
The moving media raves; and, having raved,
Moves on: nor all your Knowledge nor Experience
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Sneer,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Smear of it
(with deep, insincere apologies to both Khayyam and Fitzgerald)
Hibbo: Off of has been used in good English for centuries: instances may be found in Shakespeare, Pepys, Bunyan, and Steele, among others. More modern British English tends to avoid it in writing, but it is still found in speech. In American use it is perfectly standard, like American in back of (British behind) and shared in front of.
I stand by my comment of 07.14.09 - 2:40pm. Colonials may do things differently. Standardised English does not use "off of".
Ed - indeed.
Most of the time I hear "off of", it makes me cringe. The speaker (or writer) usually intends "from", as in "She took the biscuit off of him" "I got permission off of the teacher".
Why use five letters and a space when four will suffice, and much more elegantly, too ?
Elegance is a subjective thing. I have finally accepted that flogging people who use poor grammar is wrong, but I am still in favour of heavy fines or imprisonment.
Re Ed (not Bystander) 2009-07-15@1728
Yes, you are absolutely right: my "education, brains and ability HAVE thought deeply about what is really wrong, and figured how to put it right"
Even as we speak, things are happening.
Be good, take care,
Michael
@Michael (so good he names himself twice)
I am trembling with both fear and anticipation. How intoxicating.
Re Ed (not Bystander)07.19.2009@2040
You have nothing to fear, unless you are guilty (and even then, given the current state of "justice" nothing much is likely to happen to you).
Just don't drive, or operate machinery, while the intoxication lasts.
Michael
Yawn.
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