^^^ One of the most noticeable differences in day-to-day life is the deterioration in the quality of service one receives virtually across the board. At first, I thought maybe it was just my wife's and I's version of "what is this younger generation coming to." That is a theme that seems to persist and is passed down from generation to generation. Yet lately, the more I talk with all sorts of people on the subject, the more the same theme emerges. A couple of causes that I think are in play:
1) Worker alienation. This affects worker morale and thus the incentive to provide excellent service.
2) The proliferation of phone tree answering services that seek to provide answers to inquiries without having a live person involved. They seem to be invariably poorly designed, meaning that you feel compelled to wade through them only to finally make your way to a live operator. To add insult to injury, when you think your problem has been resolved, you find out later that it is still an unresolved issue. The live operator turns out not to have resolved the problem after all. Meaning that you have to go back to square one and start all over
This is all getting to be as predictable as the rising of the sun.
Re: Modern History (1800 – present)
Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2024 1:38 pm
by Time_Traveller
Jack the Ripper police serial killer file found with photos and letters after 136 years
12:16, 16 Mar 2024
A Jack the Ripper police file has been found after 136 years by the great-grandson of a detective who investigated the case.
The archive has two photographs of Michael Ostrog, an early suspect for the Victorian serial killer and the only copy in existence of the so-called Saucy Jack postcard the Ripper purportedly sent to the police to taunt them. The original postcard is long-lost, making this facsimile copy the only one.
The archive also contains a copy of the 'Dear Boss' letter, a chilling note sent by the murderer to the police which he signed off as 'Jack the Ripper', which was the first time the name was referenced.
The murderer boasted about killing his female victims and warned police that his knife was 'still nice and sharp'. The original letter is held in the National Archives at Kew and there are only a few copies of it around. And there is a grim photograph of the body of Ripper victim Mary Ann Nichols in the morgue.
The file was kept by Inspector Joseph Henry Helson who was serving in the Metropolitan Police when the infamous serial killer murdered five women in Whitechapel in 1888. He worked on the murder of Nichols, an East End prostitute who was the Ripper's first victim.
One of the worst disasters in post-war British history.
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Aberfan disaster
The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.
There were seven spoil tips on the hills above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was started in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was 111 feet (34 m) high. In contravention of the NCB's procedures, the tip was partly based on ground from which springs emerged. After three weeks of heavy rain the tip was saturated and approximately 140,000 cubic yards (110,000 m3) of spoil slipped down the side of the hill and onto the Pantglas area of the village. The main building hit was the local junior school, where lessons had just begun; 5 teachers and 109 children were killed.
An official inquiry was chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies. The report placed the blame squarely on the NCB. The organisation's chairman, Lord Robens, was criticised for making misleading statements and for not providing clarity as to the NCB's knowledge of the presence of water springs on the hillside. Neither the NCB nor any of its employees were prosecuted and the organisation was not fined.
The Aberfan Disaster Memorial Fund (ADMF) was established on the day of the disaster. It received nearly 88,000 contributions, totalling £1.75 million. The remaining tips were removed only after a lengthy fight by Aberfan residents against resistance from the NCB and the government on the grounds of cost. The site's clearance was paid for by a government grant and a forced contribution of £150,000 taken from the memorial fund. In 1997 the British government paid back the £150,000 to the ADMF, and in 2007 the Welsh Government donated £1.5 million to the fund and £500,000 to the Aberfan Education Charity as recompense for the money wrongly taken. Many of the village's residents developed medical problems as a result of the disaster, and half the survivors have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at some time in their lives.
Sagrada Familia in Barcelona ‘will be completed in 2026’
Mon 25 Mar 2024 05.00 GMT
Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica has a new completion date of 2026, which will come 144 years after the first stone was laid.
The president of the organisation tasked with completing Antoni Gaudí’s masterwork announced the date last Wednesday, which coincides with the centenary of the death of the building’s architect.
Esteve Camps said they had the money and material to finish the building, including the 172.5-metre central tower dedicated to Jesus Christ, making the Sagrada Familia Barcelona’s tallest building.
Although the building is set to be complete by 2026, work on sculptures and decorative details and, above all, the controversial stairway leading to what will eventually be the main entrance, is expected to continue until 2034.
When work began in 1882 the site was open farmland but in the intervening years the city has grown up around the church. The stairway, which would extend across two large city blocks, would involve dislodging about 1,000 families and businesses.
