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Benedict

@carto-graph.bsky.social
100 followers 81 following 63 posts

fighting the long defeat | pro-abundance | law student, future barrister, linguist | 🏳️‍🌈 Writing at springbett.substack.com

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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
I’ve written an article for @worksinprogress.bsky.social about through running. It’s the most cost-effective way of upgrading railway lines in nearly all British cities. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-ma...
worksinprogress.co
The magic of through running - Works in Progress Magazine
Commuter trains often stop at the edge of cities. Building a short tunnel to join them up is often by far the most efficient way to improve a city's transport.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Seriously – Potsdam is well worth a day trip! The Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park is fun too.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
berghain
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Reposted by Benedict
Works in Progress @worksinprogress.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
1760: 🇫🇷25 million people 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿5.5 million 2025 🇫🇷68 million 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿56 million If France’s population growth had kept pace with England’s, there would be 250 million Frenchmen and another 320 million abroad. What happened? 🧵 www.worksinprogress.news/p/570-millio...
worksinprogress.news
570 million Frenchmen
France's decline coincided with a collapse in its birth rate – now we know why.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
The image of crusading lawyers arguing before political courts has to be replaced with a stereotype that the law is all deeply dull, exciting only to a few nerds.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
I’ve seen so many people saying that the Supreme Court are a bunch of TERFs. That’s not what happened. Instead, Parliament passed two Acts that weren’t easily reconciled, and the UKSC had to work out what the provisions meant.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
I’ve written a Substack post about why Leeds should have a tram-metro (aka a Stadtbahn), not just a tram. This is what Hannover has. Hannover is the same size as Leeds, and offers a compelling model for better public transport. open.substack.com/pub/springbe...
open.substack.com
Leeds doesn’t need a tram. It needs a tram-metro.
Street-running trams in the suburbs, tunnels under the centre.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
I don’t believe it would require any homes being destroyed; it’s mainly greenery on both sides of the line. The challenges would I think be rebuilding Earlsfield station and the road bridges.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
I think both of those are fair points! Streatham station is currently a bit of a pain given the issues with the Wimbledon Loop but I have a plan to fix that…
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
I’ve previously written about how we should descope Crossrail 2, so it no longer serves Chelsea and Hackney. This will enable it to be built more cheaply. www.greaterlondon.co/p/crossrail-... But there is still a need to connect Chelsea and Hackney (and various other places!) to the Tube network.
greaterlondon.co
Crossrail 2.0 - a how-to guide
What would it take to build another Elizabeth Line?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
I’ve got my crayons out, and have proposed a new Tube line: the Chelsea–Hackney Line. open.substack.com/pub/springbe...
open.substack.com
The Chelsea–Hackney Tube Line
A new Tube line to fill in the gaps in the London Underground network
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Am I correct in thinking it just wasn’t allowing presale signups for the European shows?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Isn’t a citizen’s arrest warrant a contradiction?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
If you’re referring to the same video I saw – they didn’t even successfully apprehend them! Truly remarkable.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Thanks! I hadn’t realised you had invented the term: could you pop me a link to wherever you first used it so I can credit you with it?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
you started a music PhD?! man of mystery
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Didn’t have the MASSIVE PLANT back then!
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
I’d go with /ˌɔːxənˈrɒx/, but I’d imagine some Scots (and most English) would go with /ˌɔːkənˈrɒk/.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
That’s not the argument I’m making. I’m saying that as a matter of law, we are not bound by the ICJ. That is of course a separate question from the moral and strategic arguments. But we shouldn’t pretend that we are in any legal sense ‘required’ to hand back the Chagos Islands.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
The ICJ opinion was advisory. It’s not legally binding unless all parties consent to be bound by the Court’s decision. You can disagree with the consent requirement, of course, but that’s what the rules are. As a matter of law it’s just wrong to say that Britain ‘has’ to give up the Chagos Islands.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Did you also do the last verse? “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, “And here comes a chopper to chop off your head! “Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead”
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
In an ideal world we’d have built Boris Island, but that idea is dead in the water so Heathrow it is.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
I’m convinced Arab Sheikhs see litigation (and disputes more generally) as a hobby. At least it makes plenty of money for the commercial Bar!
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
I’m sorry but this just sounds like an offcut lyric from either ‘The Best Day’ or ‘Never Grow Up’.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
If you went to uni, 1. What was your career goal when you started? 2. Your initial program? 3. If you changed programs, what did you change to? 4. What do you do now? 1. Something in politics or IR 2. Arabic & Hebrew 3. Linguistics while I as at university, and later law 4. Studying for the Bar
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Marc Andreessen sat on a wall Marc Andreessen had a great fall All of Trump’s forces and all of Trump’s men Couldn’t make America build again
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Reposted by Benedict
John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 19/01/2025
I suppose of the TikTok ban, one has to ask: would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can scroll as well as boys—scrolling this app? Is it an app you would have lying around your own house? Is it an app that you would even wish your wife or your servants to scroll?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Just a tad
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Nice shorts
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Keir Starmer. He told us how proud he was to have stopped the CPS prosecuting people who took their relatives abroad for assisted dying…
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Glad you’re using the diplomatically proper name
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Reposted by Benedict
Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Wien Hauptbahnhof, a project several orders of magnitude more complex than Brent Cross West Station, cost some €900 million. There is really something off with infrastructure construction in the UK...
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
I think I once saw Gareth Dennis say something about building underpasses can weaken the permanent way? Or something like that?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Why do we insist on using overbridges rather than underpasses? Every eurocountry I’ve been to has barely any over bridges whereas they’re really common in Britain.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
In my old job they canvassed us about names for three meeting rooms. One guy suggested ‘Harry Ron Hermione’ and as an alternative three characters from Star Wars (which I’ve never seen, so can’t remember who they were). I blame Millennials.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
Eugh, quite apart from everything else, that’s the sort of thing you do to primary school classes.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
He’s never seen it before?! Philistine! pls show him the extended edition of RotK, he can’t miss the Mouth of Sauron
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Wouldn’t say that’s philosophically unLibertarian. Libertarianism advocates for strong property rights, but doesn’t have a fixed position on what should go in the bundle of rights. So a long lease from the state is not necessarily objectionable, so long as it’s honoured!
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
It’s also wrong, isn’t it? Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings are all in East Sussex but are served by Southern not Southeastern. And Surrey doesn’t get a look-in.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
maybe that’ll be the next Wallace and Gromit film Wallace accidentally becomes a Roderick Spode-type figure Gromit saves the day
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
The apotheosis of our culture. Should be on the citizenship test.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
They’re trying to run an immensely complicated set of service patterns at really high frequencies. It was never going to be possible to run a reliable service. They need to dedicate the core to a high frequency Croydon – St Albans/Stevenage service, and terminate the stoppers at Blackfriars.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Very slay, when will you be moving?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
nooooo
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Are there any theories as to why it, at least, was true at some point?
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
That’s surprising: I’d expect A Levels to correlate better than GCSEs.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Make of this what you will.
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
The fact there’s a street in the City called Little Britain never fails to tickle me
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
I think it’s worth spending money on good architecture, something the Victoria Line and original Jubilee Line most certainly do not have…
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Benedict @carto-graph.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Surprised to learn song ‘APT.’ (ROSÉ and Bruno Mars, 2024) does not refer to the Advanced Passenger Train (British Rail feat. Queasy Rider, 1981)
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