I have spent Christmas alone in 2009 deliberately albeit not in the way I intended it to be. I have done it before back in 2006 and but then it was unintended. So in 65 years, just 2 Christmases on my own; not a bad record I suspect
2009? Yeah well, I was gonna be busy packing for West Africa on Dec 29th and anyway the kids were gonna be elsewhere. The bloody rash on my body has got in the way. 2006 was going to be an African Safari but I tripped on the stairs and broke a rib. But that led to happiness for I then did the big safari in 2008. Might never have bothered if 2006 had gone well.
In reality, I simply don’t live alone at Christmas for I am lucky. I get a spate of phone calls; I chat to my children and my family. I get text messages and Facebook messages from around this planet. I simply don’t feel alone and for that I guess I am lucky. When I went to Malaysia for Christmas some years ago, I managed to rack up 1,500 quid in phone calls, outgoing and incoming.
The Times reports today that half a million people spent Christmas Day alone but how do they define it? Yes I was the only person in this house but note the communications above for I never felt alone. Then we get the observation that half the over-65’s say that television is their main company. Well that’s really bloody sad for our 5 terrestrial channels are consummate shite. If they were all I had to depend upon then it would be suicide tomorrow.
I am quite happy with my own company and you are free to put your own interpretation on that. I talk to myself quite a lot; it’s my way of mulling things over, getting things clear etc. My lovely secretary of 11 years, Linda, never got quite used to it. I’d be at my desk muttering and she’d pop her head round the door and ask if I wanted something. I’d just say I was talking to myself and she’d say, ‘OK.’
Right now, I don’t know what it must feel like to be alone. I just hope that I never shall.
Thursday 31 December 2009
Kitchen knives
Essential culinary tools here. Bought a new set of 5 yesterday, well discounted. Well I have a set of 6 kitchen knives already + a superb cook’s knife which I have owned for 20 years or so.
So why buy more? If you cook, you would know why. Firstly the ones that I have, the set that is, are a bit on the light side. They all have serrated edges and are two riveted which means the tang only goes half way down the handle. Quite honestly, I was never happy with them. When I bought them, it was said they never needed sharpening. Rubbish. When I bought an electric knife sharpener their performance improved overnight.
The new ones are fine. Full length tang and 3 rivets. Plus a proper bolster which leads me to believe they are one piece forged steel. The grain marks on the blades add to that conclusion. They have good weight and balance too so I’ll see how we get along.
Elsewhere in this house, I have a boning knife which I bought several years ago. This too is a full length knife with a three rivet handle. It says the cutting edge is formed of tungsten carbide and will never need sharpening. So far it hasn’t.
Finally I have a Chinese cleaver and this is the only kitchen ‘knife’ I own that has a metal handle. Looks to be a single piece of steel and does its job well.
So why buy more? If you cook, you would know why. Firstly the ones that I have, the set that is, are a bit on the light side. They all have serrated edges and are two riveted which means the tang only goes half way down the handle. Quite honestly, I was never happy with them. When I bought them, it was said they never needed sharpening. Rubbish. When I bought an electric knife sharpener their performance improved overnight.
The new ones are fine. Full length tang and 3 rivets. Plus a proper bolster which leads me to believe they are one piece forged steel. The grain marks on the blades add to that conclusion. They have good weight and balance too so I’ll see how we get along.
Elsewhere in this house, I have a boning knife which I bought several years ago. This too is a full length knife with a three rivet handle. It says the cutting edge is formed of tungsten carbide and will never need sharpening. So far it hasn’t.
Finally I have a Chinese cleaver and this is the only kitchen ‘knife’ I own that has a metal handle. Looks to be a single piece of steel and does its job well.
Foreign secretaries
All governments have someone who is responsible for relationships with foreign countries. Ours is called the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; today it is a bloke of the name Ed Miliband – pleasant but looks dreadfully inexperienced. The USA simply calls the job ‘Secretary of State’ and the current holder of that title is the redoubtable Hillary Clinton. There has been comment that Hillary and Ed get along very well even hints that there might be a sexual chemistry between them. Cannot say that I am surprised. Ed’s a pretty boy and so was Bill Clinton so she’d fancy him.
The European Union picked a woman, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to be its first ‘High Representative for Foreign Affairs’ back in November. None of us knew her and when you read up on her you understand that she has bugger all experience of most other countries. Oh yes, she may have been to conferences in 5 star hotels in Rio or Vladivostok but what is her sense of history? As I said about impotent chiefs earlier, just another time waster elected on the basis of ‘won’t cause trouble.’
We had a Labour guy, David Owen in this job in the late 70’s, doctor of medicine. And he went to Iran to meet the Shah. All I recall is that after he left, the Shah asked those around him, ‘Is he any good as a doctor?’ Says it all doesn’t it.
And then you have two towering figures in this job – Molotov and Kissinger. Molotov is a distant figure to me but he survived under Stalin and brokered many deals. Kissinger? Dunno how history would judge him but he always seemed to have some common sense. Like so many others he really didn’t achieve much in Vietnam. He fought tirelessly for peace in the Middle East but then he would do for he is of Jewish origins. Not sure of his interaction with Anwar Sadat but I imagine that it was positive.
I dare say that I have visited more countries than most of these buggers and I would say that I have a fair knowledge of history. Does that qualify me for the post of Foreign Secretary? ‘Yes and No,’ is my conclusion. You can draw your own. ‘Yes,’ I guess because I have knowledge of these places and their history. ‘No,’ because I cannot help feeling involved in them and that would discount me on the grounds of being subjective. On balance, it is a ‘No.’
But we do need clear and firm people in this job and in Britain at least, we have certainly failed to choose such people. Who the hell remembers Francis Pym? I have talked much on appeasement before and our lot seem hell bent on it. Let’s face it, if anyone had suggested the conquest of India to the Foreign Office, they would have said, ‘Oh dear, no.’ But no one asked the East India Company that question and they just went ahead with it.
I suppose if you are not the head of state or prime minister, then the most coveted post is to be the head of foreign affairs. You don’t have to worry about the home economy, home affairs, business, trade or pretty much anything that affects the everyday lives of the people who elected you and your government. No, all you have to do is travel to conferences much warmer than the UK in winter, call in the odd ambassador and bollock him for locking up some Brit who had 5kg of cocaine in his bowels, make the odd statement like ‘condemn’ or ‘deplore,’ or ‘deeply shocked,’ and so on and so on. And of course, if anything unexpected happens as it did for Peter Carrington in the Falklands invasion, you can put it all down to ‘poor intelligence.’ You’ll look good though straddling the world stage.
But Mr Miliband, on my next trip, to West Africa, your lot say I should not go to Timbuktu cus I might get killed. What are you or Hillary or any other bugger doing about that? And what about the starving people in this world? Not your problem, I suspect. That will be down to some department of International Development or whatever. I guess giving support to wogs is someone else’s business.
The European Union picked a woman, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to be its first ‘High Representative for Foreign Affairs’ back in November. None of us knew her and when you read up on her you understand that she has bugger all experience of most other countries. Oh yes, she may have been to conferences in 5 star hotels in Rio or Vladivostok but what is her sense of history? As I said about impotent chiefs earlier, just another time waster elected on the basis of ‘won’t cause trouble.’
We had a Labour guy, David Owen in this job in the late 70’s, doctor of medicine. And he went to Iran to meet the Shah. All I recall is that after he left, the Shah asked those around him, ‘Is he any good as a doctor?’ Says it all doesn’t it.
And then you have two towering figures in this job – Molotov and Kissinger. Molotov is a distant figure to me but he survived under Stalin and brokered many deals. Kissinger? Dunno how history would judge him but he always seemed to have some common sense. Like so many others he really didn’t achieve much in Vietnam. He fought tirelessly for peace in the Middle East but then he would do for he is of Jewish origins. Not sure of his interaction with Anwar Sadat but I imagine that it was positive.
I dare say that I have visited more countries than most of these buggers and I would say that I have a fair knowledge of history. Does that qualify me for the post of Foreign Secretary? ‘Yes and No,’ is my conclusion. You can draw your own. ‘Yes,’ I guess because I have knowledge of these places and their history. ‘No,’ because I cannot help feeling involved in them and that would discount me on the grounds of being subjective. On balance, it is a ‘No.’
But we do need clear and firm people in this job and in Britain at least, we have certainly failed to choose such people. Who the hell remembers Francis Pym? I have talked much on appeasement before and our lot seem hell bent on it. Let’s face it, if anyone had suggested the conquest of India to the Foreign Office, they would have said, ‘Oh dear, no.’ But no one asked the East India Company that question and they just went ahead with it.
I suppose if you are not the head of state or prime minister, then the most coveted post is to be the head of foreign affairs. You don’t have to worry about the home economy, home affairs, business, trade or pretty much anything that affects the everyday lives of the people who elected you and your government. No, all you have to do is travel to conferences much warmer than the UK in winter, call in the odd ambassador and bollock him for locking up some Brit who had 5kg of cocaine in his bowels, make the odd statement like ‘condemn’ or ‘deplore,’ or ‘deeply shocked,’ and so on and so on. And of course, if anything unexpected happens as it did for Peter Carrington in the Falklands invasion, you can put it all down to ‘poor intelligence.’ You’ll look good though straddling the world stage.
But Mr Miliband, on my next trip, to West Africa, your lot say I should not go to Timbuktu cus I might get killed. What are you or Hillary or any other bugger doing about that? And what about the starving people in this world? Not your problem, I suspect. That will be down to some department of International Development or whatever. I guess giving support to wogs is someone else’s business.
Tuesday 29 December 2009
British top brass today
The Times reports today that the British Army has 65 generals. Well if you add in the 190 Brigadiers (one star generals in the USA), that comes up to 255 of them in an army of around 100,000 troops. That's one for every 392 troops. Then we get 31 admirals for around 73 ships (ignoring the Mickey Mouse motor boats) and 36 various air marshals for 1,109 aircraft and 44,300 people. To say this lot was top heavy would be an understatement although the RAF looks leaner than the others.
Many years ago, an aunt of my wife, working in the Admiralty, said that back in WWI we had more ships at sea than people working in the Admiralty but even then (70's I think) the situation had reversed.
I know that not all these people are leading combat forces. Indeed I suspect few of them are. Most likely they are on NATO committees and US liaison comittees or the like. The only certain thing is that they earn lots of money. Well, it's tighten your belt time. So let's have a massive cull and spend the money on decent weapons.
Many years ago, an aunt of my wife, working in the Admiralty, said that back in WWI we had more ships at sea than people working in the Admiralty but even then (70's I think) the situation had reversed.
I know that not all these people are leading combat forces. Indeed I suspect few of them are. Most likely they are on NATO committees and US liaison comittees or the like. The only certain thing is that they earn lots of money. Well, it's tighten your belt time. So let's have a massive cull and spend the money on decent weapons.
Charities and giving to them
Got another plastic thingy through the door this morning. This time, a plastic sack with a begging note from Marie Curie Cancer Care. I chucked it in the waste paper basket. I seem to get this from them once a month. Same goes for other major charities. They simply bombard you with packages, literature and sometimes quite shitty ball point pens requesting you fill out some direct debit form. I don't need to list the names. You know them quite well because you get the same.
Don't get me wrong; I am in favour of charities even though I would have thought that any decent government could make them redundant. But that's naive and simplistic. No, what pisses me off is that so many of the bigger charities seem to spend so much money on so called fund raising that you wonder just how much money actually gets to the people they say they are helping.
I used to give £50 a month to Save the Children before I retired. Did that stop the garbage coming through my letter box? No! If anything, it only made things worse. They would phone me up once a month begging for more. In this day and age of computer databases, you'd think they could put some tags on me like, 'already donates', 'unwilling to pay more,' 'do not mail,' and so on and stop wasting their bloody time.
So I have scrapped them and, guess what? I don't get the mail shots nor the phone calls. They never even inquired as to my reasons for cancelling my direct debit. Just goes to show how bloody useless their monitoring system is.
So now I have a monthly direct debit payment to WaterAid and at Christmas, I send no cards but bung PumpAid 50 quid. Neither pesters me with letters or other crap so I suspect they use most of my money on doing what they intended to do which is providing clean water and sanitation to the poorer people of our world. And I am not sentimental here. Give them clean water and sanitation and maybe they will have fewer diseases - and then we won't have to send them expensive drugs to treat them.
Not only that but if you give them accessible water, then they might grow a few crops to feed themselves.
My Chinese general manager once told me, paraphrasing some old Chinese proverb, 'Many people who visit me bring me fish, but only you show me how to fish.' I was simultaneously flattered and humbled.
Don't get me wrong; I am in favour of charities even though I would have thought that any decent government could make them redundant. But that's naive and simplistic. No, what pisses me off is that so many of the bigger charities seem to spend so much money on so called fund raising that you wonder just how much money actually gets to the people they say they are helping.
I used to give £50 a month to Save the Children before I retired. Did that stop the garbage coming through my letter box? No! If anything, it only made things worse. They would phone me up once a month begging for more. In this day and age of computer databases, you'd think they could put some tags on me like, 'already donates', 'unwilling to pay more,' 'do not mail,' and so on and stop wasting their bloody time.
So I have scrapped them and, guess what? I don't get the mail shots nor the phone calls. They never even inquired as to my reasons for cancelling my direct debit. Just goes to show how bloody useless their monitoring system is.
So now I have a monthly direct debit payment to WaterAid and at Christmas, I send no cards but bung PumpAid 50 quid. Neither pesters me with letters or other crap so I suspect they use most of my money on doing what they intended to do which is providing clean water and sanitation to the poorer people of our world. And I am not sentimental here. Give them clean water and sanitation and maybe they will have fewer diseases - and then we won't have to send them expensive drugs to treat them.
Not only that but if you give them accessible water, then they might grow a few crops to feed themselves.
My Chinese general manager once told me, paraphrasing some old Chinese proverb, 'Many people who visit me bring me fish, but only you show me how to fish.' I was simultaneously flattered and humbled.
Sunday 27 December 2009
The power of 3
My mom always believed that events happened in threes. She did not believe that all events happened in packets of three but when there were two related events, and then she believed a third would follow. They tended to be on the gloomy side, like air crashes and earthquakes but also lighter things like lucky happenings, pregnancies within the family and the like. I used to joke with her when a 4th likewise event occurred in a row; she just said it’s the start of the second sequence of three.
So then you think about speeches and you see the power of the triplet. So many people’s speeches use them. At it’s simplest, it is something like, ‘We shall fight, fight and fight again!’ Then look at the structure of a good speech or presentation. I don’t know who first said it but it has stuck in my mind ever since. First, you tell them what you are going to say (that is, outline the structure.) Second, tell them (for that is the body of your message). Thirdly, tell them what you have said (this is the summary aimed to implant the key points in the mind of the listener.)
Of course like all rules, they can be even better when broken imaginatively and no example is better than Churchill’s ‘we shall fight on the beaches speech.’
And on that note, let’s go the Rule of thirds for pictures and photography. Read somewhere that the Greeks came up with this when looking at the Golden Section which you can research for yourself. Basically, the argument goes that you should split your pic up into thirds by dropping lines down at 1/3rd and 2/3rds. Then you do the same horizontally and if you place the subject at any of the intersections, you’ll get an aesthetically pleasing picture. Well you do but when you ignore this rule you get two outcomes: shite or drama. (The camera makers know all about this which is why many cameras give you the option of overlaying the grid on your viewing screen.)
The triangle is quite pleasing for it has given us the pyramids.
Then you have the Holy Trinity. Never got to grips with this 3 in 1 business.
Moving on to mathematics or geometry to be specific. Plenty of rules regarding the bisection of angles but few on trisection. Think you can do 90 degrees and 72 degrees but the rest have defied mathematicians for centuries.
So let’s go on to divisibility.
Now divisibility by 2 is pretty obvious – if it’s even then you can do it. With 5, all you need is to end the number with a 5 or a zero. So what about 3’s? It’s actually very simple – if the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by 3 then so is the whole number. Try it with things like 171. Easy innit? 1+7+1 is 9 which is divisible by 3 but then so is 171 – result 37.
So then you think about speeches and you see the power of the triplet. So many people’s speeches use them. At it’s simplest, it is something like, ‘We shall fight, fight and fight again!’ Then look at the structure of a good speech or presentation. I don’t know who first said it but it has stuck in my mind ever since. First, you tell them what you are going to say (that is, outline the structure.) Second, tell them (for that is the body of your message). Thirdly, tell them what you have said (this is the summary aimed to implant the key points in the mind of the listener.)
Of course like all rules, they can be even better when broken imaginatively and no example is better than Churchill’s ‘we shall fight on the beaches speech.’
And on that note, let’s go the Rule of thirds for pictures and photography. Read somewhere that the Greeks came up with this when looking at the Golden Section which you can research for yourself. Basically, the argument goes that you should split your pic up into thirds by dropping lines down at 1/3rd and 2/3rds. Then you do the same horizontally and if you place the subject at any of the intersections, you’ll get an aesthetically pleasing picture. Well you do but when you ignore this rule you get two outcomes: shite or drama. (The camera makers know all about this which is why many cameras give you the option of overlaying the grid on your viewing screen.)
The triangle is quite pleasing for it has given us the pyramids.
Then you have the Holy Trinity. Never got to grips with this 3 in 1 business.
Moving on to mathematics or geometry to be specific. Plenty of rules regarding the bisection of angles but few on trisection. Think you can do 90 degrees and 72 degrees but the rest have defied mathematicians for centuries.
So let’s go on to divisibility.
Now divisibility by 2 is pretty obvious – if it’s even then you can do it. With 5, all you need is to end the number with a 5 or a zero. So what about 3’s? It’s actually very simple – if the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by 3 then so is the whole number. Try it with things like 171. Easy innit? 1+7+1 is 9 which is divisible by 3 but then so is 171 – result 37.
Magic moments in no particular order
- the birth of my daughter Caroline. Skin like a peach – perfection
- the launch of Apollo 11, live on TV
- the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, again live
- the birth of a Peacock butterfly in the palm of my hand
- the sight of Smith Island, my first sight of Antarctica
- my first visit to New York; it snowed and it was Fairyland
- landing at Kai Tak, Hong Kong. No landing is ever so exciting
- the scream of those Rolls Royce Conways at take-off
- holding my grandsons
- watching a space shuttle launch
- tasting Chateau Rieussec
- first sex with some women who I shall not name
- my very first serious kiss
- glacier walking
- dawn in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
- Beatles in the Cavern
- casting off in a ship
- and docking in a ship
- first sight of La Pieta
- the final change of my peal of 5111 Grandsire Caters + the middle roll up
- George’s half muffled peal
- any and all 747 take offs
- the total eclipse of the sun in Turkey 2006
- sitting with mountain gorillas
- patting a wild lion’s butt and a cheetah’s head
- watching a star grazing the moon so close that it twinkled as the light passed behind the mountains and down the valleys
- taking my mom up Scafell Pike
- Peter’s bridge
- dawn in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
- ERB at the baggage belt
- getting a certificate, my first, at about 6 yo for an essay on Road Safety
- retirement
- the Lord’s Rake on Scafell in snow with my kids
- winning our first overseas order with Saab
- owning my first calculator
- first time on a PC. It was wondrous.
- seeing Comet Hale-Bopp
- visiting the Kremlin
- Iguacu Falls – every minute
- aborted landings – scary yes but the frisson of excitement is something else
- being made Managing Director
- watching Pluto New Horizons take my name to the stars – came home early to see the launch
- the tears of some ladies at my retirement – it was humbling
- blowing up the fume cupboard at school
- sitting with Sally, my cat and hugging her in the morning
- the smell of a steam engine
- farting in the bath with bubbles tickling
- sunset in the Sahara
- the look on the kids faces in Swakopmund township when we gave them notebooks and pens. And then there was the little boy in Norok, Kenya who said ‘God, bless you, sir’ when I gave him a pen.
- first sight of the rings of Saturn through a telescope
- Gilbert Kaplan conducting Mahler’s 2nd Symphony
There are plenty more and perhaps, just perhaps, I shall extend this list someday. Certainly the arrival of Pluto New Horizons at Pluto in 2015 will be amongst them.
- the launch of Apollo 11, live on TV
- the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, again live
- the birth of a Peacock butterfly in the palm of my hand
- the sight of Smith Island, my first sight of Antarctica
- my first visit to New York; it snowed and it was Fairyland
- landing at Kai Tak, Hong Kong. No landing is ever so exciting
- the scream of those Rolls Royce Conways at take-off
- holding my grandsons
- watching a space shuttle launch
- tasting Chateau Rieussec
- first sex with some women who I shall not name
- my very first serious kiss
- glacier walking
- dawn in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
- Beatles in the Cavern
- casting off in a ship
- and docking in a ship
- first sight of La Pieta
- the final change of my peal of 5111 Grandsire Caters + the middle roll up
- George’s half muffled peal
- any and all 747 take offs
- the total eclipse of the sun in Turkey 2006
- sitting with mountain gorillas
- patting a wild lion’s butt and a cheetah’s head
- watching a star grazing the moon so close that it twinkled as the light passed behind the mountains and down the valleys
- taking my mom up Scafell Pike
- Peter’s bridge
- dawn in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
- ERB at the baggage belt
- getting a certificate, my first, at about 6 yo for an essay on Road Safety
- retirement
- the Lord’s Rake on Scafell in snow with my kids
- winning our first overseas order with Saab
- owning my first calculator
- first time on a PC. It was wondrous.
- seeing Comet Hale-Bopp
- visiting the Kremlin
- Iguacu Falls – every minute
- aborted landings – scary yes but the frisson of excitement is something else
- being made Managing Director
- watching Pluto New Horizons take my name to the stars – came home early to see the launch
- the tears of some ladies at my retirement – it was humbling
- blowing up the fume cupboard at school
- sitting with Sally, my cat and hugging her in the morning
- the smell of a steam engine
- farting in the bath with bubbles tickling
- sunset in the Sahara
- the look on the kids faces in Swakopmund township when we gave them notebooks and pens. And then there was the little boy in Norok, Kenya who said ‘God, bless you, sir’ when I gave him a pen.
- first sight of the rings of Saturn through a telescope
- Gilbert Kaplan conducting Mahler’s 2nd Symphony
There are plenty more and perhaps, just perhaps, I shall extend this list someday. Certainly the arrival of Pluto New Horizons at Pluto in 2015 will be amongst them.
IBM and the holocaust
In 2005, I went to the Czech Republic, mainly in and around Prague. I went out of town too and amongst my wanderings I went to the village of Terezin. It wasn’t an extermination camp although plenty died there. Rather it was a sort of gathering place where the Jews could be rounded up before being transported and killed.
Go back if you will to my blog of 14/11/2008 when I wrote about Terezin.
I wrote the following in my dairy at the time:
‘A chilling thought crossed my mind here. They managed all this with typewriters and telexes and still slaughtered 5m out of Europe’s 11m (their figure) Jews. What on Earth could they have done with PC’s and the Internet?’
Didn’t give it anymore thought until a few months ago when I stumbled upon something on the Internet. Apparently a German guy called Hollerith (of whom I had heard) invented the punch card and via a series of mergers and acquisitions led to the company we know of today as IBM. In 1933, the Nazis conducted a census of Germany and used punched cards to record the details of people including race.
Interesting. So that’s how they traced the Jews so quickly. See my musings are not so daft after all.
Footnote: Internet writings say that IBM were complicit in the holocaust but I see no real evidence. Yes their technology may have helped but it doesn’t mean that they collaborated in the gassings nor even that they were aware of them. I shall wait and see.
Go back if you will to my blog of 14/11/2008 when I wrote about Terezin.
I wrote the following in my dairy at the time:
‘A chilling thought crossed my mind here. They managed all this with typewriters and telexes and still slaughtered 5m out of Europe’s 11m (their figure) Jews. What on Earth could they have done with PC’s and the Internet?’
Didn’t give it anymore thought until a few months ago when I stumbled upon something on the Internet. Apparently a German guy called Hollerith (of whom I had heard) invented the punch card and via a series of mergers and acquisitions led to the company we know of today as IBM. In 1933, the Nazis conducted a census of Germany and used punched cards to record the details of people including race.
Interesting. So that’s how they traced the Jews so quickly. See my musings are not so daft after all.
Footnote: Internet writings say that IBM were complicit in the holocaust but I see no real evidence. Yes their technology may have helped but it doesn’t mean that they collaborated in the gassings nor even that they were aware of them. I shall wait and see.
Climate change and things
Yeah I believe the world is getting warmer and that mankind’s emissions of CO2 are a major factor. Then you have all these animals farting and we know that CH4 is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Indeed, if you read up on the Permian extinction (the greatest ever loss of life on Earth), about 250 million years ago, the CO2 warmed up the Earth but not too much. However, it got to a point when the methyl clathrates burst and the overwhelming release of CH4 did the trick. Mind you it took a few 100’s of thousands of years so maybe it isn’t a threat to us right now.
A bigger worry for me is not the rising sea levels for they say if all the ice caps melted then sea levels would rise by 64m. Nasty but not the end of the world and it would take them a long time to do so. More plausible was the scenario in the movie, ‘The Day after Tomorrow.’ I had read about this well before the move – if just enough cold fresh water from the Greenland ice cap hit and stopped the Gulf Stream, it could happen with days or weeks and the Northern Hemisphere could be plunged into a new Ice Age. The outstanding question for me is, ‘How did ever warm up again?’ Maybe it’s the Earth axis wobble.
My biggest concern for you all is that we are fiddling around the edges and not tackling the big issue. Think that awful word ‘holistic’ entered our vocabulary about 30 years ago but it’s the approach we need right now.
Let me digress:
Breast cancer is the biggest cancer in the UK and we screen for that but know little about the underlying causes. Prostate comes in at no 3 and colorectal at no 4. Don’t see either being tackled. Ah but Lung Cancer is no 2 so let’s bash the smokers. Non-smokers don’t like them so they are a simple easy target.
Cars? Well we’ll hit them with emissions related taxes. We’ll encourage electric cars even though the leccy is primarily generated from fossil fuels. Maybe we go to fuel cells using methanol (mostly produced from oil) and oxygen which still pumps CO2 into the atmosphere. Hydrogen? Er that’s a bit difficult so we are going to have to wait.
Flights? Well, whack up the taxes. But where does the money go? Doubt if it does much for emissions.
Incandescent light bulbs? An easy one too but this ignores the fact that the output of fluorescent ones degrades in time and that when you consider the economics of manufacture and disposal, they save far less energy than the simplistic figures advertised. And they add mercury to their disposal dumps.
We are just picking at bits and the ‘easy bits’ at that. We have ignored the bigger things and have focussed much more on emissions that CO2 absorption.
Green movements have opposed fission based nuclear reactors for years. Yes there have been accidents and deaths but nothing like those of the coal industry. And here I am only talking about direct casualties. Fusion reactors have been forecast since I was about 12 and are still said to be 50 years away.
Deforestation is killing the lungs of the planet. What is being done about that? Neither Kyoto nor Copenhagen paid much attention to that. We really must stop this.
There is talk about freezing CO2 and burying it but is that not like bandaging a septic cut? And anyway, where is the pressure to accelerate this?
Charcoal for cooking in Africa is laying waste to the woodland and no doubt generating loads of CO2. SolarAid, a charity, is trying to provide solar panels to give people light. I suggested they might also offer those cheap mirrored reflectors used in Asia with the cooking pot at the focus. Their answer was that it isn’t always sunny. True, it isn’t always but in the tropics, it very often is so that might reduce charcoal consumption by 2/3rds a year when it is.
And what if we do switch to fusion and/or hydrogen, what will be the outcome of all that extra water? Anyone thought that one through? The Met Office has already said that high altitude contrails over Britain affect our climate.
And I haven’t even started on ocean acidification.
Copenhagen? Load of hot air (no pun intended). Achieved bugger all and no other conference will until we enter them with a spirit of ‘let’s see what we can do together.’
And then there is the cold snap in the reign of Edward II which wiped out half of the British population through famine – that, is more than the Black Death. Why did that happen?
And finally, there is population, sheer numbers. China has limited offspring to one except in special circumstances. Are any of the rest of us willing to do the same? It is the sheer numbers and their aspirations (albeit individually justified) that is the biggest threat of all. Anyone measured the CO2 increase attributable to breathing humans?
Now we all know that mercury, cadmium, cyanides etc. are real and clear nasties. But then the composition of our air and water and their interactions are far more complex. Do we really understand them? Dear God, we are hard pushed to forecast the weather a week away with anymore accuracy than you predicting the time you will serve your next Sunday dinner.
I don’t know the answers in all this but I’m damn sure that we have got nowhere near it so far.
A bigger worry for me is not the rising sea levels for they say if all the ice caps melted then sea levels would rise by 64m. Nasty but not the end of the world and it would take them a long time to do so. More plausible was the scenario in the movie, ‘The Day after Tomorrow.’ I had read about this well before the move – if just enough cold fresh water from the Greenland ice cap hit and stopped the Gulf Stream, it could happen with days or weeks and the Northern Hemisphere could be plunged into a new Ice Age. The outstanding question for me is, ‘How did ever warm up again?’ Maybe it’s the Earth axis wobble.
My biggest concern for you all is that we are fiddling around the edges and not tackling the big issue. Think that awful word ‘holistic’ entered our vocabulary about 30 years ago but it’s the approach we need right now.
Let me digress:
Breast cancer is the biggest cancer in the UK and we screen for that but know little about the underlying causes. Prostate comes in at no 3 and colorectal at no 4. Don’t see either being tackled. Ah but Lung Cancer is no 2 so let’s bash the smokers. Non-smokers don’t like them so they are a simple easy target.
Cars? Well we’ll hit them with emissions related taxes. We’ll encourage electric cars even though the leccy is primarily generated from fossil fuels. Maybe we go to fuel cells using methanol (mostly produced from oil) and oxygen which still pumps CO2 into the atmosphere. Hydrogen? Er that’s a bit difficult so we are going to have to wait.
Flights? Well, whack up the taxes. But where does the money go? Doubt if it does much for emissions.
Incandescent light bulbs? An easy one too but this ignores the fact that the output of fluorescent ones degrades in time and that when you consider the economics of manufacture and disposal, they save far less energy than the simplistic figures advertised. And they add mercury to their disposal dumps.
We are just picking at bits and the ‘easy bits’ at that. We have ignored the bigger things and have focussed much more on emissions that CO2 absorption.
Green movements have opposed fission based nuclear reactors for years. Yes there have been accidents and deaths but nothing like those of the coal industry. And here I am only talking about direct casualties. Fusion reactors have been forecast since I was about 12 and are still said to be 50 years away.
Deforestation is killing the lungs of the planet. What is being done about that? Neither Kyoto nor Copenhagen paid much attention to that. We really must stop this.
There is talk about freezing CO2 and burying it but is that not like bandaging a septic cut? And anyway, where is the pressure to accelerate this?
Charcoal for cooking in Africa is laying waste to the woodland and no doubt generating loads of CO2. SolarAid, a charity, is trying to provide solar panels to give people light. I suggested they might also offer those cheap mirrored reflectors used in Asia with the cooking pot at the focus. Their answer was that it isn’t always sunny. True, it isn’t always but in the tropics, it very often is so that might reduce charcoal consumption by 2/3rds a year when it is.
And what if we do switch to fusion and/or hydrogen, what will be the outcome of all that extra water? Anyone thought that one through? The Met Office has already said that high altitude contrails over Britain affect our climate.
And I haven’t even started on ocean acidification.
Copenhagen? Load of hot air (no pun intended). Achieved bugger all and no other conference will until we enter them with a spirit of ‘let’s see what we can do together.’
And then there is the cold snap in the reign of Edward II which wiped out half of the British population through famine – that, is more than the Black Death. Why did that happen?
And finally, there is population, sheer numbers. China has limited offspring to one except in special circumstances. Are any of the rest of us willing to do the same? It is the sheer numbers and their aspirations (albeit individually justified) that is the biggest threat of all. Anyone measured the CO2 increase attributable to breathing humans?
Now we all know that mercury, cadmium, cyanides etc. are real and clear nasties. But then the composition of our air and water and their interactions are far more complex. Do we really understand them? Dear God, we are hard pushed to forecast the weather a week away with anymore accuracy than you predicting the time you will serve your next Sunday dinner.
I don’t know the answers in all this but I’m damn sure that we have got nowhere near it so far.
Night trains
I have done 7 of these and each has been the triumph of hope over experience.
Hanoi – Hue
Moscow – Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg – Irkutsk
Beijing – Xi’an
Xi’an – Lanzhou
Lanzhou – Jiaguyuan
Dunhuang – Turpan
I find the whole idea of a night train romantic and exhilarating. Maybe, it’s down to the movies that I saw in my youth but they were on flashy trains like the Orient Express. Certainly, going for the night train is exciting. Bit like the bus stations about which I wrote ages ago.
Loads of people and baggage, full of purpose like yourself. The darkness just adds to the drama. A bit of a panic at check-in and after that you sometimes wait for ages or are quickly out on the platform looking for your coach which is marked up in a foreign language. And then there are the carriage attendants, usually female and as helpful as a brick. Pretty much the same as flying really, although as ever charm will get you everywhere. No sign here of the graceful waiters with the candle lit tables that you saw in the movies.
Then to your cabin. If you are lucky, you get a lower bunk. If not you get an upper one which requires the skills of a gymnast to get into and to get down from. Beds are not especially comfortable but the ones I have been on have been reasonably clean. Then you move off and since you are leaving a city, there is a huge clatter as you move over zillions of points and this lasts for ages. So maybe you get a few hours sleep but you won’t get much.
Since all the ones I have been on were in ex-Communist countries, there is always a supply of boiling water is each coach. Buy your coffee, sugar and milk powder from the carriage lady and you are all set.The Trans Siberian even served some half decent meals.
Then there is arrival, sometimes at some ungodly hour. Whatever, for me it is always a panic to get my things together.
But, they are still magical and I would do one again tomorrow.
Hanoi – Hue
Moscow – Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg – Irkutsk
Beijing – Xi’an
Xi’an – Lanzhou
Lanzhou – Jiaguyuan
Dunhuang – Turpan
I find the whole idea of a night train romantic and exhilarating. Maybe, it’s down to the movies that I saw in my youth but they were on flashy trains like the Orient Express. Certainly, going for the night train is exciting. Bit like the bus stations about which I wrote ages ago.
Loads of people and baggage, full of purpose like yourself. The darkness just adds to the drama. A bit of a panic at check-in and after that you sometimes wait for ages or are quickly out on the platform looking for your coach which is marked up in a foreign language. And then there are the carriage attendants, usually female and as helpful as a brick. Pretty much the same as flying really, although as ever charm will get you everywhere. No sign here of the graceful waiters with the candle lit tables that you saw in the movies.
Then to your cabin. If you are lucky, you get a lower bunk. If not you get an upper one which requires the skills of a gymnast to get into and to get down from. Beds are not especially comfortable but the ones I have been on have been reasonably clean. Then you move off and since you are leaving a city, there is a huge clatter as you move over zillions of points and this lasts for ages. So maybe you get a few hours sleep but you won’t get much.
Since all the ones I have been on were in ex-Communist countries, there is always a supply of boiling water is each coach. Buy your coffee, sugar and milk powder from the carriage lady and you are all set.The Trans Siberian even served some half decent meals.
Then there is arrival, sometimes at some ungodly hour. Whatever, for me it is always a panic to get my things together.
But, they are still magical and I would do one again tomorrow.
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Anglican church is doomed
Oh, it surely is. I have talked about appeasement before and the way it never succeeds. The Anglican Chrurch seems to yield to every shift in public opinion in the vain hope of hanging onto its congregation and perhaps gaining a few more. Yet it has done neither. Hasn't been all appeasment though; there has been welcome opposition to homosexuals being elevated to high office and you can read your Bible to see what God thinks of that. Same with masturbation and contraception - just look up Onan.
The latest piece of shit is an Anglican priest who says if you've got nothing then it's fine to shoplift from national chain stores but not the little people. He qualifies his remarks by saying only take what you need and no more. He says that shoplifting is better than burglary, drugs and prostitution and there I would agree with him. But would it not have been better if he had said that it's all wrong.
Like:
It's all desperate but don't resort to crime! Come round, have a cup of tea and let's see if we can find a new way?
I doubt he thought of this - 'too difficult' folder.
What next I wonder? Robbing banks is OK cus they all have fat bonuses. Abuse a BA cabin crew member cus they are overpaid. No nearby public toilets? Fine then shit in the gutter.You don't like morning service: OK we'll make it Heavy Metal. It is a downhill road and they have been on it for years. Dear God this Church is insane.
The Roman Catholic church is authoritarian as was Margaret Thatcher. The Anglican church just flows with the breeze. And if you follow the breeze, you end up where the wind dumps you.
The latest piece of shit is an Anglican priest who says if you've got nothing then it's fine to shoplift from national chain stores but not the little people. He qualifies his remarks by saying only take what you need and no more. He says that shoplifting is better than burglary, drugs and prostitution and there I would agree with him. But would it not have been better if he had said that it's all wrong.
Like:
It's all desperate but don't resort to crime! Come round, have a cup of tea and let's see if we can find a new way?
I doubt he thought of this - 'too difficult' folder.
What next I wonder? Robbing banks is OK cus they all have fat bonuses. Abuse a BA cabin crew member cus they are overpaid. No nearby public toilets? Fine then shit in the gutter.You don't like morning service: OK we'll make it Heavy Metal. It is a downhill road and they have been on it for years. Dear God this Church is insane.
The Roman Catholic church is authoritarian as was Margaret Thatcher. The Anglican church just flows with the breeze. And if you follow the breeze, you end up where the wind dumps you.
Monday 21 December 2009
Soldiers and beauty
Not two subjects you'd expect to be juxtaposed. You could argue all night and day about soldiers and for that matter, war itself. In themselves, neither are beautiful but I shall tell you what is.
The homecoming! It does not matter where they have been, what they have done or who they are. When they come home after battle and rush off the ship, the helicopter or whatever and hug their wife, girlfriend,child or all, it is a moment of beauty.
It makes me cry.
The homecoming! It does not matter where they have been, what they have done or who they are. When they come home after battle and rush off the ship, the helicopter or whatever and hug their wife, girlfriend,child or all, it is a moment of beauty.
It makes me cry.
Bad words
There are a lot of so called ‘bad words’ in this world, bad in the sense that they are looked upon as unacceptable in polite company. Farting, pissing, shitting and fucking are good examples yet each is as normal a human activity as eating and drinking and nobody minds about the latter. My headmaster at grammar school (didn’t like him) told us that in general conversation or in writing that the Anglo-Saxon was preferable to the Latin i.e. it is better to say start than commence. His argument was that the Anglo-Saxon was generally shorter. I agree with him but I doubt if he would have approved of me using the word ‘shit’ in any essay.
So why is this? Is it that their very brevity makes them sort of shout whereas a word with a few more vowels would make them softer? Then we have to think of usage. These words are frequently used in other contexts like ‘Oh shit,’ or ‘Piss off.’ Somehow ‘Oh defecate,’ of ‘go away and urinate,’ would not contain the same degree of emotion or venom. It is their very simplicity that makes them powerful.
As Billy Connolly once said, regarding the Falklands War, ‘I hear that Margaret Thatcher has told General Galtieri to ‘Fuck off’. I agree with the woman, there are times when ‘go away’ is simply not good enough.’ Pity is that she didn’t use the expression. Maybe if she did, we would not have had a war.
And that’s the point really. I have sworn all my life and the use of swear words convey a meaning quite unmatched by perfect English Grammar.
Same goes for ‘No.’ If you just say it and do not explain, it saves hours of discussion.
So why is this? Is it that their very brevity makes them sort of shout whereas a word with a few more vowels would make them softer? Then we have to think of usage. These words are frequently used in other contexts like ‘Oh shit,’ or ‘Piss off.’ Somehow ‘Oh defecate,’ of ‘go away and urinate,’ would not contain the same degree of emotion or venom. It is their very simplicity that makes them powerful.
As Billy Connolly once said, regarding the Falklands War, ‘I hear that Margaret Thatcher has told General Galtieri to ‘Fuck off’. I agree with the woman, there are times when ‘go away’ is simply not good enough.’ Pity is that she didn’t use the expression. Maybe if she did, we would not have had a war.
And that’s the point really. I have sworn all my life and the use of swear words convey a meaning quite unmatched by perfect English Grammar.
Same goes for ‘No.’ If you just say it and do not explain, it saves hours of discussion.
Airports and testicles
Now your average bloke would consider that having testicles is a sign of manhood. It’s no different for cities or towns either; they seem to need an airport to prove they are manly or important or whatever. And what is more, these airports need international destinations just to show that they are really important and big boys.
The really important airports of the world just have prosaic names like Amsterdam Schiphol or London Heathrow. It’s the Mickey Mouse ones that have to insert the word ‘International’ into their names – you know Newcastle International Airport or Cardiff-Wales International Airport. You see the word ‘International’ just raises the testosterone level. Yet you know that the former are truly international airports with flights travelling the globe every 5 or 10 minutes. Meanwhile the latter are dining out on charter flights and the occasional scheduled flight to a foreign country. I suspect that half of British airports would lose the ‘International’ appellation if KLM Cityhopper collapsed. But then maybe not, for a weekly charter flight to Alicante would give them just reason to keep the title.
Bristol airport isn’t bad; in fact I quite like it. Apart from all the usual domestic/charter flights, it has a regular flight to Newark in New Jersey, by Continental – I’ve used it much. But Newark is not good enough for Bristol Airport cus let’s face it, many have never heard of Newark. No, it is promoted as a flight to New York for that sounds far more important and gives the airport real balls. The fact that it is across the Hudson River and in New Jersey is ignored.
A sign of the way that Bristol feels about this flight comes at check in. They ask you so many questions; they look at every page of your passport. I guess it’s a special event for them; for me it’s just tedious. None of their frigging business if I have been to Uzbekistan.
Newark Liberty is a fine airport with better connections to Manhattan than JFK or La Guardia. Why not promote it as the gateway to New York? Tell them about the Olympia bus service or the Amtrak to Penn Central. Or indeed a gateway to the whole of the USA with a decent monorail connection between terminals? So none of that walking/taking the bus crap we get at Heathrow.
These regional airports need to grow up. The ones I have used, even Exeter, have no need to say ‘International.’
The really important airports of the world just have prosaic names like Amsterdam Schiphol or London Heathrow. It’s the Mickey Mouse ones that have to insert the word ‘International’ into their names – you know Newcastle International Airport or Cardiff-Wales International Airport. You see the word ‘International’ just raises the testosterone level. Yet you know that the former are truly international airports with flights travelling the globe every 5 or 10 minutes. Meanwhile the latter are dining out on charter flights and the occasional scheduled flight to a foreign country. I suspect that half of British airports would lose the ‘International’ appellation if KLM Cityhopper collapsed. But then maybe not, for a weekly charter flight to Alicante would give them just reason to keep the title.
Bristol airport isn’t bad; in fact I quite like it. Apart from all the usual domestic/charter flights, it has a regular flight to Newark in New Jersey, by Continental – I’ve used it much. But Newark is not good enough for Bristol Airport cus let’s face it, many have never heard of Newark. No, it is promoted as a flight to New York for that sounds far more important and gives the airport real balls. The fact that it is across the Hudson River and in New Jersey is ignored.
A sign of the way that Bristol feels about this flight comes at check in. They ask you so many questions; they look at every page of your passport. I guess it’s a special event for them; for me it’s just tedious. None of their frigging business if I have been to Uzbekistan.
Newark Liberty is a fine airport with better connections to Manhattan than JFK or La Guardia. Why not promote it as the gateway to New York? Tell them about the Olympia bus service or the Amtrak to Penn Central. Or indeed a gateway to the whole of the USA with a decent monorail connection between terminals? So none of that walking/taking the bus crap we get at Heathrow.
These regional airports need to grow up. The ones I have used, even Exeter, have no need to say ‘International.’
Saturday 19 December 2009
John Paul II
I read that Pope Benedict XVI is progressing his predecessor John Paul II towards making him a saint. I got no problem with that and since I don't believe in any God, they can do what they bloody well like. It makes no difference to what they did on Earth.
BUT and it is a big but, JP2 always seemed to be a saintly man with a warmth for people sadly lacking in most popes. I remember that night in Rome as he passed by on his Popemobile just a few feet away from me.You could feel the love that the crowd bore for him. It was overwhelming.
Benedict is said to be looking to canonize Pius XII as well. The Jews ain't happy saying that he was a Nazi collaborator - well, who wasn't in Italy in WWII? No, my objection is that he was cold and austere and lacked empathy. Same goes for Paul VI.
Although I do not believe, I expect Popes to capture hearts. JP2 did. If that makes him a saint, then I should be one as well.
BUT and it is a big but, JP2 always seemed to be a saintly man with a warmth for people sadly lacking in most popes. I remember that night in Rome as he passed by on his Popemobile just a few feet away from me.You could feel the love that the crowd bore for him. It was overwhelming.
Benedict is said to be looking to canonize Pius XII as well. The Jews ain't happy saying that he was a Nazi collaborator - well, who wasn't in Italy in WWII? No, my objection is that he was cold and austere and lacked empathy. Same goes for Paul VI.
Although I do not believe, I expect Popes to capture hearts. JP2 did. If that makes him a saint, then I should be one as well.
Friday 18 December 2009
Changing People
I seem to change many that I meet. I have no reason why: it just happens. I don’t set out to do this and a few are resentful.
I’d like to think that I inadvertently expose people to the reality of their abilities and show them a path by which they can fulfil them. I am not always nice about it. I use words like ‘grow up’, ‘piss off’ and the rest. However, it is important that people understand what they can achieve and be told so, for many are far better than they think they are.
Why oh why do they underestimate themselves? What is it in their upbringing that leads them to this? I have been seriously trying to think of a single instance when either of my parents told me something was impossible. Haven’t come up with one. And equally, I have no need of others to spell out my limitations. I am very much aware of them but I don’t mind you telling me if you have spotted another.
Nonetheless, most people that I have met have changed me; sometimes a little, sometimes a lot and almost always for the better. They have shaped me and I am glad of that.
My dad did sit me down one day when I was 11 and had won a place at grammar school. He cautioned me. He said something like that while I had been very successful at primary school, I must not necessarily expect to do the same at grammar school because all the kids there have been successful. He did it gently. The rest is history.
I’d like to think that I inadvertently expose people to the reality of their abilities and show them a path by which they can fulfil them. I am not always nice about it. I use words like ‘grow up’, ‘piss off’ and the rest. However, it is important that people understand what they can achieve and be told so, for many are far better than they think they are.
Why oh why do they underestimate themselves? What is it in their upbringing that leads them to this? I have been seriously trying to think of a single instance when either of my parents told me something was impossible. Haven’t come up with one. And equally, I have no need of others to spell out my limitations. I am very much aware of them but I don’t mind you telling me if you have spotted another.
Nonetheless, most people that I have met have changed me; sometimes a little, sometimes a lot and almost always for the better. They have shaped me and I am glad of that.
My dad did sit me down one day when I was 11 and had won a place at grammar school. He cautioned me. He said something like that while I had been very successful at primary school, I must not necessarily expect to do the same at grammar school because all the kids there have been successful. He did it gently. The rest is history.
Revenge movies
In my experience, the French make the best revenge movies for the simple reason that someone eventually gets revenge and better still gets away with it. The best I ever saw (and I wish I could remember the name of it) related to a drunk (or maybe he was fondling his girlfriend) driver who killed a man’s son. The start was full of tension. Child fishing on the beach at dawn. Car driving fast in the countryside. Kid leaves the beach and goes back through the streets. Car comes racing through the streets. They meet at a fork and the child is killed.
Can’t remember how the father tracks down the driver but he does. He befriends him and then on the killer’s yacht, the father kills him. Moralise as you will but I see that as justice.
‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ someone said once and that is the way the French do it. There is another one at the back of my mind about an unfaithful wife but my memory is hazy.
In contrast, Hollywood once eschewed revenge movies and brought the culprit to trial. You know all that anti-lynching stuff and telling the Indians that the culprit must suffer ‘white man’s justice.’ It changed but it was never cold which revenge ought to be. Instead we got spectacles like Maximus v. Commodus in Gladiator, Kill Bill (which is entertaining but is insufficiently cold and lacks calculation) and Ben-Hur (another spectacle).
I don’t feel revengeful in any way but if I was, I’d do it quietly. I’d make sure my victim was fully aware of what I was doing and I’d make him/her suffer.
Does that make me bad? I guess so but you have to be highly motivated to want to take revenge anyway and so far, I have never been so motivated.
Can’t remember how the father tracks down the driver but he does. He befriends him and then on the killer’s yacht, the father kills him. Moralise as you will but I see that as justice.
‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ someone said once and that is the way the French do it. There is another one at the back of my mind about an unfaithful wife but my memory is hazy.
In contrast, Hollywood once eschewed revenge movies and brought the culprit to trial. You know all that anti-lynching stuff and telling the Indians that the culprit must suffer ‘white man’s justice.’ It changed but it was never cold which revenge ought to be. Instead we got spectacles like Maximus v. Commodus in Gladiator, Kill Bill (which is entertaining but is insufficiently cold and lacks calculation) and Ben-Hur (another spectacle).
I don’t feel revengeful in any way but if I was, I’d do it quietly. I’d make sure my victim was fully aware of what I was doing and I’d make him/her suffer.
Does that make me bad? I guess so but you have to be highly motivated to want to take revenge anyway and so far, I have never been so motivated.
One day strikes
Wars are not won by skirmishes; they are won by prolonged campaigns. People do not always get it right. Napoleon didn’t and neither did Hitler but both of them recognised the value of strategy. I have studied Hannibal a lot; he won several battles but I never figured out what his overall objective was. It may have been the conquest of Rome but if that’s the case, why bugger off after Cannae?
So what’s the point of a one-day strike? Yes, they grab the headlines but what else? If it’s a private company, there is a day’s loss of output and the public at large don’t give a toss. If it’s a public service organisation, then you will usually piss off the majority of customers (consumers). The consumers have lives too and they are not always happy with them so why should they have any sympathy with these arseholes who have just, albeit temporarily, made their lives worse.
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Human rights
We hear a lot of talk about rights, most frequently from people who don't think they are getting what they want from life. Sometimes, they are correct but often they are not. Let's go back to basics.
Fundamentally, we have no rights and neither do whales nor amoeba. Go back to the Olduvai Gorge, the cradle of mankind. Did the Australopithecines of 4 million years ago have rights to clean water or Homo Habilis of 2 million years ago have rights to courts of justice? Plainly no. Mankind has evolved much since then and has established, in many countries at least, basic rights for its citizens. And much of that is for the good - free speech, democracy, police protection from crime, ownership of property - the list is endless. All this is fine.
BUT and this is important to remember, the rights we enjoy are by the grace of the society in which we live: they are not innate nor fundamental and we must all constantly strive to preserve them and improve them.
Fundamentally, we have no rights and neither do whales nor amoeba. Go back to the Olduvai Gorge, the cradle of mankind. Did the Australopithecines of 4 million years ago have rights to clean water or Homo Habilis of 2 million years ago have rights to courts of justice? Plainly no. Mankind has evolved much since then and has established, in many countries at least, basic rights for its citizens. And much of that is for the good - free speech, democracy, police protection from crime, ownership of property - the list is endless. All this is fine.
BUT and this is important to remember, the rights we enjoy are by the grace of the society in which we live: they are not innate nor fundamental and we must all constantly strive to preserve them and improve them.
Thursday 19 November 2009
Impotent chiefs
Tonight, we (well not 'we' as such for we the people have no say in this) have elected the first President of the European Union. He is apparently, the prime Minister of Belgium, but I doubt that few outside Belgium have ever heard of him. And never forget that Belgium was once described as the 'opposite of charisma.' Same goes for the Secretary-General of the UN. Do you know who is? I can't be arsed to even Google it. It will be a name like 'Bum Arse Twat' and he'll be from some country that has never appeared on the world stage nor even made any effort to change it. And so it goes on. I have no bloody idea who leads the world's major international organisations - NATO, UNESCO, UNICEF, and so on. There was a Burmese guy who once headed the UN, U Thant as I recall. Seemed to be a nice guy which must have put him in a minority of, say 5, in that Godforsaken country.
So what do these people achieve? Bugger all. I am sure that they are all very nice and good company for dinner. They may even like cats. But as the saying goes, 'You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs.' It's time we put real leaders in these jobs or scrapped them altogether.
So what do these people achieve? Bugger all. I am sure that they are all very nice and good company for dinner. They may even like cats. But as the saying goes, 'You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs.' It's time we put real leaders in these jobs or scrapped them altogether.
Sunday 8 November 2009
Water
I bought a book on Water the other day. I can hear you saying, 'Anorak, Geek, Nerd, etc.' but do I care? No. Water is one of the most fabulous substances in this world and possibly the entire Universe. Think about it.
Without it, you and I and all the creatures we know would simply not exist.
It is sometimes called the universal solvent. Well, not everything dissolves in water but many things do, an awful lot of things, in fact, but sadly not plastic bags.
It has the chemical formula, H2O - sorry cannot do the subscripts on here. Basically that means two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in one molecule. So take my word for it, it has a molecular weight of 18. Now molecules of that weight move around quickly and cannot be retained by the gravitational pull of the Earth. Methane (aka cows farts), molecular weight 16, buggers off to the upper atmosphere and causes global warming.
We don't have puddles of methane here so why do we have oceans and lakes of water?
Well, water molecules are friendly so they clump in groups of six so the weight goes up to 6 x 18, which is 108 and that makes them too heavy to escape. And that's why you and I are here.
You don't believe me? Have you ever looked at a snowflake, any snowflake? They are all hexagonal.
Without it, you and I and all the creatures we know would simply not exist.
It is sometimes called the universal solvent. Well, not everything dissolves in water but many things do, an awful lot of things, in fact, but sadly not plastic bags.
It has the chemical formula, H2O - sorry cannot do the subscripts on here. Basically that means two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in one molecule. So take my word for it, it has a molecular weight of 18. Now molecules of that weight move around quickly and cannot be retained by the gravitational pull of the Earth. Methane (aka cows farts), molecular weight 16, buggers off to the upper atmosphere and causes global warming.
We don't have puddles of methane here so why do we have oceans and lakes of water?
Well, water molecules are friendly so they clump in groups of six so the weight goes up to 6 x 18, which is 108 and that makes them too heavy to escape. And that's why you and I are here.
You don't believe me? Have you ever looked at a snowflake, any snowflake? They are all hexagonal.
Monday 2 November 2009
I am free
I have got back from the Silk Road, 55 days and it was wonderful.
But that is not my reason in writing this night. I was listening earlier to the song 'I will always love you' by Whitney Houston but it has more gentleness from Dolly Parton who first sang it. Love her.
At the beginning, there are the words, 'I would only be in your way.' That's it, isn't it? I am both cursed and blessed. I need no one but I adore the feelings you give to me.
If I am honest, I need no one. I am self sufficient.
Free at last!
But that is not my reason in writing this night. I was listening earlier to the song 'I will always love you' by Whitney Houston but it has more gentleness from Dolly Parton who first sang it. Love her.
At the beginning, there are the words, 'I would only be in your way.' That's it, isn't it? I am both cursed and blessed. I need no one but I adore the feelings you give to me.
If I am honest, I need no one. I am self sufficient.
Free at last!
Friday 31 July 2009
Daniel
Daniel William Oates is my second grandson. He will be 2 years old on October 7th when I shall be far away in China which is a pity. Daniel is cool, an overused word but entirely appropriate for this little man. Nothing fazes this little guy, almost always happy (cept when he's shit his pants). He's anybody's - happy to be held and cuddled by anyone. He seems to have no fear, looks like a little thug, which my son did at his age. This is Daniel unhappy. Life's a shit Daniel but you will get bye.
Presentations
For many years, I was terrified about making a presentation. Sure, I had been on the courses but that only told me how to do it; it did not cure the fear. On the rare occasions, I did one, people said I was OK but I never felt so. Every time, I was shaking.
Then in the late 80’s, I got a job where I knew that presentations would crop up frequently. Sharp intake of breath, swallow and thinking of how to go forward. I suppose it’s like facing any irrational phobia really – only way to cure it is to face up to it. So I completely reversed my historic attitude and sought every opportunity to speak to an audience.
I remembered the lessons I had been taught, chief amongst them being preparation and practice. It does not matter how long it is, you must rehearse it and rehearse it to the point that you know what you are going to say without reference to your slides. I used to practise mine at my office window chatting to the green woodpecker. He never complained, indeed he seemed almost interested but I doubted him.
In my life, I have coined two phrases with regard to making a good presentation:
‘Never let the facts get in the way of a good presentation.’
‘Bugger the truth, I want impact.’
And that’s it really. A presentation is a selling job be it ideas or products, concepts or dreams.
But never forget, you have to give people dreams.
Life and Cefn Onn Primary
I see my life as being made up of four phases:
Infancy
Education
Work
Retirement
They have all been good on the whole but the best is yet to be even if I drop dead tomorrow.
As you pass from one phase to the next, you pick up new things and drop off old things – people and ambitions.
Right now I am totally absorbed with the little children of Cefn Onn Primary school. I am fighting to keep it alive but it is much more than that for I am looking to the future. I want these children to be great and I shall hound everybody to make them be so.
I want this school and the kids to be a shining beacon of what can be done with love, thought and attention.
And that is why this blog has been neglected. These kids are more important.
CDC
This is the centre for disease control and it based in Atlanta. In my opinion, it is the best in the world. So if you are going to travel, go there first and get the latest advice.
I use it lots
I use it lots
Being white, male and English
We live in an age where one is not supposed to discriminate against others on the grounds of race, religion or sex (well gender as it is now called). I am OK with all that. However there is one segment of society that is exempt from this protection and I am one of them. The Americans used to call them WASP’s – White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I fit that even though I have moved on from Protestantism to atheism. I do however have two further attributes that disqualify me from the protection of the law: I am English and male.
So what does this mean in the eyes of others?
I was born white so that means I am probably racist.
I am male so that means I feel superior and have both exploited women and suppressed their advancement.
I was born English so that means I have exploited the planet and its people.
I can be called a ‘pom’ by an Aussie but Prince Harry cannot call a colleague a ‘Paki’
I was born poor so that means I am a victim of class discrimination. Did I notice it? Yeah, vaguely but I got over it.
I went to a grammar school so therefore I was privileged
I am cleverer than most so I must be a ‘smart arse’.
I adore kids but it don’t make me a paedophile. Kids are the future of this world
I have been moderately successful so that means I have been lucky.
I don't believe in God but I respect the Bible. Glasgow is offering people to write obscenities on it. Let them offer up the same to the Koran and see where that gets them.
I plead not guilty on every count and you know what?
I do not give a fuck.
Do I care? Hell no! I am just trying to illustrate the crap that pervades our media for I have met real people and not had the shit I have outlined above.
Being a barrow boy
My last boss always said that I missed my vocation: I should have been a street market seller, you know, a barrow boy. To be honest, I’d have loved it.
There you have a pile of goods in front of you and an interested audience – the ultimate opportunity to be a showman and none more so than in front of women. I adore women every shape, every size, every age. Dun care if they are 3 or 93, they all have charm.
Pick up a bundle of towels. Watch their faces. Look them in the eye.
‘Yeah, I know they look expensive, darling, they ought to be, they are Egyptian cotton (which they are not) and I’m down to my last 6.’
Pick someone who is smiling.
‘Imagine a rub down with these after a shower, darling?’ ‘Woops, better not tell the missus, I said that.’
‘And while, I am talking about the missus, she is nagging me to go down West tonight and I haven’t got the dosh. So please my lovelys, please buy something today or I’ll be in real trouble.’
‘You my lovely, how much? I know you’re thinking 50 quid and their worth every penny.’ 'But for you darling cus you are pretty, not even 20, give me 10.'
It’s important here to get a nod from someone.
Heavens, wish I'd done this.
Growing up
At 35, my son is starting to talk to me about subjects that lose me. Don’t you think that that is rather wonderful? It's rather grand when your kids beat you.
Of course, he loses me in his specialism which is Civil Engineering and that’s quite understandable. I guess I could still lose him in Chemistry which was mine.
Being strong
Watched a TV programme tonight about one man’s pursuit of the whale, inspired by Melville’s Moby Dick. It finished with him swimming with Sperm Whales in the sea off the Azores. They took a look at him: he took a look at them. Neither was frightened.
That’s it reality but equally it is strange. When you feel strong, you are not really frightened but maybe you are wary and nervous. Maybe you display confidence, I do not know. Whales have never frightened me despite their size. They just seem to know. Same with the Mountain Gorilla and even the Lions.
It’s people that frighten me.
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Falkland Islands
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
In the forthcoming G20 summit, it is expected that once again the President of Argentina will raise the question of the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. Well she has already been told recently to bugger off and she should be told so again in no uncertain manner.
A glance at any map will tell you that the Falkland Islands are miniscule alongside the land mass of Argentina itself.
Argentina is a vast and beautiful country with all the resources necessary to make it a successful economy yet it continues to fail to make the grade. The people I have met there are extremely pleasant and seem to have no interest in the Malvinas as they call them. On the other hand the back streets of Buenos Aires are as squalid as any I have seen in this world. And they are so menacing. Nowhere else in this world have I seen so many cars burned out in the street and some of them were overturned in the middle of the road.
Only went to one company there and the factory was as well protected as Fort Knox. They even sent a driver to pick me up from my hotel, saying that I could not be safe in a taxi. A friend of mine, visiting another company, had to put his passport in a little basket lowered down on a piece of string from an upstairs window. Only after it had been checked were the electric gates briefly opened. Even Monty Python could not have come up with anything so bizarre.
I don’t see Cristina Kirchner as a bad lady. However the pursuit of this cause places her in the company of others who have sought to distract their people from domestic issues by pointing at others. Hitler did it with the Jews, Idi Amin with the Asians and early Rome distracted the rebellious plebeians by telling them they were under threat from external tribes.
Here at home with unemployment rising, it's immigrant workers. I may talk about that later.
Plus ça change.
Monday 30 March 2009
Madonna and Malawi
Monday, March 30th, 2009
Never a fan of Madonna but I see she's back in Malawi wanting to adopt another kid. Usual opposition including the Save the Children lot saying that kids should stay with their families. Well, this one's mother is dead and as far as I can tell the father is not to be found.
I am with Madonna here. Her first adoption seems to be working so why not try a second. If each of us just set out to improve one other person's position in life, this world would be a far far better place.
Good luck to the girl.
Never a fan of Madonna but I see she's back in Malawi wanting to adopt another kid. Usual opposition including the Save the Children lot saying that kids should stay with their families. Well, this one's mother is dead and as far as I can tell the father is not to be found.
I am with Madonna here. Her first adoption seems to be working so why not try a second. If each of us just set out to improve one other person's position in life, this world would be a far far better place.
Good luck to the girl.
Sunday 29 March 2009
Oven gloves
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Well, I don't know about the rest of you but I never wash them. Sure they get a bit grimy but never unhygeinically so. After all they handle things at very high temperatures and I have never seen anything grow on them.
Bought a new pair today, one of them all in one's. Well, I put the old ones down on the hob after I finished cooking and forgot to turn the flame off. They got charred but who cares, the new ones only cost 3 quid.
Well, I don't know about the rest of you but I never wash them. Sure they get a bit grimy but never unhygeinically so. After all they handle things at very high temperatures and I have never seen anything grow on them.
Bought a new pair today, one of them all in one's. Well, I put the old ones down on the hob after I finished cooking and forgot to turn the flame off. They got charred but who cares, the new ones only cost 3 quid.
Sunday 22 March 2009
People I could do without (in no particular order)
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
Robin Williams
Seinfeld
Hazel Blears
Harriet Harman
Shami Chakrabati
Tony Benn
Hugo Chavez
Robert Mugabe & his wife
Peter Hain
Peter Tatchell
Jamie Oliver
The whole cast of Frasier
Germaine Greer
Jade Goody – but she has gone now
The entire Royal Family
Afghanistan
Vanessa Redgrave
The staff at the Guardian
Tony Robinson
Bill Oddy and his bloody birds
Alan Titchmarsh
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall
Russell Brand
Stephen Fry
Anne Robinson
I could add more; it would not be difficult.
Don't get me wrong, I am not wishing them them a long nor painful death although in Robin Williams' & Mugabe's case I might make an exception.
Saturday 21 March 2009
Obama and Iran
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
People seem to be amazed at Obama's little speech offering friendship with Iran. I find that so very strange. Both the USA and Iran are full of ordinary people who would bear no ill will to each other if they met in a cafe or a bar. The ill will they bear is whipped up by their governments and their media.
Just like I said a while ago about Russia, it is time to put out the hand of friendship to the people.
People seem to be amazed at Obama's little speech offering friendship with Iran. I find that so very strange. Both the USA and Iran are full of ordinary people who would bear no ill will to each other if they met in a cafe or a bar. The ill will they bear is whipped up by their governments and their media.
Just like I said a while ago about Russia, it is time to put out the hand of friendship to the people.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Surviving accidents
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
In about 20 minutes, we are going to have a TV programme about surviving accidents. I don’t know what it is going to say. And anyway I started to write this a few weeks ago. There are two fundamental lessons:
Be prepared
Get out without delay
Obvious when you think about it but few people take notice. Here are a few observations:
- I did not learn to swim until my early 40’s. Within a week of starting to learn, a British car ferry, the Herald of Free Enterprise rolled over and hundreds drowned. Immediately, our teacher skipped swimming lessons and taught us how to get rid of our clothing underwater.- Learn your escape route, the moment you enter a plane, a ship or a building. Look around and decide what you are going to do if an accident occurs. Study any safety information available and listen attentively to safety briefings
- On an aircraft, understand how to open an exit door, where the lifebelt is and all the other stuff. Keep your feet free and don’t be afraid of asking your fellow passenger the same. Always wear your seat belt and again ask others to do the same.
- In an hotel, work out the exit route and look at it. Ideally get a room towards the ground or at least one that overlooks a roof you can jump on to. One useful tip from the programme - get a room on the 6th floor or below because that's the limit of most fire ladders.- On a ship, find your route to the lifeboat. Walk it.
- Wear flat shoes.
- Carry a hammer in the car to break the windows. In winter, carry a Mars Bar in case you get snowbound.
Leave all possessions behind and just flee. Go like hell and don't stop to look.
Pretty obvious really.
Monday 9 March 2009
BA1
Monday, March 9th, 2009
When you check out last weeks flights from the USA, you will find one designated BA1 which left Andrews AFB in Maryland and flew to Heathrow. Well BA1 was last used when Concorde took the evening flight from Heathrow to JFK, so this is a disguise.
So what is this? Plainly it is our beloved Gord0n Brown flying home on his heavy jet, maybe a 777, with a considerable entourage.
I am fine with heads of state being kept safe and away from the riff-raff but did he really need to hire this big jet? I think not. He should use the BBJ and chop the cronies and cuddle Sarah at 35,000 feet. That way he would arrive a happy man.
When you check out last weeks flights from the USA, you will find one designated BA1 which left Andrews AFB in Maryland and flew to Heathrow. Well BA1 was last used when Concorde took the evening flight from Heathrow to JFK, so this is a disguise.
So what is this? Plainly it is our beloved Gord0n Brown flying home on his heavy jet, maybe a 777, with a considerable entourage.
I am fine with heads of state being kept safe and away from the riff-raff but did he really need to hire this big jet? I think not. He should use the BBJ and chop the cronies and cuddle Sarah at 35,000 feet. That way he would arrive a happy man.
Sunday 8 March 2009
Acetylene
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
As a former chemist, I can tell you that this is one of nature’s most wonderful substances in more ways than one. It is an alkyne which means that it has two carbon atoms linked by a triple bond and that makes it very reactive.
As a former chemist, I can tell you that this is one of nature’s most wonderful substances in more ways than one. It is an alkyne which means that it has two carbon atoms linked by a triple bond and that makes it very reactive.
When I was a kid in the 50’s, it was easy to make due to availability of calcium carbide from the local cycle shop. Add water to calcium carbide and off comes acetylene in copious quantities. The earliest vehicle headlamps used this reaction whereby water was slowly dripped on the carbide and the acetylene ignited to provide light.
Another property of acetylene is that it detonates on shock. So unlike other gases it is not stored in compressed form in cylinders; it is dissolved in kerosene so that it won’t go off on shock. We exploited this effect. You put a few lumps of calcium carbide in a screw top bottle and add water. Screw on the cap and wait. No science here, we just waited until we thought the pressure had built up. Then we lobbed them against hard surfaces and just ducked. Enormous bang, flash of light and smithereens of glass everywhere.
We also transformed the lumps of calcium carbide into a form of currency. Younger kids were fascinated by our experiments. So we got them to go to the shops for us and in return, they got one crystal. Mercifully no one ever got hurt.
Not so the seagulls. Many years later, I was recounting all this to a much older colleague at work. He was in the army in WWII and in the interval between Dunkirk and D-Day, he was stationed at the seaside. One of their amusements was to put a lump of carbide inside a lump of bread and toss it to the seagulls. Soon after, the seagulls exploded. Wicked, I know.
Peter Mandelson custard attack
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Last week, some 'green' protester threw a cup of green-stained custard over our deeply disliked Business Secretary. Apparently, she was upset about proposals for a 3rd runway at Heathrow. There are several disturbing features about this incident.
First, she was allowed to walk away after this assault and only three hours ago (as I write) has she been arrested.
Second. How could she get so close to a Cabinet Minister?
Third. Mandelson himself is said to dislike a lot of security people about him. OK, Mandy but what about the other folks around you? What if it had been concentrated sulphuric acid and it had splashed others? What if it had been a hand grenade?
Fourth: At the time, the police said that they 'are not obliged to investigate an incident of this kind unless a formal complaint has been made.' How bloody ridiculous.
Reminds me of the time I reported seeing a 'hit and run' car accident. Then the police told me that they could do nothing until the victim complained. When I asked if the same policy applied to murder cases, I was told not to be cheeky.
Last week, some 'green' protester threw a cup of green-stained custard over our deeply disliked Business Secretary. Apparently, she was upset about proposals for a 3rd runway at Heathrow. There are several disturbing features about this incident.
First, she was allowed to walk away after this assault and only three hours ago (as I write) has she been arrested.
Second. How could she get so close to a Cabinet Minister?
Third. Mandelson himself is said to dislike a lot of security people about him. OK, Mandy but what about the other folks around you? What if it had been concentrated sulphuric acid and it had splashed others? What if it had been a hand grenade?
Fourth: At the time, the police said that they 'are not obliged to investigate an incident of this kind unless a formal complaint has been made.' How bloody ridiculous.
Reminds me of the time I reported seeing a 'hit and run' car accident. Then the police told me that they could do nothing until the victim complained. When I asked if the same policy applied to murder cases, I was told not to be cheeky.
Lemony partridge with bacon
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
There are plenty of partridge recipes about and needless to say many of them use those multi ingredient sauces which take longer to put together than actually cooking the bird. Couldn't find one using lemons so I did my own.
First, brown the bird off with a little oil; I use the wok so you can swirl it around. Set it aside to cool off a bit. Meantime cut a lemon in half and then cut one half into four quarters.
Squeeze one quarter over the bird in a casserole dish and rub in the juice. Salt and pepper it and rub that in. Then wrap streaky bacon around the bird and secure with toothpicks. Shove the used lemon segement into the cavity.
Add 200 ml of chicken stock and any vegetables you like: I added broad beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Then add the remaining 3 pieces of lemon. Don't squeeze them or the juice will overpower everything else.
I actually chopped up 2 more rashers of streaky bacon, fried them until brown and threw them in as well.
Put on the casserole lid and bake for 30 mins at 160C. Take off the lid and cut open the bacon wrap and peel the bits back. Leave off the lid and back in the oven for 15 mins for the breast to brown.
That's it. It's delicious.
There are plenty of partridge recipes about and needless to say many of them use those multi ingredient sauces which take longer to put together than actually cooking the bird. Couldn't find one using lemons so I did my own.
First, brown the bird off with a little oil; I use the wok so you can swirl it around. Set it aside to cool off a bit. Meantime cut a lemon in half and then cut one half into four quarters.
Squeeze one quarter over the bird in a casserole dish and rub in the juice. Salt and pepper it and rub that in. Then wrap streaky bacon around the bird and secure with toothpicks. Shove the used lemon segement into the cavity.
Add 200 ml of chicken stock and any vegetables you like: I added broad beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Then add the remaining 3 pieces of lemon. Don't squeeze them or the juice will overpower everything else.
I actually chopped up 2 more rashers of streaky bacon, fried them until brown and threw them in as well.
Put on the casserole lid and bake for 30 mins at 160C. Take off the lid and cut open the bacon wrap and peel the bits back. Leave off the lid and back in the oven for 15 mins for the breast to brown.
That's it. It's delicious.
Saturday 7 March 2009
Poland
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
Let’s face it, who gives a damn about Poland? Oh, yes, to be sure, we went to war over Hitler’s invasion in 1939 but was that over Poland itself or was it because we had grown tired of Hitler’s aggression in Continental Europe? I don’t know but I’ll lay a bet on the latter.
When you examine Poland and its history, it’s fine – buildings, music and the rest and it would seem they have been a peaceful nation not threatening anybody. They even produced that marvellous Pope, John Paul II. I may be an atheist but I still saw this man as a great human being. And all the Poles I have ever met have been pleasant, cultured people.
Poland's problem is twofold. It lies between the great powers of Europe and it is a corridor over which those powers walk over to meet each other.
I have never been to Poland and I must someday for I think it would be good. But would I go to war again over Poland? I think not. And the same goes for Aberbaijan and the rest....
Teaching my kids
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
When my daughter was very young, 5 or so, I and my wife were summoned to her infant’s school by the headmistress. She, in sombre tones, told us that she was concerned that Caroline was becoming uncontrollable. This was news to us. Caroline had always been stubborn but she seemed to be doing really well at school and had got along fine with her first teacher.
It appeared that Caroline had been told to do something by her second teacher, a Mrs Garscadden. Well we had already had an inkling that all was not well between Mrs. Garscadden and Caroline so it was no surprise, to me at least, that Caroline had stood up and said, ‘I shan’t and you won’t make me.’
My reaction was, ‘That’s my girl!’ at which point my wife punched me and told me to be quiet.
Caroline flourished with her third teacher and the others that followed.
Separately, at secondary school, my son, Peter, was doing badly in English and with our consent he was demoted to the ‘B’ stream and a new teacher. He too flourished and gained an ‘A’ grade at GCSE.
They are both successful in their chosen fields.
And now the role reversal has emerged and they are teaching me. They are so gentle when they do it. Is that not wonderful?
Wales - a country?
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
This one may cause me trouble.
This one may cause me trouble.
I am struggling here. The question I asked myself was, ‘Was Wales ever a country until the English defined it as such?’
A glance at its history will show that from earliest times it was pretty much like anywhere else – a ragbag of little kingdoms whose borders changed with war and marriages. Sure there were big areas like Gwynedd and Deheubarth and others but they were no more Wales than Mercia and Wessex were England.
Now Llywelyn the Great was the first guy to style himself ‘Prince of Wales.’ I concede that he was the premier prince in Wales and that the princes or kings of other areas paid homage to him. However, at that time, there were parts of the area still run by English barons, so it ain’t a country as we know it today.
The next and last guy to style himself ‘Prince of Wales’ was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the grandson of the above. His power base like his predecessors was in Gwynedd and whole chunks of the south were ruled by English Marcher Lords. Large parts of central England pushed well into Wales as we know it today.
So the wars continued and eventually in 1267, we had the Treaty of Montgomery in which Henry III recognised Llywelyn as Prince of Wales.
Finally in 1284, we had the Statute of Rhuddlan (aka Statute of Wales) and that subjugated Wales to England in perpetuity. Edward I built his castles and that was that.
I have read many references on this subject and the conclusion is simple. Wales as we know it today was never a fully united country in the past and its present boundaries were defined by the English. I blame Offa from my home town, Tamworth. He had the Dyke built and said, 'OK you lot to the West are Wales, got it?' Would they ever have got that idea by themselves, I wonder.
We should have disabused them of the whole idea. It would have saved a lot of moaning.
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Primary education
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
In this country, this refers to the education of children up to the age of 11. I have said elsewhere that I believe this to be the fundamental core stage in any child’s education. If you cannot captivate them then with the joy of learning, I suspect you never will. It is also the time when you take them from their homes and show them that there is a bigger world out there and they are going to be a part of it.
I remember my primary days well for I can still picture the buildings, the classrooms and some of the teachers. However, when it comes to learning, the picture is far from complete.
Sure we learned to read, to write and to do arithmetic, the old Victorian 3 ‘R’s’, essentials for survival in adult life. And we had to do this well, write neatly and get the spelling right. None of this simple decimal stuff either. You try dividing £14. 2s. 8d by 7 and you will know what I mean.
Much of the rest I am hazy on apart from Miss Tilson’s geography. She never taught us formal geography. She just told us stories with pictures and maps about the great explorers of this world and we had to write it up afterwards so by that means it was embedded.
She was grey haired even then but no matter. Her tales were the stuff of dreams. And that is why I shall follow Marco Polo on the Silk Road in the autumn of 2009. It is why I went to Africa (Livingstone, Stanley & Speke), to Antarctica (Scott & Shackleton) and maybe one day, I shall follow Orellana up the Orinoco.
History? Can’t remember much of what we were taught but it certainly wasn’t about remembering dates. I think it was mostly about Egyptians, Greeks and Romans plus the Battle of Hastings. What I do remember well is that we looked at the history of Tamworth - Ethelflaeda, daughter of Alfred the Great, Athelstan, her nephew, first king of the English, Offa, king of Mercia whose capital was Tamworth and Robert de Marmion , one of the guys in the Norman invasion and subsequently, King's Champion.
No foreign languages and no formal science to speak of although we did put tadpoles in jars and watch them turn into frogs.
Music? Well it was mostly singing and listening. Cannot recall anyone learning to play an instrument but then none of us could afford one.
Art? All the usual crap with paint and paper.
School plays. Oh we had a lot of these, large and small. My claim to fame was that I played Oliver in a Christmas play called ‘Oliver Twist asks for more.’
Games? Think this is PE nowadays. Usual stuff but I was never interested. They never even tried to teach me to swim which is a pity.
Homework? None but we were encouraged to go to the Town Library and look things up which we did. And, of course, when you are in the Library, you explore other things and that is where I started to read proper fiction.
Exams? Well they were simple in structure but they did ask you questions that you had to think about. None of that multiple choice then.
School trips? Can only recall two. One to Bourton on the Water and the other to Wall (aka Letocetum) a Roman site on the line of the Watling Street.
No computers and no internet, not that I am decrying either. Wish I’d had them. But we started with slates and graduated to exercise books.
I suppose that when you look at the above list and judge it by today’s standards, you’d say it was pretty poor. But then you must consider the outcomes as they say in modern education parlance.
Quite a lot of us moved on from our primary to a small single stream grammar school with a class size of 28. And there we dominated the class each and every year and most of us went to university. And this was against kids drawn from schools all over town.
Lost touch now but reflect:
I ended up running 4 businesses on 4 continents
Andrew became a professor of nuclear physics
Michael built his own pharmacy business
Alan is Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland
So there you have it. Little market town of 12,500, Victorian/Edwardian buildings (although the 10- 11 yo class was in a hut), relatively poor, no prescribed curriculum that I could divine, no H & S regulations and no SATS.
But plainly my two schools gave us something that lived with us forever.
Tuesday 24 February 2009
Phoning Cefn Onn
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Cefn Onn is a small primary school in the north of Cardiff of which I am a governor. It is set in a poor housing state but it is great for all the staff are doing their best to give these kids the best. It is a bright school and it seems happy.
Ring them at lunchtime when the staff are serving lunch and then you will experience something truly magical. A little voice answers saying something like, 'Hello, this is Cefn Onn Primary School, how may I help you?.' First time I ever got this, I said, 'My name is xyz and I'd like to speak to Mr. abc. Who are you?' She said, ' I cannot tell you my name but I can pass on a message.' And so she did.
Great isn't it but sad also? Love the idea of the kids being given the responsibility of handling lunchtime calls. But it is so sad that nowadays we have to protect our kids with anonymity.
Cefn Onn is a small primary school in the north of Cardiff of which I am a governor. It is set in a poor housing state but it is great for all the staff are doing their best to give these kids the best. It is a bright school and it seems happy.
Ring them at lunchtime when the staff are serving lunch and then you will experience something truly magical. A little voice answers saying something like, 'Hello, this is Cefn Onn Primary School, how may I help you?.' First time I ever got this, I said, 'My name is xyz and I'd like to speak to Mr. abc. Who are you?' She said, ' I cannot tell you my name but I can pass on a message.' And so she did.
Great isn't it but sad also? Love the idea of the kids being given the responsibility of handling lunchtime calls. But it is so sad that nowadays we have to protect our kids with anonymity.
Sunday 22 February 2009
A good quote
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
Found this just the other day. It would seem to contain more common sense than has been exhibited by Socialism and Communism in over a century.
Found this just the other day. It would seem to contain more common sense than has been exhibited by Socialism and Communism in over a century.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Many have attributed this to Abraham Lincoln but when you read it you can see that that is too early. Best guess is
Researching the bloody obvious
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
The banking system may be broke, you can’t get a mortgage for love nor money, soldiers are being killed all the while in Afghanistan but one sector of human activity is alive and thriving – researching the bloody obvious.
In the past week, we have had an outfit calling itself Passenger Focus saying that British Rail fares are by far the highest in Western Europe. We are not talking about some piddling 10% here, they say our average rail fares are around 50% higher than on the Continent of Europe. Long distance, fully flexible, pay on the day, fares were 87% higher than the next highest country, Germany. And what is more, our fares for this are 3.5 times higher than the cheapest country, Holland.
When it comes to commuting, that is journeys of 25 miles or less, we happen to be 88% more expensive than the next country, France. On top of all this, some Government minister, Lord Adonis (you wouldn’t want to bend over in front of him) says it would cost £500 million a year to bring our commuter fares in line with the Continent. £500 million? What kind of flyshit is that compared to the bank bailout?
None of this is any surprise to anyone who has surfed the internet checking on rail prices at home and abroad.
Next we have some woman from Princeton University ( a really nice place and my friend Lin works there) telling us that pictures of bikini clad women in the workplace can make men see them as objects or tools rather than independent people. She apparently tested the men beforehand to determine their level of ‘sexual hostility’ and guess what? The men with the higher sexual hostility rating had lower empathy. Amazing isn’t it? Who could have guessed that?
Of course, she never bothered to check that attitudes of women who have hunky males on their calendars or their screen savers. After all, that might just have revealed that women were as ‘bad’ as men when regarding the opposite sex as objects.
And finally we come to the outstanding revelation that many British retailers have failed to pass on the VAT rate cut from 17.5% to 15%. Have they been asleep since this happened, I wonder? The cut was decided on overnight and most retailers didn’t have the time to change the labels so you got your VAT cut at the check out. Not for long though.
The labels were changed and afterwards you saw just as many prices such as £xxx.99 as before. Now hang on, let’s do some basic arithmetic. If it was £299.99 before the cut, then it should be £293.60 afterwards. Did we see a mushrooming of .60 tags? Hell no. Once the dust settled, the retailers went back to charging us what they like.
All this research would be fine if it cost nothing but it does and in the end, you, me and every other taxpayer funds it.
I tell you, the day is not long off when some Ph.D tells us that after two years intensive research, he has concluded that 5 years olds are generally smaller than adults or that lettuce is often green. And of course, you can only see the sun in the daytime.
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