Category: General

Time to let go!!!

MikeLeave a comment

Well, it’s the first post of the year and, unbelievably, it’s already February!! I’m already a month behind, what I thought would be a new period filled with lots of spare time! Ha ha.

So what is this post all about? With vinyl undergoing a big revival, I thought I’d recommission my old Hi-Fi stereo system (the actual equipment setup is for another post), which we haven’t had running for fifteen/twenty years.

As with many things in life, one thing leads to another, and of course the first question is: where does it go? Large floor speakers take up space, and stereo units from the 80s/90s are far too big to slip under a small table! Yes, it really is that old.

Why don’t we buy a new system? No way — I like a challenge!

So, back to finding a location for the stereo. Let’s put it on top of the nice big Welsh dresser we have. But what about all the stuff already on top of that? Well, we could move it into the nice tall, glass-fronted “Billy” cupboards we have… but wait a minute — they’re already full of books. And then…

We arrive at the point of letting go!!!

I’ve collected books for most of my life, particularly coffee-table books, which for me have always served as reference books on various subjects. Such as…

So the time has come to make some space and decide what to keep and what to let go! I’ve looked at some of the “buy my books” websites, but most of the offers are pretty paltry — in one case around £4.50 for ten books!!

I’ve also tried eBay a few times in the past, but when you see the wide array of prices for the same book — anything from £52.00 to £9.99 — it does make you wonder whether any of them actually sell.

So some will be going to a local secondary school library, where I know the good reference books will be put to use, and the rest to a recent find: a local Oxfam bookshop, where I’m sure someone will enjoy their contents.

Before I disposed of them, I wanted a way to catalogue all the books I have dotted around the house, and I finally settled on Handy Library. What a great app. It’s very easy to use: it can scan book ISBNs and add them to your own created ‘shelves’, you can manually add books, or even search for them on the web and import the information from there. It has full editing capabilities, tagging, and — most importantly — it backs up the content (in my case to Google Drive). Not only that, but it will also export your lists to Excel! What more could you ask for?

Anyway, that one room done, only four more to go!!

It caught my eye… 8-2025

MikeLeave a comment

Churches in the UK are under threat! Not from a 2nd Reformation, more from a failure of Bricks and Mortar!

In a report from the National Churches Trust, the Guardian quotes that “One in five churches say their building has deteriorated in the past five years, …”

But there is some hope, especially for Hastings’ Holy Trinity (HTH) Church.

I was always and still am a big fan of Inspector Montalbano, the Italian detective series set in Sicily. Yes, it had its many oddities, one of which was the lack of motor vehicles in every episode. But it was a great series and sad that it is no more, apart from the odd repeat.

Imagine my surprise and delight at seeing the advert for Inspector Gerri. Not just another Italian Detective series, but one that has a lot of flesh on it bones and in many ways superior to Inspector Montalbano. Set in beautiful Apulia, it’s a must-see programme.

Yes, another TV programme – I’m catching up on my Humax recordings, (still another 195 programmes to go, but that another post!)

Venezuela has been in the news quite a bit recently as Trump ramps up his ‘Narco-War’ against the country. However, as we find in Michael Palin‘s travel documentary, there are many sides to Venezuela.

From deserted tourist towns, to Intelligence Services stopping them and from Angle Falls – how did that helicopter land – to a 3-metre Anaconda. It’s another must-see programme, and a country to visit, perhaps!

It caught my eye… 7-2025

MikeLeave a comment

Another fascinating programme from the BBC Storyville cupboard – The Librarians. The programme focus’s on the pressures being piled on United States Librarians from a Trump driven agenda to suppress/control what books are available in Public and School libraries.

I found the 90-minute story fascinating to watch, with heartfelt testimonies from many under scrutiny Librarians and coverage of ‘school-board‘ meetings, where at one of these ‘events’, a ‘parent’ is recorded threatening to assault a librarian with a firearm!

Some good comparisons to other incidents of book/reading suppression in stories like Fahrenheit 451 and pictures/video of book burnings in Germany during the Nazi era.

I must admit that I was amazed at some of the content in this documentary, common-sense seems to have been driven out by some kind of pseudo-religious fervour seemingly backed by money from Trumpesque like funding sources.

Could this happen in the UK? Well, it might surprise the reader that there has been a rise of complaints and requests to have certain book taking off the shelves at UK Libraries!

          Microplastics in our Bodies

Another shocking story of the continuing invasion of Microplastics into our bodies!

Even UK government research shows that it is a major problem. Other articles continue to show that the rise of microplastics is a serious problem to our health.

The problem is getting worse by any measurement, and one wonders when politicians are going to wake up and do something about this threat to the Human Race?

            The rise in diagnoses

A family member has recently been diagnosed with Autism, bringing it more into focus for me. Like many people, I thought I knew quite a bit about it, but of course there is always more to learn!

One question I would ask, though. What is driving the increase in diagnosis of Autism? Has this number of cases always been with us or are we are just getting better at diagnosing it, or are there other reasons. Which ever, it’s a learning curve for all of us!

It caught my eye… 6 -2025

MikeLeave a comment

There’s a lot of commentary around Donald Trump at the moment, far too much to delve into it in a single post, but there was a great article about Patrimonialism in The Atlantic magazine last week.

One Word Describes Trump is still available for free on the Atlantic website and it is very much worth a read.

Patrimonialism for me is very much the word to describe Donald Trump.

A sign of the times! DanePost has announced that they will be ending the delivery of letters from the end of 2025.

Is this a trend that will now move out across the whole of Europe? Certainly, as more Postal Services are privatised, prices will go up – it currently costs £3.35 to post a letter in Denmark!

With the sale of Royal Mail recently being approved by the UK Government, might we see similar dramatic changes to UK letter deliveries?

Shock Horror, Skype is closing down!

Certainly it is the end of what was a very good app, I used it a lot many years ago, but it seems to have been overtaken by App’s like Zoom & WhatsApp to name two.

Microsoft has posted a ‘Transition to Teams‘ article, I guess that’s where I might end up!

It caught my eye… 5 -2025

MikeLeave a comment

I am in the process of clearing up the piles of papers in my study and came across an old article (2009) about Cinerama, a forerunner of today’s IMAX. Cinerama was a great idea at the time that sadly did not catch on, but not before it brought a travelling Cinema (in a tent – like a Circus) to the UK and a number of other European countries.

Making a new search on the web this week led me to find a few new links about Cinerama, including one about a young (at the time) Junior Projectionist who worked at the UK travelling Cinerama during the mid 1960’s in the UK.

I remember going to see a show when it was in Paignton (we lived in Plymouth), an amazing film experience. But sadly, no more. Though, you can still be able to see some Cinerama films at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.

Keeping on the theme of Cinema, it was great to Medicinema win an award at the 2025 BAFTA’s.

I had not heard of this organisation before seeing this year’s BAFTA’s awards. Good to see how Cinema can be used as part of recovery during a stay in Hospital.

In a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) current has not declined in the last 60 years. Despite the fact that no one seems to still be able to predict if it will suddenly collapse or not.

It just goes to show how difficult it is to accurately predict climate change, and particularly how the impact of it will at some stage affect us all.

For me, the Ocean Currents hold the secret to what will happen, so it’s important that we pay attention to all the details that these studies contain.

It caught my eye… 4 -2025

MikeLeave a comment

This is a map from quite a while ago, 2014 in fact. This was one of the first times that a group of people really tried to gather together a good set of subject data that could be easily searched down to a very local level. It certainly did not try to cover everything, but it was a good source of information for its time. It even spawned a book.

The data sets used covered information from various sources, such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), The Met Office, Public Health England to name a few. A full list of all the data sources used is available. The project, run by the Small Area Health Statistics Unit at Imperial College London, seems to have come to a close not long after the publication of the book. Time and data collection has really moved quickly over the subsequent 10 years, with Information/Statistics about every conceivable subject at the drop of a hat!

Defence spending is a big topic of conversation at the moment across the whole of Europe and with the next UK strategic defence review due in the Spring of 2025, it will be interesting to see how the UK.Gov intends to spend its scarce financial resources, given the recent comments by the US Trump administration.

Here’s a set of listings of how much various countries currently spend on Defence? Not a subject that is going away.

Britain From Above recently updated its pricing and added some more images to its archive. It’s a fascinating site where you can lose track of time looking through the various historical images.

There are now quite a few other historical aerial mapping sites to visit.

UK Aerial Photos, National Collection of Aerial Photography, Britain from the air: 1945-2009 and the Royal Air Force Museum to name a few.

It caught my eye… 3-2025

MikeLeave a comment

Leaving aside the moronic comments made by Trump at the press conference. I have another issue.

Why have many of the headlines and commentary both from the USA news outlets and British news commentators, who in my opinion should know better, kept on saying that the Plane had collided with the Helicopter?

It seems pretty clear to me that the plane was on the final approach to the airport when the helicopter flew into it!

Of course we will have to see what the black boxes say. But I wish there was better and more accurate reporting.

Fire! Fire! Fire! Normally, the main reaction would be to pour water over the fire to put it out. That is true in many circumstances, but the world has become a more ‘complicated’ place, for example, you would not want to use water to put out an electrical fire!

However, over the years, various substances have been created to deal with specialist fires, Foam, Carbon Dioxide, Halon Gas (though banned in the late 1990’s) to name a few. I remember in the navy in the 60’s/70’s the main foaming agent used was Ox’s blood!!!

Well it now seems that there are growing concerns arising from the use of foams containing PFOS and PFOA (perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid), as they have been discovered to be some of the ‘Forever Chemicals‘ that end up (via run-off )in our waterways after a fire has been extinguished. Here’s an interesting report that’ worth reading from the Guardian – 3M knew firefighting foams containing PFAS were toxic, documents show.

Flooded Pitch

It’s rained a lot over the past number of months and it was sad to see that Worcester Cricket Club ground is flooded again. We lived in Worcester for a number of years after I left the Royal Navy and where we purchased our first house.

I managed to get to a few games during our time in Worcester when Basil D’Oliveira played for them. Will they move to avoid future floods? Who knows? But discussions are moving along.

It caught my eye… 2-2025

MikeLeave a comment

Sometimes, the UK’s confusing legal system still appears to be able to deliver unbelievable mistakes.

This is 78 years old Gaie Delay who was jailed for 20 months in 2022 as part of a UK Government ‘crackdown’ on Just Stop Oil protestors. Last Christmas she was release due to medical issues and was to be fitted with a ‘Tag‘ to finish her sentence at home.

Due to physical issues, a correct size tag could not be sourced to fit her. After a number of days; 20 as it turns out, she has now been recalled to prison for those 20 days to finish her sentence! She must be a very dangerous criminal!!! Full story here and here.

With the rise of keyboard and voice operated devices, it seems that the art of handwriting is on a marked decline. I would admit to being one of those who does not write with a pen as much as I used to, though I still sometimes reach out for my lovely Waterman pen (a birthday gift from my sister a few years ago), to use it to write Birthday/Christmas cards.

One interesting fact I learned from this very interesting article (Long-Read) is that as today’s primary school children are not taught to write cursively (joined up writing to you and me) so they also struggle to read it. Amazingly, Finland removed cursive writing from its schools in 2016!

Having spent some of my secondary education years at a Roman Catholic school where penmanship was drilled into you – even the teachers (Nun‘s) used square chalk on the blackboards – everything handwritten had to be in the Italic script style of writing! It’s a shame to see it handwriting slowing disappearing. I’ll have to give myself some ‘Writing-Lines‘ to keep me using my Waterman, so that I don’t lose the physical and mental ability to handwrite something in the future.

I was sad to see that the British Council is facing a UK.Gov funding shortfall and may be forced to reduce its operations around the world. I think this organising does a tremendous amount of work on behalf of the UK and should be looked on as a good use of ‘Soft Power‘. One effect of withdrawing funding, will be an upsurge in the influence of Russia and China in areas where we once promoted our basic core values.

Books I’ve read – 4

MikeLeave a comment

More of what I have been reading since returning to physical books.

What a great book! It’s really two books in one. Not only covering one of the worst winters the UK experienced in my lifetime, but also a well-documented history of the many social/political changes happening in the UK during the early 60’s including the emergence of the ‘Swinging Sixties‘, the start of the Mersey Beat sound through The Beatles and of course many others.

Some other highlights of the book included revisiting the Profumo scandal and of course, as I found out through internet searches, the author‘s family connection to Sissinghurst – which is worth a separate post – which I have visited a few times. Great anecdotes.

We lived in Plymouth at the time of the ‘Big Freeze‘ (Video) and as a 13-year-old I did not mind at all that the buses could not negotiate the hills to take us to and from school, Extra holidays!! Though, I do remember my father taking us on a trip to Okehampton to see some relatives during one of the easier driving days of the time. My mother was not amused!

I have read a number of Max Hastings books over the year, I read this one last year after watching Ken Burns and Lynn Novick‘s excellent and must watch documentary about Vietnam.

A very detailed book that did add to my already reasonable knowledge about the conflict from the many other books that I have read including – In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, We Were Soldiers Once…And Young, A Bright Shining Lie – and definitely a book to keep for future reference. I especially like the collections of images and maps that helped to understand what happened.

However, I cannot get over Max Hastings not sacking Boris Johnson when he was his boss at the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Perhaps if he had, we might have been spared his atrocious attempt at being UK Prime Minister.

Another book that I read a while ago but came up in a recent conversation. This book, written by Alan Turing‘s nephew Dermot Turing, covers the often overlooked work that Polish Code-Breakers did in the early days of trying to break the Enigma cipher machine codes used by the Nazi Germany during World War Two. It’s a very interesting read and add more detail to that part of history.

History is also a funny thing; early on while serving in the Royal Navy through the various jobs I did, I came across some (then classified) machines that were used for manually encrypting communications much like the Enigma did. It was part of the job to look after them – maintenance etc. Though, there was not a lot you could do in reality. You did what you did with them and really did not think too much about it, as it was just like any other piece of equipment, be it radio transmitters or radar systems.

Imagine my surprise when in 1974 a book called The Ultra Secret: The Inside Story of Operation Ultra, Bletchley Park and Enigma by F. W. Winterbotham was published as the first book in English that suddenly divulged what until then had been the secret world of World War Two cryptography. I then suddenly realised that I had been working on one of the successors of the Enigma, the Adonis/SEC/KL-7!

It caught my eye… 1-2025

MikeLeave a comment

Enheduanna: The world’s first named author! This person’s name came up in my recent reading of Neil Oliver’s book – The Story of the World in 100 Moments. I must admit that I, like I am sure many others, had not her name before.

However, there is quite a story to tell about this Mesopotamian poet, princess, and priestess from circa 3400–2000 BCE.

The New Yorker – The Struggle to Unearth the World’s First Author

The Morgan Library and Museum – She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 B.C.

Telegraphi – The oldest signed poems bear the name of a woman

They say it’s a mark of time that you can always remember where you were when certain past public events took place, the Kennedy assassination, the first man to walk on the moon, the Falklands War, the death of Queen Elizabeth II and of course the day that Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire!

Having visited it many times over the years while being in Paris on business/pleasure, it was devastating to see and one could only wonder at the time, if it would or even could be rebuilt. Ancient Cathedrals have burnt down before and some have been rebuilt, but was this a task too far?

No, it was not. What an unbelievable job the whole of France has done. It’s taken over 5 years of hard work and amazing efforts to bring it back to life. I followed the progress through the various documentaries that were made showing all the various trades that were collected together to restore the massive structure.

I hope to go back and see it again in 2025, but will wait until the immediate rush of visitor has died down. Yes, it was tragic to witness its demise, but equally, it has been amazing to see it rise again from the ashes.

Map; Pocket Underground map, by Henry C Beck, January 1933
Map; pocket Underground map issued by UERL, 1908
BeckDesign_Today
LondonTubMap-SpiralDesign_Alternate

I came across these London Underground Map images accidentally a while ago while looking for some other information about London history. Its interesting how the design has evolved over the years.