Category: General

It caught my eye this week… 3

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Sarah Everard - A tragedy that has released a tsunami of grief and serious concern for the safety of women in general. Statistics released by the ONS have also shown just how unsafe the UK appears to be for women. The figures are appalling and in all honesty make me think we are looking at epidemic of violence visited on women. 

Clearly education by parents and the state is failing in the teaching of the basic principals of teaching everyone to respect one another especially how men behave towards women - though one publication has another view.

Special focus of course has been on the Police (who will always be caught in the middle of many disputes) and the London Met in particular with some disturbing figures released by the Observer newspaper. Clearly deeper vetting of new recruits needs to be carried out- though there must be a general societal problem if the background character of some of the recruits is as reported, I think some very serious charges need to be put to this type of people.

Boris Johnson – “an unrepentant and inveterate liar”. Not my words but those the France Ambassador to the UK 2014-2017 uses in her new book about her job. Based on my reading of the man, I think I would agree.

Promoted beyond his own level of incompetence, I sure that history will not have a very good word to say about this man who believes that he should be Prime Minister as a right, but has no idea how to carry that role out.

Vaccine Wars - This ongoing saga seems to be showing no end with various ‘cat-calls’ between the EU and the Tory Government. Clearly someone in the EU does not understand Contract Law and clearly the UK Government wants to get one over on the EU.

Based on the latest articles, it’s not going away; while the ‘Third-World’ looks on in dismay as two of the richest areas in the world have a fight over what!!!!

The Royal Navy - Having been in the Navy for close on 18 years, it’s a subject that I follow and the latest news that HMS Queen Elizabeth (the new aircraft carrier) will definitely be cruising through the South China Seas sometime later this year is worrying.

Yes, we have to deal with China’s expansion. However, ‘sending’ in the Navy to me seems overkill at this moment, particularly as we still seem not to have a fully home-grown protection flotilla of our own. Yes, there will be other Navy’s ‘helping’ out, but this seems more about ‘Johnson’ and his bragging rights than real diplomatic negotiations.

There again Johnson's track record on this has always been suspect, take the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the ’Johnson’ gaff that left her in an Iranian jail for so long.

Mars Tracking – Out and about on Mars! Space probes always fascinate me. Here’s some more images from The Perseverance Rover.

P. S. I have no idea what is wrong with WordPress today!!!! I tried for over an hour to get the formatting correct, but it defeated me today!!!!

It caught my eye this week… 1

MikeLeave a comment

COVID – That the ‘Vaccine Wars‘ seems so embarrassing to all concerned. Whilst it is important that everyone gets vaccinated to overcome the Covid Pandemic, spare a thought for Third-World Countries and their lack of facilities, even before the crisis started. – Only 25 doses!!!!

Best Efforts – Having been involved in a number of legal contracts for Computer Projects over the years it was interesting to see the term ‘Best Efforts’ being discussed with regards to Vaccine delivery this week.

It was always an interesting discussion with contract lawyers as to the difference between ‘Best Efforts’ & ‘Reasonable Efforts‘ and which offered the greatest safeguard to both parties from the point of ‘delivery.

Novichok Poisoning Inquest – Finally; some movement on the inquest into the Salisbury Novichok poisonings of 2018 – yes that was nearly four years ago and the inquest into Dawn Sturgess’s death is still unfinished. What is it that the UK.Gov does not want to come out?
Seems that it is being dragged for some reason, I wonder what? Well at least we will get an official inquest, unlike what happened to Alexei Navalny.

Breaking the boredom of Lockdown – Quite a lot written about this subject over the last months, how have you kept your sanity? Here are just of the suggestions I have found online…

I continue to be busy building my new shed for the second allotment I took over last year and trying to get my cycling going; though I’ve not done a lot since the start of the year due to the weather (never thought I would say that!). We’re also back to helping with ‘home-schooling’ and managing to get back on my Yamaha Keyboard at long last. Boredom; no way!

So long, farewell, adieu…

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Finally, we got to see the back of Donald Trump today! So much has been written about the harm he has done to the USA and the world in general, it’s difficult to know where to start and comment – the huge USA death toll from Covid inaction, the pardoning of many of his ‘kiss-ass’ supporters, dispute their wrongdoings are just two area’s to name.

Suffice to say that the man following him has a though job ahead in bringing two sides of a very split country together and rolling back some of the inane decisions that were taken over the past four years.

Lets hope all goes well for him and he new administration.

Did I blink!!

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What happened to 2020? Did I blink or did time speed up? I think it is true that time seems to speed up as you get older, but how come I have not posted since February last year!! That’s nearly twelve months ago, what have I done since then?

Clearly a lot has happened and I suppose the biggest event was and still is the COVID Pandemic, I just heard the news today that we have now passed the 80,000 COVID deaths total! The ‘confirmed’ cases now stand at over three million, just three weeks after they passed the two million mark! Clearly people are not paying attention to keeping themselves isolated!

Here’s an article from the Guardian with more details, it’s such a tragic situation that appears only to be getting worse. A distant light on the horizon must be the vaccines, let’s hope that they will end this, but I fear it will be a long time before it does.

So what did I do with the last eleven months? I suppose the three main things would have been… intermittently looking after the two grandchildren during 2020 whenever the pandemic measures allowed, though sadly we have now not seen them in person since our brief get together for the 2020 October Half-Term week at a great getaway in Dorset. We decided (although the changes with the Pandemic really decided for us), that after that break we should keep more isolated, though the online get togethers are good, they don’t replace actual physical being together. The other two main things were cycling and the Garden/Allotment.

Cycling – Despite the various pandemic related changes over the period, I have managed to keep cycling, the cycling club I belong to suspended group rides during the first lockdown and since then I’ve done all of my riding in 2020 by myself. I’ve still managed to cover a reasonable distance for the year, sadly though not as much as the previous year.

Allotment – I took on another plot in late 2019 and managed to get a good set of crops out of the front section of it during the 2020 growing season. However, the back section was really in a mess and the latter part of the 2020 was taken up with reorganising that area. Slow progress, but getting there and a good job to finish during early 2021.

Other things that kept me busy were…

  • Helping ‘remotely’ with peoples computers, now so much more important for staying in contact with their contacts via Zoom, Facetime, Google Meet and many other apps I’ve lost track of, also carried out a number of updates to Windows 10 remotely; very interesting!!
  • Keeping my daily newsletters up to date as much as possible
  • Working on the various Allotment committee items
    • Monthly Newsletters and Special Bulletins
    • Designing and launching a new Website, though I would not call myself a web designer!
  • Decorating during lockdown
  • Shopping for our family and a couple of neighbours.
  • Working through some excellent free online courses from FutureLearn
  • Sorting out my images and delving deeper into Lightroom and Photoshop
  • Buying and learning about the Raspberry Pi (via FutureLearn) and thinking back to the original BBC Micro – how technology has changed!
  • Binge watching various series, Star Trek: Picard, Treadstone, Mr Robot – Season 4, The Main in the High Castle – Season 4, Jack Ryan – Season 1, Bosch, from Season 1, NCIS, Season 14, WW II in Colour, Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3 and quite a few others.
  • Local Walking

So I do seem to have been busy, but 2020 still seems to have flown by and I still seem to have lots to do, scanning of old photos, Family Tree updates, printing out some of my images on a brand new A3 Printer, plus I hope putting more post into this space.

Brexit and Corona Virus

MikeLeave a comment

Where did February go? I wonder sometimes if time speeds up as you get older. Can’t believe that it has been a full month since I last posted here!

Seems a lot has happened, but I suppose the two main talking point are the spread of the Corona Virus and the UK governments attempts to blame the EU for our forthcoming final shamble that will be Brexit.

With the latest statement that the UK could walk away from the final Brexit transition talks in June, the government seems to be walking it self into a very tight corner before they have even stated. Seems a strange negotiation position to adopt, but not one I am surprised at.

Copyright – The Guardian

Corona Virus seems to be spreading it’s wings far and wide with a new case reported in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although there seems to be no shortage of attempts to contain this virus, I fear that it is going to get much worse before it peaks. I’m not sure that UK is as prepared for this outbreak as I hear in news reports.

I think I’ll stay indoors for the next few weeks!!!!

Copyright – CDC & WHO

It’s all about the Pressure!

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Something strange is happening with online weather forecasts; default pressure information is disappearing!

Yes the TV Broadcast weather programmes do refer to them, but what about the online weather maps?

As can be seen from the above three snaps of today’s weather, none of them (including the UK’s own Met. Office) contain any default information about weather pressure. You have to go and search/click on another link to get this information.

As it is one of the deciding factors in determining our weather, you would think this is something that should be included in the default page setup.

Here are the same three online services Pressure Maps. However, to get them you have follow a link from one of the menus, sometimes filling in extra ‘tick’ boxes (as in the case of the BBC) to get the information you need. It seems strange when a simple adjustment to the web pages could at least show the relevant figure of pressure at any time. The BBC used to have this in the past.

I suppose it’s a bit like information about the Jet Stream; another big influencer of the UK’s weather. Mostly, it does not get mentioned except in fairly rare circumstances. Something else I think should be changed. Here’s today’s view of the Jet Stream. Not from the above services as I could find any info quickly about the Jet Stream on those sites. Google on the other hand…

I’ve always been interested in the Weather and will be installing a personal weather station sometime in 2020. However, here’s is a look at the pressure difference as I see it using my Grandfather’s Mercury based Barometer, which does seem to give fairly accurate readings.

Looking at this, you can see quite a difference between the pressure this week and last week’s due to the deluge of rain of rain we had.

The National Archives

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I’ve been doing some research recently for a pet subject of mine and made time to visit The (UK) National Archives online search pages. I did find what I wanted, plus much more.

It’s amazing when you’re engrossed in a particular subject just how much time you can use up. Still there is always another day.

Have a browse around, I’m sure there is something there for you.

Who profits from Wars?

MikeLeave a comment

I’ve just been sent a very interesting link from an American friend living in Europe. I can’t vouch for its background; but I know that they do not post/relink items before they have researched their origin.

It’s a powerful piece and does make you ask yourself some serious questions.

I’ll leave it to you to make your own conclusions.

Makes you think!