I have come across a number of recent articles discussing the current state of the Royal Navy. You can find access to the various news items below, which cover lack of manpower and early retirement of ships.
Finally, this from the Navy Lookout site, which I think has a pretty good handle on the current situation in the Royal Navy.
It’s sad to see an organisation where I spent many of my formative years in such a mess. I’m not sure what the solutions are to boost recruitment so that we can keep more ships manned. However, I certainly think that politicians of all parties have a lot to answer for their actions (or lack of) over the past number of years.
Energy Crisis – Just where is all my money going? A question that has often been asked when you received your energy bills and an even more important question today in light of the huge increases we have seen in energy costs over the past six months.
Marconi-Wireless Pioneer – Although he had a number of rivals (Nikola Tesla being one of them) Marconi has come out as the one who is best remembered for his work in developing Wireless technologies.
I recently came across this fascinating article on the Ofcom website about 100 years of radio since Marconi’s big breakthrough. For example, I did not know that FM was first used back in 1933! You learn something every day. Quite a bit in this article about BBC Radio.
Forty years on: The woman embedded with Thatcher’s Task Force – For those of us associated with the Falkland conflict in one way or another, this article from Forces Net documents how the artist Linda Kitson travelled the 8,000 miles alongside the Taskforce to document events though her drawings.
An amazing and talented artist who produced astonishing drawings under stressful conditions.
Soldiers practising with their rifles off a ship’s stern Scots Guards at Tumbledown by Linda Kitson
You can find more of Linda Kitson’s drawings depicting the Falklands War on display at the National Memorial Arboretum.
Fed up with having to keep retuning your terrestrial Freeview TV’s and Humax (yes, I still use one) box every so often?
Well, here some news announced about big changes to the way that we receive terrestrial TV (Freeview itself may even under threat) that will affect us all over the next few years.
We first of all it seems that other stuff catching my eye has kept me away from this blog again for two long!! Where does time go?
A combination of more work on the Allotment; with the very strange weather over the last few months so there has been a lot of catching up to do. Including finishing off my new shed (a lockdown project) albeit the roof is still to on – shortage of roofing materials – and of course lots of planting.
So what has caught my ‘eye’ over the past few months…
World Wide Micro-Chip Shortage – Integrated Circuits or ‘Micro-Chips’ are in everything today from Toasters and Doorbells to the latest Games Consoles, Washing Machines, Smartphones and many other devices. Without ‘Micro-Chips’ the world as we know it today could and probably would not exist. So it is concerning that there is now a world-wide shortage of them.
The reasons vary from the COVID Pandemic slowing down demand in sectors such as Motor Vehicles and yet from a surge in demand for Games Consoles over the last 18 months. Unfortunately the manufacture of Micro-Chips can’t be switched on an off quickly, factories need to bring their production lines, costing hundreds of millions of dollar up speed as and when demands require and that takes time. These issues along with the fires at Renesas in March this year and at AKM late last year will put a big strain on the market and of course increase prices. Let’s hope were not going to see a shortage for too long.
What’s happen to the weather? – Clearly there is much more emerging proof that the climate/weather is changing and speed of it is gathering pace. Looking at the some of the weather over the last three months here in the UK, I am not surprised.
No we are told that the stratosphere is shrinking!! In a very worrying report, and contains some very stark comments that we all need to be very concerned about.
The UK Building Cladding Issue – How can a UK government utterly abandon a sector of society who through no fault of their own are placed in a situation not of their making that will leave them completely financially ruined. Does the government seem to care about ordinary people wanting to have a safe roof over their head, it would seem not!
In a recent decision by the government, an amount of money has been provided that falls far short of what is required to basically fix an issue that is completely the responsibility of the builders of high-rise properties. Clearly the current UK government is more interested in helping their business ‘buddies’ than the ordinary folk of the country.
The Royal Navy Ventures East – As part of Boris Johnson boastful Global Britain the UK’s Carrier Strike Group has begun an overseas deployment scheduled to last some seven months. With a number of nations making up the task group and a number of stops envisaged along the way, this will be a first for the UK in so much as the size of the fleet and massive logistics support involved.
With a proposed transit of the South China Sea, it will be a diplomatically tricky road that the Royal Navy has to tread showing China that the South China Seas are still considered ‘International Waters’ by the west. Of course, it has always been that way in the past, until China has grown to be the international power that it is today. I suspect that UK Task force may meet up with the latest USA Task Force transiting the waters.
I remember my very first trip with the Royal Navy on board HMS Devonshire as we spent just over a year on a journey that took us from Portsmouth to Tokyo and back, however, that’s a story for another post!!
It seems that the Tories can’t escape the long arm of ‘sleaze’ no matter who is in charge.
From Cameron and his Greensill involvement to to the many contracts doled out to the Tory party donators during the early Covid crisis days to the latest tweets from Tory/Brexit contacts direct to the current Prime Minister.
I wonder what will be the next example to show up?
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.
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!!!!
How disappointing can one get with the current UK government? I know that if we lived in France, Germany or even Italy, no way would they let one their bastions of industrialisation a.k.a a Steel Industry die a slow and painful death.
Rules may be Rules, but for heavens sake, the British government needs to have some backbone and put some money into British Steel and save it from disappearing forever.
Private Equity will have made millions from this debacle, as they have done with other such disasters.
When I was obtaining the latest figures for the ‘Car Pricing’ E-petition, I came across the list of British dependencies that people could vote from. Where are these places? Some are obvious, like the Isle of Man, some maybe not so obvious.
So for my own appreciation here the list with some interesting (maybe only to me?) links about them.
Is this a plug for Wikipedia? No, its just a place with a lot of good info.
Beasley's Place 