Category: Uncategorized

Well that’s what appeared to happen somewhere in the dark deep Atlantic as we learnt yesterday when it appears that two Nuclear submarines had a close encounter!

Having spent a number of years in the Navy, but never having served on ‘subs’ ( apart from a three day trip on an old diesel boat – too smelly and cramped for me)  I found the story quite funny in that the press seemed to think that one of the ‘subs’ should have sounded their horn to let  each other know of their presence!

The whole design and aim of modern submarines is to remain as much as possible ‘invisible’, using only passive listening devices to try and detect others that may be out there!

To me, it sounds a bit like a game of ‘chicken’ – how close can we get without being detected – that got out of hand. So although no one was hurt or equipment was damaged, someone’s pride in both Navies has been dented!

I would have thought that with technology of video surveillance in such prevalence above the surface these days, some of that would have been in use below the waves to prevent this sort of the accident. There is nothing so passive as a video camera!

Must get my copy of The Hunt for Red October out again, great film.

What is going on at Shell? One minute they have a new chairman, the next he not going to join.

Seems very strange after it was all so nearly a done deal…

… so instead of moving to BP, Paul Skinner will remain with the mining company (Rio Tinto) and try to secure approval from shareholders for a controversial $19.5 billion cash injection from Chinalco, the metals group that is controlled by the Chinese Government…

See more about the whole story here.

What I don’t understand is, why would the shareholders of a company like Rio Tinto want to possibly hand control of their company over to the Chinese government?

Perhaps Paul Skinner comes from the same school that led Lloyds Group Chief Executive Eric Daniels to state that the purchase of HBOS by Lloyds was such a good deal! But I suppose, that’s the wonder of the finance!

As each day goes by in the current financial I continue to be further amazed.

Now we finds out that the supposed guardian of our banking system, the FSA  is to pay many of its employees bonuses for doing such a wonderful job over the past few years!

It now seems that in certain corners of what used to be this great country of ours, the worse you can do, the better you are rewarded!

So it seems that Senior Civil Servants have climbed on the freebie train, if they have not been there already! Seems that a number of deals have been agreed to the sound of  PIMMS being poured and strawberries being eaten.

Perhaps the focus should have been on getting a better deal for our taxpayers money and concentrating on making sure that what was bought actually ended up working.

See full story: Civil service mandarins challenged on hospitality culture.

Or is it I’m the Father! that will soon be heard around the south coast of England as the farce of the 13 year father gathers space.

I read many articles over the last two days, but the one albeit a bit light on backgrounds details was this one from the Guardian.co.uk web site.

It describes how a number of other boys are now coming forward claiming to be the father, one aged 16! I thought that a 16 year old male could be prosecuted for having intercourse with a 15 year old girl, maybe that changed and I didn’t notice!

The current situation is well summed up by this quote from the article

You might wonder why these other boys are suddenly so keen to take on responsibility for a baby. But if today’s Independent on Sunday is correct, there’s a fortune to be made from the story, with “at least 15 television companies locked in a fierce battle to make a documentary” about the story and media experts estimating Alfie “could earn up to half a million pounds”.

Still I suppose that he didn’t have to grow up to become famous.

My big question in light of all the recent Social Services scandals is, how come the baby was not immediately taken into care? Perhaps Social Services did not even know what was taking place?

What another sad episode in the ongoing decline of society in the UK!

Following on from the Nurse who was suspended for saying that she would pray for a patient. We now have a situation where a foster mother has been sacked for ‘letting’ one of her charges convert from Islam to Christianity, despite the fact that she was sixteen and made the choice herself.

Of course I  can fully understand that the foster mother and the child’s identity be protected. However, as in many cases today the local authority also wants anonymity!

If the local authority has the courage of their own convictions, they should then have the guts to stand up and face the public and say why they decided to do this, instead of skulking behind the walled silence that is engulfing many of our local authorities today. I truly believe that many of them have forgotten who they serve and more importantly why they serve!

Local Authorities seem only too willing to spy on us. Secrecy in this case will only increase all of our concerns about what is being done in ‘our’ name.

I recently came across an only invoice for some PC hardware I purchased in 1999!

• 64MB strip of RAM for £57.00
• CDROM Drive for £36.00
• 10.2 GB Disc drive for £129.00

How different the prices are today, I think the only item you could still get would be the CDROM drive, found one here for £6.75! Though I have not checked with eBay!

Jacqui Smith (her name – now spelt correctly – seems to appearing in my posts a lot lately!) recently visited a Wythenshawe school to tell the pupils how much of a positive change to their lives ID Card will make. Despite the upbeat message, it turned out to be… Well read it for yourself.

Maybe this is yet another government IT project that just won’t work! Thank goodness!

I came across some interesting posts [1], [2] yesterday about the harassment that many photographers are suffering in the face of a growing ignorance of the law by the Police and other authorities.

As the UK moves more and more to a Big Brother state, even Jackie Smith the Home Secretary seems to want to crack down on ordinary photographers! After a series of high profile incidents last year [1], [2], [3], [4] a No. 10 e-Petition was started to raise the case in the public domain. You can see No. 10’s response here, as well as comments about the response.

I got stopped a while ago at Paddington mainline station by some upstart of a ticket guard, thinking that he had the rights to confiscate my camera! He walked off quiet red faced when faced with a number of other passenger protestations!

Yes, I suppose it was private property, but they had better start getting their act together as I am sure many more people will be taking pictures when they travel to visit the 2012 Olympics.

Here’s a copy of the latest The UK Photographers Rights Guide.

With the announcement that the UK government will start compiling yet another huge database to track its citizens travel movements, there seems no end to what this Labour Government wants to know about us.

Already the most CCTV covered country in the world, you can bet that this government will be only too happy to share all this personal data along with the other databases that it has compiled.

How much more are we going to put up with this government further intrusion into every aspect of our lives?

I get the feeling that a lot of this move to a full Big Brother state is as a direct result of Jackie Smith becoming Home Secretary, I don’t trust this women, there is something about that smile that hides a very devious mind!