Somewhere to write, discuss, reflect, ponder, muse and mull over life, stuff, things and anything that takes my fancy.
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?
There has been a lot of talk over the last few weeks about the publication of the latest UK Defence Review – 2021 (the UK Gov. View) and where it is trying to position the UK in a Post-Brexit world.
Some of the highlights include a reduction in the size of the standing UK Army, increased spending on ‘Cyber-Tools’ and a potential increase in the size of the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent; i.e. more bombs!
I have always continued to have an interest in the Royal Navy having served in it for close on 18 years, so it is a big part of my early life. They seem to have come out of it quite well when it is all said and done. Two new carriers to continue albeit with a possible change to the number of aircraft – though I still think we did not need them – but without, in my opinion enough support/protection vessels to protect them during fleet operations.
I tend to think that these will be used as ‘boys-toys’ by the current government and in-particular Boris Johnson and a way of flying a flag under the pretence that we are ‘as big as were 100 years ago’. That time has long passed!
Whatever the final outcome, there are still many differing views on how well the UK will emerge under the latest Defence review.
Here’s a selection of recent commentary…
WordPress.com UI Changes – It appears that there have been some changes to the way that the WordPress editor displays and edits it’s posts this last week. Maybe that explains my problems in last post!
I wondered why they have changed it without a general information broadcast which might have saved me having to look up across various sites including WordPress support to discover the changes.
Having worked in software most of my life, I simply don’t understand how companies get away with changes to software without telling the user base that changes are on the way- and when. Looking at the number of posts in the various WordPress forums, I seem not to be the only one who is annoyed.
I don’t mind software updates ‘on-the-fly’ – I’m a big user of Adobe products and they seem able to ‘broadcast’ info about upcoming changes much better – as it means that ‘you’ are always using the latest version, but how about a heads-up first.
COVID-19; the Saga Concludes? – It looks like we are coming to the end of Covid restrictions and the easing of Lockdown – I have my second jab (Pfizer) next week so all should be set for a great big Shindig – or perhaps not. With Covid cases increasing on mainland Europe, based on previous government efforts to keep the virus at bay, I will not be surprised to find us back under some sort of restrictions by the summer!
With our ‘so-called leader still making outrageous statements – Covid: ‘greed’ and capitalism behind vaccine success, Johnson tells MPs – he seems quite content again to use the mess that the EU has got it self into over its management of the vaccine roll-out to any ends.
One area of the Covid reported figures that seems strange to me is the levelling out of the news cases, which seem to be hanging around the daily 6k to 6.5k mark. According to the latest UK Gov. figures 38,937 news cases were found in the last 7 days, up 4% from the previous 7 days.
Does this mean that 38,937 people don’t know how to social distance? On the other hand there seems to be increasing evidence of increased cases amongst children, as this article in the New Scientist seem to indicate.
Beached Whale – With the stricken Ever Given Container ship grabbing a lot of the headlines this week, I saw an interesting article about how in the 1960’s the USA was going to help Israel build an alternative canal as a rival to the Suez original. How? By using some 520 Nuclear Bombs to make the trench all the way from the Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea. Had it gone ahead, it would have brought a whole new meaning to ‘glowing in the dark’, methinks.
On a more serious note, the incident does show how many economies are now so dependant on deliveries of intricate components for their ‘just-in-time’ manufacturing processes via the global supply chain, that incidents like this one can cause serious issues to all sorts of manufactures.
An interesting article from The New York Times asks the question has Globalization become too Excessive?
The Allotments – With a new growing season upon us, time to get going on the plots despite the strange spring weather here in the UK – what’s new! My original plot is all tidied up and showing signs of growth on the stuff I planted in the Autumn and ready for early Potatoes, probably next week.
On the other plot, had a good week sorting out and planting some 250 Onion sets! Yes; we like Onions! In fact, we have just finished off the last few from last year, though I did share quite a few around family and neighbours, hence we need more Onions!!! Still have over 120 Reds to plant!!
My new shed is slowing taking shape, there has been a shortage of Cladding, but have now sourced a load and will be doing that over the next few weeks, then the roof and finally I can start to fill the IBC’s.
p.s. Clearly the formatting issues experience with the last post seem to have been cleared up, the update I suppose!
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!!!!
I’ve been moving on with my new allotment shed and finally took delivery of two Black IBC’s which will act as rain water storage. Black because it is said that they let minimum light in and therefore hold back on any development of algae, which is not a good thing methinks.
After a good deal of online research and analysing a multitude of deals from various companies and some ‘interesting’ bargains on eBay, I finally purchased two fully reconditioned and guaranteed Black IBC’s from Direct Water Tanks.
The only drawback was that they could not deliver direct to the allotment site as the site itself does not have it’s own postcode address. So, two days later (pretty quick from Nottinghamshire) they arrived at my driveway!! However, with the help of a fellow allotment tenant who has a pickup, we took one at a time to place them on the raised base inside one end of the emerging shed on my plot.
IBC’s or ‘Totes’ as I have found them called on YouTube have a multitude of connection options – different threads, size of connectors etc. The IBC supplier I used, didn’t seem to have quite the right ones that I though I needed for my requirements and never having used IBC’s before, I suddenly realised I was in another ‘world’; I did even contemplate making my own based on some of the YouTube videos I have been looking at for inspiration.
Then of course Google search came to the rescue and pointed me in the direction of Smiths of the Forest of Dean Ltd and after a couple of emails and telephone conversations, the relevant combination of ‘bits’ arrived today.
Why did I go for a big connection hose between the IBC’s? I am told that this will help with IBC equalization after a heavy downpour, ordinary garden hosepipe might not cope with that.
All I have to do now is to fit them to the IBC’s and I will have the right outlets to give me a standard tap for watering cans and another output for an irrigation system that I will put in for a Poly-tunnel, but that’s another project for later in the year.
What I need next is the roof on and guttering!! Busy! Busy! Busy!
Again, time always seems to be my enemy, I’m never really sat down much, but it seems I need to apply myself a bit more to posting onto this blog. Anyway…
The Atlantic Conveyor – I remember reading an article about this back in 2016 when scientists voiced concerns about the Ocean current known as the Atlantic Conveyor Belt was apparently slowing down. In an interesting article, it was reported that the strength of the current had been dropping since 2009 and was then starting to cause issues with ocean currents around the world and influencing climate change.
Guess what! It seems that this is an ongoing and serious problem; reported last week in the UK Guardian, scientists say that Atlantic currents area at their lowest for a millennium!! What are we to make of this?
Clearly, the way we have treated the planet has had a lot to do with this; the ongoing effects of burnt fossil fuels increasingly warming the atmosphere is clearly now having a measurable effect. One wonders how much of this can be reversed and is anyone’s guess when; one hopes that we have not reached the point of no return or are we really heading for our ‘Day After Tomorrow‘?
Some other resources about this ….
NHS Privatisation – Well love to ‘own’ the NHS; they have (and still are) delivered a truly amazing service during the pandemic, so I feel quite annoyed when I read that very quietly and without any big announcement a major GP surgery been swallowed up by an American Health Insurance company. Privatisation by stealth is the watchword that we should all be afraid of.
Of course, the powers that be will raise their hands and still say that nothing will change and the NHS is ‘Safe in Our Hands‘. However, if recent examples of USA health care are anything to go by, then we should be very worried that this has happened and I can only believe that this is just the start of things to come under the current UK government. Will we end up paying twice for our healthcare in the UK?
Biobank Study Reports – I’ve taken part in a number of studies with this organisation over the years, one of the latest was a SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus study that required blood samples to be take every month for six months and sent in for analysis by them. Quite a painless exercise, though I would like to know why a ‘paper’ cut never stops bleeding; but when you ‘want’ to get 10ml of blood out of your finger, it takes for ages!
The reports of the Serology Study can be download here – Month 1 and here Month 6.
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!
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.
Suddenly last Tuesday evening I had a phone call asking me to attend the local GP surgery for my Covid inoculation, quite a surprise as I did not seem to be in any of the top 4 tranches of those heading the list – over 70 but without any underlying health conditions – anyway happy to go and get it.
I have read quite a bit about the seemingly random way that parts of the country are getting their vaccination program rolling out – sometimes a bit chaotic. All I can say is that my local GP was well organised and well staffed using a local, to the surgery, Salvation Army hall for its service delivery.
Overall from leaving the house to having the ‘jab’, including a mandatory 15 minute post-jab wait total time was around 35 minutes.
I was given the Pfizer vaccine, so at some stage I guess I will receive a call for the second dose; however, according to the many signs at the vaccination centre, they are still waiting for the UK government to say when that will be.
Conversely a family Aunt who is over 83 and lives in Cheshire is still waiting for her appointment, a strange state of affairs.
Beasley's Place 