The Cynical Tendency

Royal Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:53:00 +0000

First the bad news, there was no invitation to Trooping The Colour this weekend at The Horseguards in London. Not even the offer of a seat on the sidelines or even to be squeezed in the plebian standing enclosure with David Cameron, his lady Samantha and a huddle of G8 people representing our once great status. The lads on the square done good but unlike the G8 they knew what they were doing.

As CO (community organiser) of the Ragged Rabble of Redundant Skivers my unit of mob handed slouching disorganised ancients should have been there if only on diversity duty. Shuffling past the salute waving our bus passes as ID and pulling our shopping trolleys we would have made a true statement of the state of the national defences.

It appears that the Treasury have pointed out that our Army now has more horses than tanks, said to be 227. This is not a call to have more tanks, it means less horses, said to number over 500, entirely for ceremonial duties and the provision of eco friendly compost for the squaddies' allotments. Lurching from long forgotten neurones in my head came the memory of tank counting.

One of my jobs was to keep track of the Divisional tanks, a lot more than 227, to let the War Box know how good we were if the Soviets decided that the provocation they were getting from GCHQ was too much. On our signals capers we called it "making the blighters jump" although the B word then used is now incorrect. Normally, of the tanks we had despite substantial numbers of mechanics to hand there were always quite a number not operational.

So of our present 227, give or take one or two that fell into ditches, the actual number available for effective use will be rather less. My guess is around 180. So it is arguable that the number of effective and available horses we have, on the evidence of Trooping The Colour is much greater.

Once I suggested that horses might be easier and more useful to deal with but was told firmly not to say anything like that to the War Box or The Treasury would get to know and we would not have any tanks at all. It has taken a long time but it is good to know the government has come round to my thinking at last.

The other gripe is again the omission of my name from the latest Honours list. In truth I have never ruined a bank to the cost of the taxpayers, presided over a multi-billion spending fiasco, lobbied hard to benefit some wealthy cronies, paid a small fortune into party funds or politicians pockets or devised some lunatic flagship scheme that will take decades to fulfil and eventually cost twenty times more than it should. It is clear, I have just not been trying hard enough.

Lastly, someone has at last got round to realising that Prince William has an extended ancestry, in this case someone from the Sub Continent and the old Raj of India turns up. In the generation in question the potential number of ancestors is 128 and in his case the actual will be rather less because of the intermarriage of the Royal elements from his father's family. From his mother, Princess Diana and great grandmother, the Queen Mum, it is another story.

At this at least and sometimes before the 128 level almost anyone can have someone popping up that is not expected, sometimes a happy find, sometimes not if it conflicts with a sense of identity or moral or religious stance. As the potential figure doubles at each generation back then more and more people in places ever wider and with very different lives and beliefs are in the genes.

In Prince William's case one is a family called Bagshawe, seemingly once Derbyshire peasants who did well out of lead mining. This may or may not be welcome, they were a rough lot. It was Richard Brinsley Sheridan who said that his ancestors may be very good kind of folks but not people who he would invite to dinner. He was contemporary and associated with the great writer, Edmund Burke. Burke was related to the Roche family, ancestors of Prince William.

Funny things families, as most of us know.

John Le Carre Now Tells You A Story

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:56:00 +0000

At the Hay Festival this year and screened on Sky Arts there have been a series of interviews. An unusual double one was with John Le Carre in conversation with Phillipe Sands about his life, times and writings lasting ninety minutes but put out in two parts. So I repeat in part the title and picture of a couple of days ago. Given the present fuss about information gathering and gleaning it was of interest but shed light on some of our past in this field.

We share a lifespan and the same hair style and apparently some of the cynicism about our present governments and the way thing are. But our paths do not seem to have crossed. He had gone from Lincoln College, Oxford by the time my rugby team arrived for a fixture. He was gone from Germany before my time and returned only a while after I had left. He had a very different career.

We were in London at the same time for a spell in the late 1950's, but unless his sports and music

interests were similar there is little chance of being in the same place at the same time. The only thing that might have been was on a hot summer day the Endell Street open air baths was a good place to be, especially as many of the West End chorus girls would enjoy some fresh air and a splash around.

His conversation needed close listening. I suspect he does not suffer fools gladly unless it is part of the job. There was what was said, what was apparently incidental, what was hinted at and critically what was not said. The links his father had with the Krays were admitted but the name Lord Boothby was dropped. At this point the nose twitched. He was in the Security, his father was in with Boothby, who was privy to Government, the lover of Harold Macmillan's wife, a familiar of the Krays and up to who knows what.

One of those stray memories is when Boothby, a BBC favourite on whom they fawned at the time, proclaimed to the nation that everyone should go and see the Red Army Choir and Dance Ensemble. Boothby was always extreme but his enthusiasm for this lot was extraordinary. The BBC did run a performance. They were good but not that good. Remember, this was the time of the Philby and other scandals. Just how close was Boothby and who was he serving?

If Le Carre (real name David Cornwell) did have a personal line to him then the Security must have known. Just as they must have known about the coming and goings of the Profumo affair. What else did they know and about whom? If students in London were aware of which senior Labour figures frequented the Russell Square men's conveniences and why it is inconceivable that the Security did not know, especially as it was almost literally just round the corner from their offices at the time.

Le Carre attempted to explain the nation of our political and how it operates, note the word "operates" rather than works. Work suggests something productive and with a result. It is his view which I share that for much of the time what happens are the errors, failures of politics and all the unintended consequences. The pernicious and all pervading thing is that access to the secret information is central to government and decision making and this places the Security at the very centre and is often the crucial element.

One aspect of this which this might explain is why during a time of centralised economic and financial controls etc. both Labour and Conservative governments actively encouraged the creation of tax havens whose purpose was the opposite of what their monetary and fiscal policies were try to achieve. It may well be the need to move money and information about transactions in secret overcame any other consideration for decades.

Another involves the whole business of the Security and the Special Relationship with the USA. Le Carre is very cynical and dismissive of this and again I am inclined to agree with his suggestion of the UK government obeying every whim of that of the USA. In this context there is the amazing decision of the Heath government to run down and minimise involvement in satellite development but to bet the research money on supersonic airplanes. Big fancy toys for the elite and a wonder of the age the Concord might have been. But the USA could have built them any time it wanted and what they had was the real advantage of going into space with all that it involved without any real competition for decades from anyone else in the West.

What had this to do with UK Security? Le Carre made no mention of signals intelligence nor is there much hint of it in his work. Yet we know now from recent documents about GCHQ going back to the 1950's. This was the ultimate of secrecy yet what part did it play and how did Security handle it or did it even know how to deal with it? What seems possible is that for a while the UK gave the USA some knowledge without revealing the actual source. This was our Special Relationship.

But going into the 1970's by which time big computers allied to more varied sources including signals were churning a lot of information, the UK was mired. Part of the problem was that the attitude to computers was affected by the "secret garden" attitude. These were new gods to be attended by (expensive) high priests and guarded from the general public. You questioned the information they spewed out at your peril. Unless you had good reason.

This may well have created huge tensions in Security. Le Carre in his "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy" has something called "Moscow Centre" which is pitted against the UK "Circus". The Circus has large numbers of people doing traditional hands on intelligence of all sorts. These include the spy networks, the moles backed by intensive surveillance and the analysis of anything in print or broadcast on radio.

But beyond that is the "Witchcraft" project, a key mole with very special information restricted to very few both in The Circus and in government. But "C" does not trust it nor the analysis made from its contents. It cannot be confirmed by other means and you are dependent on what you are told. It is not too much to suggest that in reality "Witchcraft" was the product of GCHQ listening and then analysis by a limited number using computers.

There was reason to distrust these methods of intelligence gathering by the mid 1970's. The US disaster in Vietnam owed a great deal to gross failures of intelligence and analysis in Washington arising from these forms of information gathering and the assumptions made from them by over active and ambitious people. Moltke's "enthusiastic idiots".

Le Carre is scathing about the Iraq War and again I agree with him. He also feels that our recent governments and the related elite, still devoted to secrecy and inner cabals is essentially "internationalist" in form, structure, belief and policy making. So we are rarely told the truth, even more rarely given reliable information and have become beholden to outsiders.

Much more dangerous is the politicisation of both government and related intelligence services. They are no longer there to do real intelligence or careful independent analysis or offer insights into the complexity of questions or issue or the reality of affairs. They are there to help do the spin, provide excuses and find reasons to defame or destroy those who question and oppose.

In the last analysis the UK has been betrayed and made a place to be exploited and used by others for the benefit of a very few. It may not even survive but revert to a set of governed provinces as it once was.

Going Off The Rails

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:41:00 +0000

The phrase "train crash" is now a cliche. Having used it in the past it must be. It is still favoured by many and various experts suggesting that things are not as they should be and the prospects look bad. In our complicated and fast moving world there is no shortage of choices. Barely a day goes by without another one in the media.

One area is finance and within this a rich and varied selection. The international bond markets is one with a number of people betting on the train hitting the buffers any time now. Japan is a leading contender for the trigger mechanism for this one with real concerns about the way it is going. France is another contender, rivalled by the UK, the USA as well as a clutch of other smaller financial centres.

Inevitably the stock markets are one field. It is alleged that all the funny money, "easing" sloshed out to keep bad banks in being, broke states functioning and bubbles bubbling to keep the noisy money go round going round in circles has nowhere else to go to get a return other than minimal.

This has rarely if ever worked in the past despite the academic and mathematical theories and is unlikely to work in the immediate future. One bubble notable in the UK is the property one in the South East of England especially in the London area and in high value properties together with EU subsided land.

With The City too much involved in the international markets and a lot of their earnings locked up in property together with that of the "hot money" coming in from disrupted states and indeed too much of the UK economy based on moving money and creaming the contents the risks are very high. In the USA there are similarities but a much more complicated situation. There the risks also are high but the potential effects less predictable.

Among the other choices is an article in the LSE magazine about the Robbins Report of 1963 about Higher Education recommending a major expansion to allow many more to go to University from the pool of able people available. What was signal about this report was that it fudged the costs and overall consequences.

Also it entirely ignored the major areas of other education that may not have been university or given degree status but were then available to very many and both demanding and often of high standard. An effect of this has been to turn university education into a product dependent on foreign money along with state support and the creation of a huge lobby in its own and related narrow interests.

So now we have nurses many of whom do not actually nurse, teachers who are doing less and less teaching to deal with paperwork, chronic shortages of key skills, including doctors and many employers finding it increasingly difficult to find workers who want to work within the UK labour force. Was the 1960's University model really the only and the best way to educate and train a labour force?

Apart from the "train crashes" there are a great many derailments. The BBC has blown £100 million on a failed digital caper to add to the vast sums spent on colonising and gentrifying Salford. It's daftness over digital is minor compared to the vast sums lost by the government. Almost wherever you go in government you see huge sums lost forever almost all paid for by borrowed money.

And it is corrupt to an extent that beggars even 18th Century standards. As I write the latest "Private Eye" has arrived with the picture of the Palace of Westminster on the front. That large tower at one end is called "Big Bent". It says it all.

Where Does The Money Go Or Has It Gone?

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:05:00 +0000

Among the many and various financial disasters of our time beyond the state of our own bank accounts, debt totals, ongoing unfunded commitments and favours owed to all and sundry are the larger questions of state finance. These may be a personal minor matter at the moment or a larger one. But all of us may well be a liability for the future.

At present the UK social security system is said to be derived from the period of the Attlee government post 1945 when a population has suffered years of war and before that many had been badly affected by the Great Depression. The FDR "New Deal" of the USA is cited as the example. But in 1908 Asquith had brought in a means tested pension for the over 70's and in 1909 this was followed by Lloyd George's "Peoples Budget" with provision for the sick and infirm.

These were followed by the introduction of "Insurance" which was not entirely national and certainly not insurance in that the payments out were not from a fund but derived from payments in as payroll and other taxation.

This was a time when the expectation of life was low, few made to the date to claim it. And of the sick survival was limited in many cases and severe cases for the most part did not last long. The idea that many would see over twenty years of retirement or be able to survive long term severe disability or illness did not occur to the policy makers.

Also, down the decades that have followed political success is determined at the margins in a minority of electoral districts. Additionally, many groups have been able to lobby politicians and government for extra help or priority or admission to the state pot of benefits. Even minor amendments or simple readjustments invoke a blizzard of rage and new demands.

So the various schemes and benefits and entitlements and the rest have grown in number, become enlarged in form and have been extended wider and wider. We may have lost our political and economic empires but the sun does not set now on our world empire of benefits provision.

We thought that all this could be paid for by unchecked and certain growth in the economy. We went on to think that clever financial manipulation by the state could manage it. This did not work because of the political hindrances. But the state put its trust in the bankers and money men to do the business. They certainly did for us and may well have done for any real form of democratic government.

The result is that the social security schemes as they have come to be in many states are now in deep and continuing trouble with no real answer to the problems other than ones that will be deeply unpopular and for many be intolerable. This seems to be leading to the destabilisation of governments across the world.

The descriptive term used is "Ponzi Schemes" after the American Charles (Carlo) Ponzi in the 1920's whose ability to persuade people to pay in was not matched by his intentions to pay out with the result of a financial collapse which left him with the money and almost all the people without.

For a graphic, albeit long, item on this subject here is a link from the Mises Institute:

http://mises.org/daily/6441/Social-Security-The-New-Deals-Fiscal-Ponzi

If indeed there is no pot at the end of the rainbow and in addition it is about to evaporate as a bright hot sun of reality disperses the haze of our thinking there is going to be serious and rapid change.

All our illusions and expectations will go and perhaps much of the structure and purpose of our governments will go with it.

Welcome to the real beginning of the 21st Century.

Tell You A Story

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:48:00 +0000

All the hoopla going on about the security "scandal" is at least entertaining. As it is now the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo Scandal of 1963 at least the timing is right. One of the supporting persons in that drama was Valerie Hobson, the attractive and famous film star and wife of John Profumo.

Early in her career she may well have been in a stage production somewhere or other of "The Importance Of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde. In that play in the third act the "gubbins" was the arrival of a Miss Prism to confess her deceits and errors of 28 years before when as a nurse in the household she had mislaid the baby at Victoria Station.

The ending of the play was a happy one. The current Prism business involving the security services of the USA and UK will not be. There will not be an end and we do not really know the beginning. President Obama may remind us that you cannot have 100% security and 100% privacy but even that might be unacceptable to the masses.

For the first fifty or so years of my life for the great majority of us there was not a lot of privacy. It was not difficult to work out around what other people were worth, what they were up to, where they traded and other things, notably religion or political interest. As for finance there was simply a good deal of received knowledge and in any case a great many pay scales etc. were in the public domain.

On the other hand there were the criminal classes and those in various forms of business and with great wealth who were able to make other arrangements and keep them very quiet. One of the interesting features of the 1960's and later is how many former colonies and other territories were allowed and encouraged to be tax havens.

Sadly we now know that the overlap between those groups was and is much greater than we thought or assumed. We are painfully aware of the passionate desire of most of our Parliamentarians to have lots of expenses along with absolute privacy relating to them, never mind all the little extras and backhanders.

Inevitably as we are supposed to have a democracy with various equalities and rights and privacy we all now want the same as those with lots of money, power and access to expensive lawyers. Increasingly we have secret courts and tribunals and other secretive bodies dealing with various affairs. A very convenient arrangement to many both in government or other office.

Yet at the very same time a great many of us carry credit and debit cards, other documents, driving licences and a wide range of things with access to online stores of information. To those with the technical ability or interest a quite amazing amount of material is out there which they can use. Just check your inboxes and other folders to see what turns up.

Never mind what is in the social media where many unburden themselves of all or almost all and then shriek when it leaks. Also raiding this material and your emails can be perfectly legal. It someone has the money and good reason a lawyer can invoke the Principle of Discovery which means the lot has to be handed over. If you allege in your items that a famous professional footballer goes round raiding church poor boxes you better have evidence that will stand up in court.

Indeed it is not nice to know that somewhere Over There all your secrets may be looked at, but you put them there. Also, a lot of them you were supposed to inform people of, notably the tax authorities or your bank or your insurance company or your mortgage provider in the first place. That GCHQ in Cheltenham may have some details is certainly unwelcome but what does anyone expect? It is the price of the modern digitised global fiat money and debt based society that we have all rushed to embrace.

It is possible to avoid it. We could go back to hunter gathering and keep the secrets of food sourcing within the tribe and pray and sacrifice to our own gods to protect us.

Feeding Frenzy

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:01:00 +0000

As well as other of life's challenges in the last few days, a great deal of time has been spent in the bathroom as a consequence of rumbling and tumbling down there. It did not help that one of my family has the poster for the film "Gone With The Wind" on their bathroom door.

Nor was it any solace to read in the latest edition of "Which" that some 17 million of UK citizens a year are alleged to be affected by food poisoning picked up from takeaways and similar food outlets.

Given that so many of us either use or even rely on these facilities for our food and nutrition then the number might not be a high proportion of the figure for people-bought in meals consumed a year it is still 17 million too high for most of us.

What annoys me is that my choices are highly selective, partly because of paranoia and partly because of the preference for reliable content. So despite very limited use on grounds of cost etc. the demon struck, as ever when least wanted.

Not only has the huge increase in prepared food outlets of one sort or another made a mark on the shift to service activity in the economy it has been part of a culture where food has come to taken for granted. We assume that it is easy to get and unlimited in choice and supply.

This is not the case for very many of the world's population and was not the case at many times in the past for those in the Atlantic Isles. Famines have occurred even when there was land to spare and overall population numbered in a handful of millions rather than the tens of millions and rising fast.

There are a number of people who are suggesting that the past may come to haunt us and sooner than we expect. Our economy is based increasingly on ramping up the money values of either property or paper securities in one form or another and taking a cut on digital transactions.

If this does not last or falters then all this food that pours in on a daily basis may begin to be at least reduced or even fail drastically in some sectors. Assuming the price mechanism works this means sharp and potentially major price rises which will affect very large numbers of people.

In the 1590's three years of bad harvests had a major effect on population and health and few were spared the consequences. There has been a series of both minor and major cuts in food supply since both locally and across the Isles some being major disasters.

It is over fifty years since food supply was a costly problem for many of us. We have been lulled into a world where fake money and the concomitant exploitation of foreign sources have made us believe that it will go on like this forever.

The ending of this may be a gradual squeeze, or a more rapid decline. Given the present incompetence of our governments and short termism of those who have the money it could be very much worse.

The spin doctors at least will be able to claim that food poisoning on a large scale would be a thing of the past.

Coronation The Crowning Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:38:00 +0000

Today there are celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Coronation of HM The Queen. Any memory of the 1937 one is now in the deepest memory archive, possibly on a neuron system long since deleted and therefore effectively lost for good.

For the 1953 exercise in hubris it is possible to fake it from the web. It would not be the truth in that rather than spend hours peering at a small screen littered with interference there was table tennis to be played and the back hand to be improved.

The picture above is that of a Coronation Scot class locomotive of the LMS built in the late 1930's. It is streamlined very much the alleged technical advance of the period. By 1953 all those built like this were stripped of the extra streamlining for reasons of economy.

In one TV item gushing about the wonders of the UK at the time, full employment was held up to be one of them. Indeed, if you forget all the men in the armed services trying to prop up a collapsing Empire.

Also factor in the huge numbers engaged in purely manual work, many because the investment could not be made in so many industries to improve production. Then there was the massive underemployment of existing workers arising from trade union requirements.

Much was made of how you could leave a job on Friday and find another on Monday. But this depended where you were and while it might have been possible in many manual and some skilled trades there were swathes of the economy where it simply could not happen.

Rationing was on its very last legs but because of the export drive waiting lists were common for many consumer goods. Also, in many shops the habits of war time shortages meant there was still a culture of looking down on the customer.

Money was still very tight and credit regarded as a privilege. The pictures of London and loyal subjects have a fun day out are all very nice in colour. But much of the country was grim, mucky and in London itself even in The City there were still rat ridden holes with debris as a result of The Blitzs.

For many of my age group it was the American media and film that set the example. If not then our own ideas about how things might be. It was not the posh show going down in London that the BBC and others urged us to follow at least out of the loyalty to Crown and Constitution.

The trouble was that they were in the process of being betrayed by the political class and main media of the period.

Sight And Sound

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 14:59:00 +0000

It has been an instructive week. Two performances and a new machine and new operating system installed which is taking a lot of getting used to. This is going to take a long time in which much experience will be gained and a lot of temper lost.

It is all a lot more fancy and highly sensitive and therefore demanding. All this digital progress makes life a lot more on the edge, never mind the spacing and the formatting.

I feel like a locomotive driver who has been plucked from the driving cab of "The Flying Scotsman" and asked to replace Neil Armstrong at the last minute because he felt the moon was a step too far.

At one of the performances it was a new production. This was a live production but we were treated to some heavy duty digital and video efforts which were all very well but rather got in the way of what the performers were doing, never mind the story.

The digital skills were very clever but in fact took over the show. Quite literally you lost the plot and all the flashy insistent imagery and sound meant that at times you began wishing it would all end and soon.

In the meantime the excitements of the world continue unabated One crisis arrives well before the other one finishes. Important issues need attention but do not have it because of all the fuss that is going on. Everyone seems to be chasing shadows.

This is how government is at the moment, along with international affairs and almost everything else. But those alleged to be in charge in this dark new digital world are so far behind the technology, the movement and the stark realities that they resemble those antique philosophers who declared that Earth could not go round the sun because it was not written so by the ancient fathers.

More to the point are the vast sums that have been squandered to little or no purpose. Jobs may have been created and activity and publicity gained. But at the end there is only the expense. The notion of "Flagship" projects forget that flagships can sink as easily as any other.

As Cloudesley Shovell discovered in October 1707 when he went down off the Scilly Islands in HMS "Association", one of the more expensive wrecks in history. It is said that a midshipman tried to tell him his bearings were wrong but was hanged at the yardarm for his trouble.

Our latest row is that lobbyists can buy politicians.

The surprise is that we did not know. Or at least our creaking media did not get round to telling us, especially when it was about matters which they happened to agree with. Or they themselves had been bought in to the project or deals.

For the discerning searcher it does not take too much time in many things to find out more and come to a different view these days. It is not just that truth might out but that information will far more easily these days.

And these old politicians in their 50's and 60's have not yet really cottoned on to how easily it can be done.

News Bad And Worse

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Thu, 30 May 2013 14:42:00 +0000

This is coming from a new machine that has not long been set up. The learning curve is very steep and the top seems a long way off.

Global cooling it seems may be with us.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here

This is something that you may or may not enjoy.

So here is something to cheer you up.

Money Matters Find The Bawbee

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Tue, 28 May 2013 08:55:00 +0000

A very brief item today because things are looking busy.

The link below is a discussion about the issue of the currency should Scotland become independent. The author is a Scot and someone engaged in relevant economic research in the UK.

The item from the LSE web site is a longish abridgement of a fuller item. But it attempts to deal with the complications and implications.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/33655#more-33655

The lesson is that the sweeping simplistic statements made by politicians and spinners, never mind the polemics of the media, are misleading and fail to tell the electorates that is it far from an easy business.

More worrying is that some of the loudest voices either do not know what they are talking about, which is all too possible, or are evading the truth.

Wikipedia has an article on the Bawbee.

Pulling Power

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Mon, 27 May 2013 14:07:00 +0000

In the news today was an item about heritage steam railways now facing serious shortages in coal supplies and the prospect of a sharp increase in prices. Also, they are having to burn whatever they can get and not the preferred forms.

The recent fire at Daw in Warwickshire and the failure of Scottish Coal have led to the immediate situation although the risks of such shortage were increasing. But around the world and in relation to energy policy, coal is still a major fuel.

Energy policy is complex, difficult to assess and has many unpopular features among environmental interests who are very often opposed to the suppliers and those who process the fuels.

This makes for difficult politics and this makes for delay or the inability to come to decisions soon enough for the development of and expansion of energy supplies. Given the habit of governments throwing money at problems this area has seen too many corporations being given easy money for doubtful projects.

An article in the Oil Drum has a pessimistic view on what is going on.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9999#more

If the clock is ticking and present trends of demands and requirements are anywhere near correct then it could become serious. The one certainty is that to put in place the investment and the construction for new supplies takes a long time and in many places has not even made it off the planning boards.

What is more is that between all the various real costs and the political needs not only may the process be too long delayed but in many cases may not even start because those involved cannot afford it.

With prices due to increase sharply as well as a consequence of the shortages and these increase it increases the disincentive for new investment by risk takers.

So when will Thomas The Tank Engine and The Flying Scotsman become horse drawn?

Blow The Wind Southerly

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sat, 25 May 2013 16:23:00 +0000

According to the US National Weather Service National Hurricane Centre, the 2013 Season in the Atlantic is due to start next Saturday. The Eastern Pacific one began on 15^thMay. At the moment on the Eastern side are three low pressure systems reckoned at low risk.

The one thing it is possible to be absolutely certain about is that it impossible to predict the likely course and impact of any of those that will form. Equally the simple answer is that each will be highly complex with differing characters.

When she arrives Andrea will be the first to turn up, although just when and where we will have to see. As to which might cause the most trouble it could be any one of them.

With none of my personal family names in the frame this year there can be no telling which will be the worst and most damaging. In the past for some reason known only to Poseidon or maybe Zeus one of them was almost a certainty.

The lists of names are here, make your own wild or informed guess:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml

The big question is will Wendy arrive at all? If not, then which of the others will fail to turn up or just drizzle away in mid Atlantic? If Wendy does arrive earlier than expected then whose names are in the frame to follow?

And which major community on the USeastern seaboard will get the big hit this year, if any?

The Times They Are A Changing

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:37:00 +0000

It is the late May Bank Holiday and the heaters have had to go back on. Ne’er cast a clout ‘till May is out and the rain it raineth. At present the time is taken by the last frantic efforts to sort out the documents on the old machine before the new system is installed.

In a way the distraction and time lost is an advantage. There is so much at present to comment on or to keep up with. But following John Redwood, the tragedy of the soldier in Woolwich will be left to the many others.

Also, the last couple of posts on Rowans Blog, although long, have said a great deal on the matter of the banks and bankers and where we are now. It is not where any sensible working democracy would want to be.

Additionally, trying to make sense of the current economic data is increasingly difficult, indicated by the sprawl of comment and strongly differing opinions around a large number of expert web sites. It is much easier to watch the astronomy documentaries and work out what the universe is about and up to.

One thing is that it is still throwing large asteroids, solar flares, neutrons, blasts of radio waves and all sorts of other things. Perhaps just when the economy settles will be the time for the world to flip its magnetic field or the tectonic plates decide to get a move on.

So the work to be done will limit comment for a few days. The change will happen soon and there will be the tribulations of finding what is what. One immediate difficulty is that it is going to be a whole lot faster and more sensitive that this one.

It is astonishing what the power and reach of a modern computer is and what can be done. It is beyond the wildest imagining of even a couple of decades ago. The trouble is learning how to do it and keeping on top of what you hope and think is going on.

There is a proverb about old dogs and new tricks. But I can’t find a web site for it.

Sensation! Angela Merkel Was A Teenager!

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:26:00 +0000

Around the media and web has appeared a picture of the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel at the beginning of the 1970’s. She, a teenager, is in a sort of uniform and then a member of a Communist Youth Movement and is actually smiling on parade. Possibly the presence of the official/officer in charge next to her and looking hard may have had something to do with it.

Although old enough to be her father, there is a touch of sympathy for that situation. When a teenager not much older and conscripted into the Army, uniformed and paraded, when the Sergeant Major or other said “smile”, I smiled. Nor did I volunteer for the various humiliations that service entailed.

Although a volunteer in theory, I doubt that Ms. Merkel was in practice. If the local party boss suggested you might join, you joined. On another tack she was said to be 17 years old at the time.

Personally, I should not like to be judged now on my form or on some of the things I did or believed in my teens. I really should not have gone to a social evening for the local Guild of Abstaining Youth after a pint or two in the “Marquis of Granby” nearby.

Rehydration was needed after rugger training. The consequence was not a happy one. The organiser did not like the jolly atmosphere we tried to bring to the evening. Now, I fully realise we should have stayed in the pub and left them to it. It was evident that they did not want to be converted.

There are then the subsequent couple of decades after this picture of her when she was a part of the East German community before its collapse and take over by West Germany. This was a grim authoritarian regime that brooked no opposition and adhered to an absolute dogma of power and social organisation.

Since then there has been a longer period when those in East Germany have had to march to a different drum and attach themselves to a changed set of ideas. They were not simply German any more. They had become “European” and made the change just when the EU was gathering pace and power.

There are to be elections in Germanyin the near future. The German system is complex and can give rise to many possibilities. Sometimes it is relatively predictable but at present there are many uncertainties. These arise from the situations not just in EU organisation and reach but the whole economic basis resting on the Euro currency union.

For a long time there has been the assumption and expectation that Germany can somehow maintain good control over its own affairs and influence others to a degree that allows it not so much a governing but at least a presiding role in European affairs.

This may well be a main element in the structure of Ms. Merkel’s idea structure and her inheritance of top down social and economic organisation may owe much to the Prussian heritage embedded in the former East German Communism. But the world may have changed too much too quickly for this to continue.

If we are to criticise and judge her sensibly then we need to look very hard at the way she operates, her essential thinking on the way things should be done on what should be done when and by whom. Then see how this works within her party and whether her party can continue in this form.

It is possible that this time is past and there is a need for a rapid reordering and repositioning of the German government in the face of the ongoing crisis and the threats to Germany as much as the rest of Europe. It may be that Europe is no longer Germany and Germanyis no longer the heart of Europe.

In the meantime the UKmedia will continue its obsession with whether the proposed new England football kit is too like that the German one when Ms. Merkel was a teenager on parade.

The Naming Of Names

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:42:00 +0000

The Manchester United, for the time being, footballer, Mr. Wayne Rooney is now a father for the second time, Mrs. Colleen Rooney having given birth to a son a couple of days ago. Congratulations to them both and my hopes that all goes well.

The child has been named Klay Anthony Rooney. The reports suggest that the first name represents the practice among celebrities of choosing very modern or “different” names to distinguish them from the common herd.

This was once a practice in certain of the more ambitious and publicity seeking members of the former and now defunct aristocracy. Old habits are hard to shake off in British society.

One problem is that the immediate effect is to encourage impressionable members of the plebeian classes to do the same. So there are a lot of them to come. There is a snag however, and that is sometimes these things need a bit of research.

After many hours toiling in libraries (OK half a minute on Wikipedia) this is what I came up with. Apparently Klay is a character in a TV series called “Chaotic” that has escaped my relentless surfing of the Sky channels.

Quote:

Klay is not popular to say the least. He lies, steals and swindles newbies out of their best cards as well as grabbing any advantage over opponents that he can, but stops just short of outright cheating in matches to avoid being disqualified.

He also likes to lurk in the food court and eat people's leftovers. Everyone knows Klay's a dirty slimeball, but the problem is nobody can prove it.

Frankly, Klay couldn't care less what the other players think of him, and what the Code Masters don't know can't hurt him. he plays strip poker with the other players for their "cards"

In Perim, Klay is no more restricted by rules than by decency. He will often follow other players to good finds before jumping in and stealing their scans. Sometimes, he even tries to get rid of rivals ("dying" in Perim results in your Chaotic profile being deleted).

A longtime rival of Kaz's, Klay took an instant disliking to Tom as well and has spent most of the series attempting to sabotage both of them. It's been now known that he and Krystella work for Lord Van Bloot.

He also has an Australian accent implying that he is from Australia. His appearance somewhat resembles Bono and David Bowie. His Chaotic username is Klayotic.

Unquote.

Yes, well, these things happen. But an Aunt who lived in Formby and was a much nearer neighbour to Mr. Rooney than she wanted to be would not be surprised. She had strong opinions on the subject.

Perhaps the Anthony name comes from recent Prime Minister Blair and also relates also to his father-in-law, Anthony Booth, father of Cherie Blair nee Booth. This is possible in that the Booths were close to the same patch as the Liverpool Rooney family.

One question is where did the earlier Rooney family come from? One patch with an extended network of Rooney’s also has a number of other families in Liverpool in the past who are closely connected.

By one of those quirks of genealogical fate they connect to the Bowes-Lyon family.

Who needs “Dynasty”?

The Eyes Have It

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:16:00 +0000

When I turned out on the rugby field at scrum half and up against a pack of forwards who were more aggressive than was necessary, the ability to be swivel eyed and adopt unpredictable responses was an advantage. Get your retaliation in first is our family motto.

But our politics today is less ordered and more violent than some grim struggle on a muddy field between men who are sworn enemies for eighty minutes before the bar opens. Although reports from the Palace of Westminster suggest that their violence both of speech and person is often a feature of the activity in the bars.

So when there are complaints about swivel eyed loons wanting the UK to leave the EU there is an instinctive reaction to be on their side. This is one of the great political questions of the decade. There are others but not many.

The EU debate is about our future for the rest of the century as a political entity and as either a democracy or an element in a quasi-imperial structure. Down at Westminsteressentially many of them have given up on democracy and see their chief task on getting the right deal out of Europe.

The difficulty is that their “right deal” is not my right deal nor of many other people and groups in the Atlantic Isles. I choose the words “Atlantic Isles” with care because the various groups in that geographical area have a need for mutual support because of all the related interests.

In this case, Westminsteris too often more of a liability than an asset. Historically, many of the issues that have arisen around the Atlantic Isles are traceable back to London’s obsessions with money, power and global activity. There have been some passages of time when The City’s influence has been reduced but not many.

Moreover the EU now is not what many people think it is, is not the same as it was only a handful of years ago and is quite different to forty years ago. What we signed up for in the 1970’s was a Europe that we saw from the 1950’s. We did not think much about what was going to be needed in the 1980’s and beyond.

Clearly, there can be many different views and perspectives. There will be those for whom self interest is paramount, now it seems the governing consideration. There will be others with ideologies and theoretical notions about what might be. There are some trying to take a practical view.

Many of them will be merrily forecasting and predicting on ideas and data from one bit of the past or another. At the moment in the Conservative Party it seems to be from the 1980’s. In the Labour Party is seems to be from the time that Blairism was rampant around 2000. That does not make it any better.

As a great many people have become cynical and distrusting there is a feeling to support a policy of “a plague on all your houses” which accounts for the surge in the voting for UKIP. The allegation is that UKIP does not know what it is doing and has a mish mash of conflicting policies.

Probably, the critics are right. The trouble is that to many that as the other parties are in an even worse state and UKIP as such represents the best of a bad job. As for other elements when it was announced that there were 14,000 treaties and obligations to be renegotiated if the UK was divided this seemed to many to be a very good reason for it to happen.

At the moment it feels that we are playing behind a badly beaten pack with a line of threes that can’t tackle or pass; a full back with butter fingers and uphill and against the wind and rain on a filthy mud heap in a place where the local brewery is one of the worst in the region.

This is all going to end badly.

Is Bob Crowe Raven Or Right?

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:19:00 +0000

Part of my idea set is that as we move on into the 21^st Century our beliefs on what is economics, politics and other things need radical reordering.

Notably, one area is the Left v Right business. If you look hard at who is supposed to be one or the other, it seems that it is not easy to apply that to the way things are and how they are becoming.

Below is a link to an interesting example from Bob Crowe of the rail workers union, who is not entirely popular amongst the commuters of the south east. He is generally regarded as an ultimate Leftie.

But if you look at his comments on Europe you wonder how far away from UKIP and Nigel Farage, their leader, he might be.

Perhaps they might have a pint or two together in “The Coal Hole” on The Strand. If so I would be pleased to join them, if only to act as referee and as a one time member of the rail workers union over half a century ago.

Adjacent to The Savoy Hotel, it is about as elitist as you get. Also, it is but a few yards from Covent Garden, which when a fruit, vegetable and flower market was as plebeian as possible.

It is where the people who broke the police lines to trigger the Suez Riots in 1956 made sure they were properly hydrated beforehand.

Arguable, but it is possible to trace the line from the 1956 Suez debacle to our first hand wringing attempts to join Europe.

http://www.organizedrage.com/2013/05/social-europe-my-arse-once-eu-sided.html

Enjoy.

The computer change is impending so blogging will be light.

Large Immigration Shock

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:24:00 +0000

Nellie the elephant is beginning to wonder if moving to Britain is all that it was cracked up to be.

Will her future employment relate to her skill set and experience?

Just what is random memory function?

At The Risk Of Repeating Myself

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:36:00 +0000

“Little Local Difficulties” from June 2009.

Quote:

We have been here before. In January 1958 a beleaguered Government under a non-elected Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, lost three senior ministers in a row over economic management and fiscal policy. “Supermac” brushed the major policy disagreements and resignations aside by referring to it as a “Little local difficulty”.

Despite the howling of the press, and adverse bye-election and council election results, Macmillan carried on with his high spend policies of public services expansion to create employment.

He ignored calls for fiscal restraint and caution. A host of learned economists were summoned to recommend that an annual rate of inflation of 3% compound would be entirely manageable.

It would lead to sustainable economic growth, maintain the value of the power, enable increased public spending, and last but not least keep the UK as a world economic and military power. Well, we all know what happened in the next two decades don’t we?

But do not forget, as I have not forgotten, that Macmillan won the election in the next year, 1959. I recall too well at the count I attended the astonishment and despair of all those Gaitskellite Labour followers when the results were announced.

It was clear even at our local level that against all the odds the Conservatives had survived, and Macmillan was clear for another give years. Or everyone thought he was until the Profumo Affair and his prostate failed in 1963.

But it was Macmillan who when asked by the new President Kennedy of the USA (they were related by family marriages) what the main problems he faced were, answered, “Events, my dear boy, events.”

In the meantime, as Martin Wolf in the FT points out, we have a fiscal problem that is very serious, will not go away, and needs difficult decisions to be taken very soon, and not after the next General Election.

Unquote.

Try Youtube, Tennessee Ernie Ford with his 1956 hit “16 Tons”.

Pick A Pocket Or Two

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:40:00 +0000

As the Euro scuffles among the Conservatives continue some are calling it a Civil War. Perhaps, but hardly Cavaliers and Roundheads, if Peter Oborne in The Telegraph today is right in his leader comment that those in Parliament now seem to have forgotten the lessons of their debacle on the scandal of expenses and other wheezes to feather their nests, then it is more like Cops and Robbers.

The trouble is that the Palace of Parliament it is evident that the robbers far outnumber to cops. What is more some of them are behaving more like the Kray’s and Richardson’s of the past London gang land, or Capone and Lansky for those in the USA.

The tales of bullying and harassment against the poor devils who have to sort out and agree their expenses and other claims is unsavoury at least and disgusting to any normal rational person. But our Parliamentarians too often are neither.

Given that the EU as presently run and organised is one big, big honey pot for every shyster, fiddler, greedy gob and conman who can walk talk and open a network of bank accounts in convenient places then there is great scope for reform.

Even were we to stay into some kind of agreed customs and economic network the present Brussels system and the rest, notably the Euro currency will have to go and a quite radical reformation take place.

Those of us who do not quite recall the last Reformation will be aware that what provoked it was the determined centralism, predatory financing, out of control spending, secrecy and dogmatic ideology fastened on the peoples of Europe.

The latest “Private Eye” this week, No. 1340 has a six page section headed “Where There’s Muck There’s Brass Plates” subtitled “How UK Ghost Companies Made Britain The Capital Of Global Corporate Crime” starring Vince Cable, a sort of St. Ignatius Loyola of The Coalition.

In the meantime President Obama, firm in his belief that The British Empire is and always has been the chief enemy of the USAis now instructing Dave The Bagman, The Cameron who is not coming and has failed to arrive, that he must both believe in, submit and conform to Europe.

The President is a great fan of the former President FD Roosevelt and his ideas. But The Mises Institute today features an article by David A. Stockman which is an excerpt from his book “The Great Deformation – The Corruption Of Capitalism In The USA” in which the words “intemperate, incoherent and bombastic” are the more complimentary comments.

He suggest that FDR and his later fan Tricky Dicky Nixon were peas from the same statist pod and between them made economic decisions on the hoof that helped enable some of the pre-conditions for our existing miseries.

This post may seem a tad bad tempered but a change of computer is impending. Going through the pile of past things I came across something from a while back called “Windows 98”. Could I use it for an update I wonder?

Which makes more sense that our management of the economy at present.

Hitting The Decelerator

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:36:00 +0000

A short post today, but with a link that is not too long.

The good news for some is that the world is not running out of oil quite yet. There is enough of the stuff around to keep many of us chugging along for another century or so.

Whether this is good for the environment, climate/weather or a fairer distribution of wealth and economic growth is another matter.

The bad news is that as well as a number of winners there will be a good many losers.

One chunk of the world which at present rates as doomed to be a loser is Europe, mostly for its hapless and hopeless policies.

http://www.energytribune.com/76816/the-world-is-not-running-out-of-oil-but-europe-is#sthash.NaqR4OeG.dpbs

Quite where the Atlantic Isles will be in all this is not known and becoming ever more difficult to predict, although there are some possibilities.

If the sea levels go continue rising the chances of central London flooding are becoming better and better (or should that be worse and worse?).

Perhaps if Westminsterwere to be cut off from civilization even more than it is at present this could be good news for most of the rest of us.

A Fable, "Beware Of The Dog"

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:40:00 +0000

Good King John was on A Visit of State to, or rather freeloading on, the wealthy and powerful Bishop Mauger of Worcesterone spring, being short of ready money yet again, the legacy of the spendthrift and war mongering brother King Richard who had preceded him.

Also, as King John had been excommunicated he did not have to bother with the Cathedral services and going through the motions of worship that such a visit might entail. Bishop Mauger was happy; it meant he could snooze through the droning of the services instead of being disturbed by the interminable rattle of the King’s dice on the Cathedral floor and the yelping of the Royal gambling school.

It was morning, and in keeping with the ordinary procedure of the Court, just after the breakfast, time for exemplary cases of justice to be dealt with to keep the wheels of administration turning, and to clear the dungeons of felons, heretics, and tax evaders.

The King did not believe in the deterrent effects of imprisonment, the sooner wrongdoers were granted the benefit of the judgement of God, the better for all concerned, especially those whose lifestyle relied on the raising of taxes. The first case promised to be tedious if it was allowed to drag on, and the King did not want to waste the day on matters such as this.

Hubert the Chamberlain had two peasants dragged in and thrown before him. They had been found in the Palace with several items of the King’s silver plate stuffed up their jerkins, and were unable to claim benefit of clergy.

The Chief Executioner had been summoned up from his lair in the crypt, the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Of Mercy, and had the first thief hauled forward by his hair, “Eh up lad,” John said, the King was Norman French and his mastery of the many and various local dialects that plagued England was imperfect, “’oo the ‘ell are you and what’s t’ excuse?”

“I am Adam a’ Winwood of Leigh, and my family are starving.” “Bad move!” said the King, and pointed his sword at the jury, who had been dragged from their ploughs that morning and made to stand at one side, each with a noose around his neck to remind him of the fallibility of the human mind.

Their plaintive cries of “Yea” were immediate and unanimous. John nodded to the executioner who hung Adam from a beam by his legs and then got to work with an axe. This greatly cheered the King as an execution or two after his morning spitted wild boar and goose eggs set him up for the day.

After what was left of Adam was chopped into smaller portions to be thrown to the dogs the next thief was dragged before him. King John was now into his stride, “Right then?” “I am Thomas le Vobe of Mathon and I was engaged in the necessary business of redistributing wealth held off balance sheet for the purpose of encouraging consumption to help overcome the present economic difficulties.”

King John had heard all this before from his Exchequer, and a preaching friar, Maynard John of Keynsham, had been bricked up in a wall for a similar suggestion, so he just nodded again, not waiting for the jury. It was the way King John smiled when he beat them to the decision that worried them, as well as the tightness of the ropes, but they gibbered their agreement.

As Thomas le Vobe was being lifted to the beam, he coughed, pointed to the King’s favourite dogs and said, “Pity about this I was just going to offer to teach one of them to talk.” King John heaved a deep and weary sigh; even the most crazed heretic or alchemist had failed to come up with anything like that.

The King was about to enjoy another blood bath, but then he felt Queen Isabel, the Beauteous Rose of Angouleme tug at his sleeve. He had abducted her in a burst of passion, divorced his wife, and then remarried to Isabel in a haste he had come to regret. Her urgent voice, told him that she was at the pleading game again.

Isabel’s command of the local patois was worse than his, which was saying a lot. “’ere dearie, just you fink abart it, one, give a bit of mercy now and again puts points up with God, two, you’re down for a war against the Barons again after harvest and three, you need your poll ratings up with peasants. They’d love a talking dog, so they’d forget this Parliament rubbish, believe you me, God would like that as well.”

King John was not a man who enjoyed being interrupted, especially when there were things to do. On the list were women taken in adultery to be trebucheted off the Cathedral roof into the River Severn; to be rescued only if the King desired to ascertain their vulnerability to this dreadful sin, one of the few duties he enjoyed.

He needed to cut Isabel short and proceed with the business. “Can’t we just give them another baby?” asked the King, “No you dirty sod, anyhow its Lent, and they are fed up with royal kids, all the gifts, now a talking dog……” It was a long ten minutes before he could intervene, when she finally needed to draw breath.

King John was not entirely happy. When he had snatched the maiden from her betrothed at Baron William de Mowbray’s suggestion, her God thing had not been mentioned, and she was altogether too keen on it for his taste. At the times he pleasured her, her appeals to The Good Lord for his mercy for engaging in carnal activity seemed excessive. Mowbray had time to consider his error now; with his head spiked on London Bridge.

But she was usually right about the peasants; they seemed very keen on God as well. The King did not like it, some of them thought that the Deity was on their side, and even the incessant rambling of certain of the Bishops could lead to them making such a mistake. Mowbray had suggested something for the peasants called football instead to distract them, the fool’s idea that had cost him his head.

As the Chief Executioner was about to swing the axe, King John raised his hand. He was reluctant, he never liked to disappoint the Chief, “A word first.” Thomas was lowered, cuffed about the head, spat on, and then flung down again before the King, according to the ancient custom. “Oh aye, a dog, talking?”

Waiting first for the Royal goblet to be flung to bounce off his head, Thomas raised himself cautiously, pausing and giving meaningful weight to his words. “Indeed, Sire, give me a year, with my well tried linguistic training techniques, preferential feeding, and psychological incentives, and you will be able to hold an intelligent conversation with the animal to your entire satisfaction.”

The court was silent, this was a new one, and John’s reactions were variable at the best of times. It was a little while before the King spoke, he was sure he could find a way to have the insolent head, greed usually tripped up people like this. “And I suppose you will want a fortune and an heiress?”

Thomas brightened, smiled, and all thought he had been hooked, “By The Lord no, Sire, decent board and lodging only, time and the right to walk the dog.” The grunt of dissatisfaction was audible. The Queen squealed with joy, with luck Thomas le Vobe would be the first English Saint since Thomas A’ Beckett.

Modern Archbishops and the clergy had become more circumspect in recent years and cautious of martyrdom. Even Gerald of Wales had learned when to be quiet, but then there had been a glut of Welsh martyrs on the market. This could be better than Francis of Assisi,

The Church would have a new Order, The Caninian Order of St. Thomas even, and if she played the game right, the offerings would be rolling in, and there would be joy in the Vatican. A happy Pope made a happy Church she was fond of saying to her husband, who did not always agree.

“Nothing more?” The King was feeling trapped, then Thomas spoke again and the King’s hopes were raised. “Well, Sire, just one thing,” “Got ‘im” thought the King. “The executioner, I wouldn’t like him to lose his fee or bonus, well, it’s only right.” The Queen clapped her hands, the Bishop nodded, and the King had lost.

“Right, right, yeah, one year, then we see.” King John pointed to the most stupid hound he had and it was brought to Thomas, who was led away, clutching the dog. “Next!” shouted the King with an edge of venom in his voice. All the courtiers twitched in fear. The jurors looked at each other and began to pray.

The Chamberlain had brought in a shrunken weakly figure. It hobbled unevenly across the floor, lurching and lumbering. A large cowl enveloped the shoulders and upper torso. It looked like a under sized goblin. The Chamberlain pulled back the cowl to reveal a scarred and lopsided face of surpassing ugliness.

“’oo’s this then?”, asked the King. “Robin the Hood, son of Lawrence the Scrivener of Eastwood in the Shire of Nottingham.” The King liked the odd joke on these occasions, the question in the courtiers’ minds was always who would be the victim. He sat back, waved his arm with a generous gesture at the specimen before him and declaimed, “Ha, look, someone’s son and lover!”

The courtiers paused, uncertain of the context, the King could be playing tricks again, and the King was below his performance target on the body count for the month. But they saw the Plantagenet smirk on the mouth, relaxed, and laughed as loudly as they could. The King let them go on until they all began to wheeze and then flapped a hand.

“And?” said the King. The Chamberlain delivered the charge. “Branch Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Foresters And Related Trades; responsible for your job creation scheme in the North Sherwood District to employ and train local unemployed bandits into revenue collectors. Failure to keep up to date accounts and to consult fully with senior management before introducing new work procedures.”

The King bent forward with a smile of sheer malice playing on his face. The Hall was warmed with more laughter from the audience; they knew what was about to happen. The sword was raised, the Jurors cried “Yea” with a religious rapture previously unknown in the Cathedral, and the King roared, “So, you forgot to pay the Sheriff his consultancy fee?”

The King picked up a slice of wild boar and waved it above his head. “Chop, chop!” he cried, and the courtiers roared with helpless relief and joy. Cardinal Langton waved a chalice of claret above him cried “Errare humanum est!” and then fell off his stool. Even the Chief Executioner laughed so much that he had difficulty in hoisting Robin to the beam. Outside in the cloister, Thomas heard the merriment and began a cold muck sweat.

Two weeks later in the quiet of the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy, a place never visited by any of the Court, Thomas le Vobe and the Chief Executioner were sharing a gallon of ale, a haunch of venison, and a few other good things and passing the time of day. “You know, that Robin was a rare giggle,” said the Chief, “His last words were I should have stuck to being a ponce.”

There was a short silence then the Chief spoke again. “I’m going to be sorry to do for you, you know, at the end of the year, I’ve learned a lot from you, and I like your theory that unpredictable monetary movements are the cause of all the trouble and not the Devil going round shagging old women.” “Who knows?” said Thomas, throwing a lump of meat at the chosen dog. “Woof!” said Thomas, “Woof, woof.” replied the dog.

The Chief shook his head. “Look, this is the age of instant communication, in a years time bits of you are going to be nailed to the doors of Parish Churches all over the Kingdom as a dire warning.” Thomas waved a bone at him. “No, no, no, look at it this way, in a year, I might die anyway, you might die, indeed the King might die, and that brings a pardon. Who knows, even this young dog might die.” The Chief shook his head again. Thomas threw a larger piece of meat and barked at the dog. “Aaargh Woof.”

“Aaaarrrgh Aaaarrrgh, Woof Woof.” responded the animal.

“And the dog might talk,” said Thomas.

The Rest Is Noise

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:06:00 +0000

This is a short post because the link is a very long one, provided by one of the family. It relates to the physiological and neurological effects of sound at excessive levels.

The implications are interesting given the way both technology and use have developed over the last three or four decades. It might explain a lot.

http://www.omnisonic.com/bbillings.html

As it happens three years ago I put up a post of ordinary length dealing with the same overall subject at a more basic level.

http://thecynicaltendency.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/return-of-mad-tankies.html

The reason for the omnisonic link is because a lot of my life was spent in dealing with the effects of deafness in various ways amongst numbers of other people.

Also, that I am old enough to recall the catastrophic effects on the hearing and health of many people before serious measures were taken to control levels of sound in workplaces.

Now it is not the old but the young who seem to be at the most risk.

A Cheer For The BBC

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Sat, 11 May 2013 16:07:00 +0000

The BBC has come under criticism for doing too many repeats of programmes with the implication that a substantial majority of its screenings should be original material. This time round the inclination is to say the BBC is doing the right thing by providing a regular pattern of repeats at widely varying times.

For us and for very many people now TV watching is about flexibility, being able to watch a programme appropriate to either mood or personal time obligations and with choices about when to “box” either “one off” programmes with repeats or a series.

It is especially useful if the diary is becoming complicated and you are watching a series where you want to see all or most of the programmes. That the BBC now routinely is giving extra screenings across its channels for many programmes is consistent with the way many viewers now operate and the way that other channels manage their outputs.

Additionally, there are screenings where sometimes you want to see it more than once if there is something to think about or on a particular topic that catches the interest. This is especially so where a drama, live performance or demanding programme occurs.

One programme recently is a case in point for us. It was the one hour short biography of Marie Curie. It covered a lot of ground in a short time and there were one to two things that might need a revisit to check up on impressions.

To all this might be added the many programme clashes now across the channels and also the functioning of the saving system and reruns from the box. There are times when the extras screenings at alternative times is a great help whatever channels are involved.

These include the BBC. For those with a TV and box now there are still many who do not have a computer or who do not really want to do their TV viewing on one. There have been times when the internet screenings have come in useful for us but as we are paying we prefer to watch TV programmes on the TV.

We would go further and only wish that the BBC could reclaim from its archives many of the programmes of the past, whether popular, serious, Arts or sport that are still gathering dust but which many would like to see.

Some of these might turn up later on the commercial channels but these in turn are limited for a number of reasons and where they go are also repeated many times where the viewing figures hold up.

It is not just the BBC that is affected by the “loss” or “gone missing” of a good deal of decent watching. The former ITV channels now have a large body of material that is not just entertaining but also actually historic which is very rarely tapped or used. This is a considerable loss to our understanding of the media of the past.

Carry On Repeating is often a show to watch.

Going Down To The Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Demetrius) — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:25:00 +0000

Off the usual beat today with a couple of brief items on the same subject with an added thought.

The Mail Online ran the story about Dunwich in Suffolkthat was taken over by the sea from the 14^th Century onward. Recent scans have revealed more of what lies below the waves. Dunwich was once a major port.

The coastline has long been vulnerable to ordinary erosion especially in when severe weather conditions occur. When the wind, tide and seasons come together adversely the funnelling effect in the North Sea can do a great deal of damage.

Rising sea levels also are involved since the last Ice Age given that once this area was connected to the European land mass. The Mail Online story features the map above drawn up in later centuries.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2322087/The-streets-Britains-Atlantis-seen-time-3D-scans-reveal-lost-medieval-town-Dunwich.html

The Mail seems to have derived the story from Science Daily, where a good deal of its material originates in these fields and the link is below has other links in turn.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130509091118.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

A question in my mind is one that is bound to annoy a great many people. The 13^th Century philosopher John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan, first turns up in Northamptonin England and in Oxford. A birth in Duns, Scotland is assumed from the name.

But this has not stopped other claimants, notably Irish, from arguing for other places for other reasons. But looking at the map there is something interesting.

It is that the Greyfriars Monastery, that of the Franciscan Order, has a Scott’s Lane leading up to it. Moreover a merchant (alleged also pirate) family of Scott’s were prominent in Dunwich in the 13^thCentury and feuding with a St. Johnfamily.

It is said that the Scott’s were the first recorded users of gunpowder in conflict in English history when they tried to blow up a St. John vessel. This rather assumes interests in the practical sciences never mind philosophy.

There is a Wikipedia article on John Duns Scotus which is useful for brain stretching exercises.

Mind blowing in its way.