How Many Will We Need?

Just what skills and training are we going to need for the future?  This is high class guess work. It is also expensive if you are intending to run a vast State funded scheme to do it all.

It does not come cheap according to this article in The Engineer. Nor does it come easy. As our politicians and civil servants are more interested in numbers that look awesome rather than what the market will want or need there is scope for all the usual tricks.

Three million does seem a nice big figure, sound bite friendly and a good thing to shout at any meetings or conferences. If you look at the detail it may not be so good.

Then it might be useful to know what kind of structure we will have in the economy into the future.

That is by then whether we do have an economy over which we have any sort of control.

Join The Old Deplorables

It is said that during the hurly burly of the recent US Presidential elections the Clinton camp let slip a reference to many Trump supporters as people who were the "deplorables".

Essentially, this meant many ordinary Americans of the lower orders who did not like either the ways things had gone under Obama or the Democrats who wanted to succeed him.

In early August 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany referred to the British Expeditionary Force being sent to France to defend Belgium as a "contemptible little army".

Inevitably the British sense of humour labelled the men who served between 5 August and 22 November 1914 as the "Old Contemptibles". There is a memorial to them in Westminster Abbey.

They may have been few in number but their rate of fire was good enough to stop a German Army ten times their number. The picture above is the Liverpool Scottish battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment parading through Tunbridge Wells on their way to The Front in 1914.

Many of the political and media boss class in the UK today, especially those of their leaders who style themselves as intellectual, share the Clinton concept of ordinary people. If anything they want those people out of the way.

Perhaps those of us so regarded might take an example from our gallant forebears.

Where can I join the "Old Deplorables"?

Have You Come Far?

Let me see. This man who father was German and mother Scottish is invited to visit a lady whose mother was Scottish and whose father had a good many Germanic origins. He is married to a lady whose family is from somewhere else. The lady is married to a man whose family is Greek, Germanic and Balkan.

As it happens they are both now Heads of their respective states, so their families done good as we Ancient Brit's might say. But there is a fuss. He has said and done things that many disagree with as Head of his State. The lady is very canny and does not say much but does what she has to do, albeit being Head of State this often involves the trappings of ceremony.

She would prefer to be riding a horse around the countryside. At one time this could involve hunting foxes but wary of the popular urban love for these rather nasty predators has given it up. He has had interests in the past of chasing  which time also means he has had to give it up.

Personally, I do not think that I would get on very well with either of them. My talents for skiving, insubordination and evasiveness when asked where things are and why this or that has not been done would lead to a coolness in relations.

She has had to let the politicians get away with far too much for our good. On the whole they have lied to her even more than they have lied to us. He is a hard driving boss from the world of business who runs the figures and acts if he does not like the look of them.

This is a bad fit in political structures which would rather avoid making real decisions, kick the cans down the road, screw the taxpayers, borrow the money and has politicians who grab what they can and run leaving the problems for the future.

In terms of the Heads of State around the world, the lady is very different from almost all of them. Similarly with the man, if you look at the backgrounds of Heads of State in past history you have very few of them who were active business men. In the UK we once had as Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, but historians have been unkind to him.

Certainly, many Heads of State etc. have dabbled or interfered in business but as things have turned out have learned the wrong lessons, usually at the expense of their country. Last but not least we are in the 21st Century and the past is not much of a guide to the present and none at all to the future.

The present row is over migration and in the era of fake news etc. many of the protesters have not looked at the detail, or the implications or run the figures.

So they want to stop one migrant family man going back to one of the ancestral homes and paying a visit to a lady who has a distinctive  migrant background.

I suspect the two of them might agree that the Euro is bust and the world is about to turn again.

Head To Head

Head injuries are common in some sports. At one time taken as just a part of the game they are now regarded more seriously.

A feature is that in sport, especially professional, not only have the players become more physical, the people playing them are bigger, more muscled and gymnasium trained.

This means that they hit harder and with more effect.

This article in the Engineer magazine goes into the subject. In many sports the nature of the game as it is being played at present and by whom and at what age is being questioned.

The sports of today are mostly of recent origin in terms of history. It may be that they could go the way of past sports.

Where's my horse and jousting kit?

Cut To The Chase

Part of the fun in watching history programmes on the TV is being picky about the detail and seeing what slant the producers put on the finished version that goes to screen. Often, their view raises interesting questions, not just about the research but what they are trying to say.

Clearly, the producers have their problems. When a programme is meant for a mass audience it has to be presented in a way that interests the average viewer, the information is very likely a lot simpler than the reality and the case being made is one that will keep them watching.

Which means story lines will have "human interest", any complexity of detail that needs careful analysis is avoided and in the present a full helping of politically correct comment that fits modern ideas about this and that. The past was often quite different.

Not so long ago flogging was a norm not just as a punishment decreed by magistrates and not limited to those at the bottom of the heap. Dr. Keate Head of Eton College in the 19th Century was notable in that he flogged many of the young male aristocracy and some who later became members of the Cabinet. If he were alive today those Eton men who joined The Bullingdon Club would have the scars to show.

This blog has mentioned before items from the family history series "Who Do You Think You Are" where as a BBC1 item with only an hour to present the personality covered and fit in two or three stories that the viewer will be inclining to keep watching. This week's was about Ian McKellen, see Wikipedia for a full article.

My own reaction is that given that he is a leading actor, it is a great pity that he never had the chance to play either of the parts of Arthur Kipps or Alfred Polly from the HG Wells books of 1905 and 1910, both made into films long ago.

The chance he missed was the musical version of Kipps, "Half A Sixpence" where the film lead was taken by Tommy Steele. In 1901, Ian's McLellen grandfather, an engineer, was living in a drapers shop in a line of shops, run by his elder sister.

The main story was about Frank Lowe or Lowes, a brother of his ancestor and a notable actor in the North in the late 19th Century, who had the misfortune to contract TB, bad for anyone, especially someone in the theatre. Among the nasty effects of this disease is that it can take some time before the end, wreck a family and mean years of poverty.

Frank ended up in the Liverpool Workhouse, yet another in this series, note Ricky Tomlinson's family. Even so, the BBC did not understand the situation. As it happens one of my great grandfathers died in the Liverpool Infirmary eighteen days before Frank and even younger, from pneumonia.

The programme did not understand that the Infirmary was for those for whom there was a chance to cure while the Workhouse had a death ward for those without hope, many of whom then would have been TB cases. Given that TB is on the rise again and the real fear that antibiotics may no longer cope, perhaps a little more might have been said.

Frank's father was a Robert Lowes, remarkable in his way in his political work to improve conditions for the workers of Manchester, and by extension, the country. But he was descended from a James Lowes, a master engraver. It was his illustrations in the key first books to appear about The Lake District that helped create the idea of back to nature and wildness.

This invited mention of the Wordsworth's and their friends and their time there extolling the beauties and wonders of the land. This soon turned it from a remote and isolated place into a top tourist destination. What the programme did not mention was what the locals really enjoyed.

It was fox hunting. Along with certain shires, The Lakes was a major location for the sport, Do you ken John Peel and all the rest. But I do not really see Sir Ian McKellen in the role of John Jorrocks, the hunting grocer of the Surtee's novels.

A Man's A Man

Tonight is Burns Night and many Scots and others will celebrate the anniversary of the poet. There is no shortage of material on the web about Robert Burns, his poetry and his life.

But there are the might have been aspects. Like us all he had choices to make and some made for him which directed the course of his life and there were plenty of alternatives. Apart from those known there are some which did not happen but were possible.

What if he had gone into the Royal Navy as a midshipman?  We might now think of Admiral Burns who sailed with Hood and Nelson. What if he had gone to India, like another in his family? A letter from a laird involved in the Ayr Bank to Arnold Nesbitt in The City of London could have given him a cadet post in Calcutta.

More likely is to have managed to become a member of one or other of the Incorporations of Ayr, the associations of Freemen who ran the Burgh and the lives of those within it. He would have had his own designated seat in the Kirk and in time might have been a man of standing.

In this last case he may well have been totally forgotten if the poetry, if any, had not been published like that of so many at the time and since. The Incorporations declined during the 19th Century and as the quote below suggests, there are now only what is left of local documents that tell us only part of the tale.

Quote:

TRADE INCORPORATIONS AT AYR.

§MR. SOMERVELL (Ayr, &c.)

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that the funds of certain Charitable Institutions in Ayr are being diverted from their original purpose; and, if so, whether he can suggest a remedy for the misappropriation of these funds, or direct an inquiry into the working of the existing Trade Incorporations of Ayr?

§THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,) Bute

I presume the question of my hon. Friend refers to the three Incorporations of Tailors, Weavers, and Fleshers of Ayr. As regards the first, my only information is that there is an existing membership, and that recently a Mr. Loudon raised an action in the Court of Session asking that he should be admitted a member, but in this claim he was unsuccessful.

The case of the Weavers' Incorporation has also been the subject of litigation, which does not appear to have yet been finally decided, and the membership of the Fleshers' Incorporation having become extinct, the property which formerly belonged to them has fallen to the Crown as ultimus hœres.

I am further informed that a movement is on foot to ask that the sums which have fallen to the Crown may be devoted to benevolent purposes within the district; but as this is a matter which falls to be dealt with by the Treasury, I am unable to give my hon. Friend any further information on the subject.

Unquote.

Imagine, when it came to Burns, the last words might well have applied, no further information.

Not So Merry Go Round

You may wonder why in a world where a trillion here or a trillion there does not seem to matter too much, while many of us and our governments etc. seem to be so chronically short of the readies.

What is a greater mystery is why some of the figures seem to be fine and dandy and moving in the right direction, so much is going in  opposite direction and never to return.

One major explanation is here in the LSE Business in a full article on Private Equity and the way money is moved these days, by whom and to what purpose.

It may make the eyes ache at times but if you can take it, you will have learned something useful. It is titled: "How Private Equity Firms Are Designed To Earn Big While Risking Little Of Their Own".

This is the way it ends, quote:

Conclusion

The PE business model is designed to funnel income from portfolio companies and PE funds upwards to the PE firm. With so little of their own money at risk, these firms make outsized bets that pay off in good times.

In bad times, they make money on the steep management fees paid by investors and monitoring fees paid by portfolio companies. Like the house in a casino, PE firms never lose.

                                  

Unquote.

One example is that just about anyone with a leasehold property will playing in the game only picked for the losing side.