Chaos in Greece

Given the anarchy in Greece at the moment, shall we British take Lord Elgin a little bit further and take the Acropolis into protective custody? In the British Museum.

Willie Walsh wins game of chicken

It took a few seconds to twig that Willie Walsh has been playing a game of chicken with the Government over the re-opening of the airports today. The first plane to land (BA084 from Vancouver) must have taken off hours before the decision was made (even if it did circle the Isle of Man 5 times and Birmingham twice before landing!).

According to Pprune (an absolutely invaluable resource of accurate information and punditry) Willie Walsh launched 24 BA flights at London and waited to see what happened. Some diverted but the authorities then backed down ....

There is a God

Adrian Chiles to leave BBC

Best news all day

Not the best of timings

Given the unprecedented impact that the Icelandic unpronounceable volcano is having upon air traffic at the moment, one would have thought that the Facility for Airbourn Atmospheric Measurements who are a collaborative body between the Met Office and the National Environment Research Council, would be up there taking readings of the ash cloud, probing the density and all the other things that such people do to find out as much as possible as they can with their BAe 146 research aircraft.

Unfortunately it is being repainted at the moment and all its instruments have been removed

http://www.faam.ac.uk/

Stephen Timms is a pillock

Stephen Timms is in charge of the government's Digital Britain's brief - in particular the dreadful, rushed Digital Economy bill that was passed through the Commons as part of the washup process that happened after Parliament was prorogued so I would have expected him to know the basics of how the Internet works so it was rather crass of him to send a letter where he states that "IP address" stands for "Intellectual Property" address.

And this guy is in charge of Digital Britain ...


Well with luck not for much longer ....

Taking daddy back to Germany

Am I the only one who found the story of the two women attempting to take 91 year old Curt Willi Jarant onto the plane at John Lennon Airport absolutely hilarious?

For some reason it appealed to my warped sense of humour!

Bet they faced stiff questioning from the police ....

Unfortunate names (part 83832)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7065824.ece

"

Vienna Boys’ Choir caught up in sex abuse scandals

Roger Boyes, Berlin Correspondent of The Times"



(this isn't a wind up: that is really his name!!)

Bureaucratic Nonsense

I have a friend who has a son with muscular dystrophy who will be moving to a six form to (with luck) do his 'A' levels.

Now at the moment he gets council assistance to get him from his home to school - via specially adapted taxis and the council pick up the tab.

So what will happen when he goes and does his 'A' levels?

If the school he is at now has a 6th form then the current arrangement will continue; if he goes elsewhere like the local 6th form college - even though it is council run - then the payments will stop.

One guess whether there is a 6th form at his school ...........

Mothering Sunday

Shall we rename it "Mitochondrial DNA Inheritance Day"?

Weather query ....

Noticed an odd thing about the Brits and weather: when it's hot we measure the temperature in Fahrenheit (its above 80 or phew its almost 90!!) but when its cold we measure the temperature in celsius. Yesterday it was -12C near here but nobody,anywhere referred to the temp as 10F ...

The Yanks are not the guardians of the world's morality

I have been reading the American's reaction to the Aussie KFC advert (it has been pulled) which show a lone Aussie fan surrounded by exuberant West Indies supporter at a cricket match, and he feels a little bit overwhelmed by them. In order to ease the relationships he offers the Windies fans some KFC. Now I am perfectly aware that fried chicken (for historical reasons) has strong racial overtones in the Southern States but for Christ sake: this was an Aussie advert for Australians. The West Indies do not have the same level of racial baggage that exists in the States (that is not to say all was sweetness and light - the slave trade to the W. Indies was an abomination) but it really annoys me when the US attempts to impose its own morals on the rest of the world.

Part of the problem is that the US doesn't get cricket ....

Happy New Year

May I wish everyone a very happy 2010 ....

Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament

Why on earth (well not quite given that there is a space ship there as well) has Google got the symbol of the CND on its logo today?











Happy Christmas

Harvesting potatoes

Lets have some late harvest potatoes, she said a few months ago. Planted some seed potatoes in a number of potato bags and let them grow.

Now the idea was that we would have lovely new potatoes for Christmas dinner; however there was one slight hitch when I came to harvest them this morning ... the bags and the compost were frozen solid!

Anyone harvested potatoes with a sledgehammer before?

0101 days to go ...

My nerdish son has a Christmas countdown ... In binary ....


Sad

Anarchy in the UK ...

So the great British public said "we will not go quietly into the X-Factor night" and have done a huge V sign to the mass-produced sterile "music" that emanates from the Cowell factory - he who considers that he has a God given right to monopolise the Christmas charts. I downloaded a copy, not because I especially like "Killing In The Name" but because I wanted to register my views. One thing though - I thought that it was the young who railed against the world - not old farts like me ....

Carter-Ruck on the good guys side?

Had to take a large drink having read this here "

Carter-Ruck, defending Thomsen on a no-win, no-fee basis, says the action should be struck out because the words complained of in the writ are clearly not defamatory.

GE Healthcare is also suing over an article that appeared under Thomsen’s name in Imaging Management, a medical journal, published in Belgium, which referred to rumours that the company had been warned about possible problems with its product."

I feel ill ......

How to lose the propaganda war

Unless the public are convinced by the need to modify their behaviour in response to the (overwhelming in my view) evidence concerning man-made global warming then all the climate change conferences in the world will be a complete waste of time. At the moment the sceptics (ranging from the the outright deniers through to those who question whether it is man's activities that are responsible for climate change) are - certainly in the UK and the US - are winning the propaganda battle.

Influential articles from journalists (ranging from the obsessional Christopher Booker in the Telegraph to articles like this in the Mail on Sunday) have sown huge doubt in the non-scientific public (and possibly amongst those scientists who are not climate specialists). Similar articles have occurred in the right-wing press in the States (just google Climategate and you will see what I mean) encouraged, I suspect, by some very powerful lobby groups have, along with what appears on the surface to be dreadful behaviour by those scientists at UEA, will make the task of carrying the public forwards that much harder.

(As an aside: please don't expect scientists to behave as if they are not as vain as the rest of us! Just read James Watson's Double Helix and you will see my point)

Priorities right?

On the day that Brown has promised over a billion pounds to the poorer, third world countries to help combat global warming ( I bet the Swiss bankers were rubbing their hands in glee) the news has broken that massive defence cuts are imminent is astonishing.

Irrespective of the politics of global warming (and yes I am a believer not a sceptic) the first comment that came to mind is where the hell is this money that Brown has promised for global warming coming from? And secondly the first priority of any government is to protect its citizens. For Brown to promise billions of pounds at the same time as slashing the defence budget is just ludicrous.

As for the fact that our soldiers are fighting a war in Afghanistan ... well .....

Memory time

My father was a keen railway enthusiast - cadging trips on footplates back in the days when engines were steam powered . As a doctor he knew many of the railwaymen especially since he ran their first aid training courses in and around Oswestry. So I was surprised and moved to find this series of photographs in and around the town.

http://www.cambrianrailways.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=46