Bangladesh England at Cricket
Just been watching the cricket, where England are playing against Bangladesh in Dhaka.
It’s good that Bangladesh are now holding their own and that they now have some of the best players. The opening bat, Tamim Iqbal looked more than handy. I can remember when Sri Lanka were admitted to the family of Test playing nations and some said that they’d never win anything. But they have, so I expect Bangladesh will be force in cricket in the next ten years.
That’s the way it seems to happen in cricket.
It is interesting that Bangladesh are sponsored by Grameen Phone, which is an offshoot of the Grameen Bank, which revolutionised finance and earned its founder, Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize.
Under Siege
Under Siege is quite a silly film, but I like it.
It’s just that you have one man taking on the forces of evil by himself.
It’s always a good scenario for a film.
Grr! Potholes
Last night, I had to go into Newmarket to get some shopping.
Unfortunately, I hit a very deep pothole in the dark and it completely ripped the tyre off the wheel of the Jaguar. Now, you could say that this was because the tyres were worn and dangerous! But the car had its MOT on Monday and as it needed a new tyre soon, I got them all checked and ATS in Newmarket fitted two new tyres that day. So the tyres were tip-top.
I’d not put a jacket in the car and as I was late because of the puncture, I didn’t change the wheel last night. So I just left the car a about a hundred metres from where the damage happened on the Dullingham Road into Newmarket and then I had the expense of a taxi to get home. I then realised why I don’t use taxis in Newmarket. They are very expensive.
So now, I’m going to take the Lotus and go and replace the wheel on the Jaguar, before driving that to the repairers. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the Jaguar back later in the day with a new boot.
I’m also going to try to find the pothole and take some pictures.
These pictures are the ones I took when I returned on the Saturday morning.
Pothole 1 - Newmarket-Dullingham Road
This was the first possible culprit I found and it is almost 10 cm. deep.
Pothole 2 - Newmarket-Dullingham Road
This one was equally deep, but I suspect too narrow for the wide tyres on the Jaguar.
Potholes 3 and 4 - Newmarket-Dullingham Road
I think one of these two caused the puncture. Note how the road has broken away from where it was repaired. As someone was going the other way at the time, it would have been impossible to avoid going into the holes. Again the holes were about 10 cm. deep.
At least when I got to the car it was still where I parked it in a quiet street.
A Puncture
It didn’t look too bad.
In fact, when I got the wheel off and replaced it with the usual silly drive-home spare, it looked almost intact. Which I thought was good as I’d driven the car perhaps a hundred metres from the dark, where the puncture happened to the lighted street on the edge of Newmarket.
It was only when I looked at the wheel fully, that I realised what had happened.
Jaguar Alloy Wheel Failure
Note the perfect crack all of the way round.
One thing that has to be said though, is that the tyre held everything together and it did not appear that any other damage was done to the car. I think I was lucky.
So why did the wheel fail?
I was not travelling that fast and was probably doing about 50 mph or so, as it was dark, wet and I was in no particular hurry. I think that sort of catastrophic failure at a higher speed would probably have meant the disintegration of the tyre. In any case, the car was very controllable and I was able to slow it down very easily. This again would probably be impossible at a high speed, as the imbalance in the wheel would probably have caused everything to go very wobbly. There was no vibration at all.
I just wonder if it was one of those occurrences where the frequency induced by hitting the pothole was exactly that of the wheel and that caused the splitting of the rim. I might have hit both potholes 3 and 4 and this double blow could have caused it. But I only heard one loud bang, which I now presume was the wheel splitting.
I have worked in this field of whirling shafts and weights, and there are some very strange phenomena, when you compute everything properly.
When I changed the wheel, I took the car to ATS and the mechanic there said he’d never seen a wheel split like that. Especially, after they had checked all the wheels and tyres earlier in the week.
I have sinced searched the Internet for anything similar and have found this report by David Finlay. The car in question in his report was a new high-performance diesel Mondeo, with the same engine to the X-Type.
As my Jaguar was made by Ford, are the wheels made by the same company? They look fairly similar.
Plastic Kerbstones
Who’d have thought it?
I wouldn’t have done until I saw a DuraKerb truck on the A14 this lunchtime.
It seems to tick all of the boxes :-
- They have the same specification to the normal concrete kerbstones.
- They appear to be just as strong as concrete kerbstones.
- They are light so they are laid quicker and without some of the heavy equipment needed.
- They don’t chip when you lay them.
- They are made from partly recycled material, that would otherwise go to landfill.
But I also speak from personal experience. Some years ago, I laid a lot of concrete kerbstones by myself. And I’m a jockey-sized bloke. These would have been a doddle.
Sexuality in the 1960s
The report by Dr. Linda Papadopoulos, that children are over-exposed to sexual imagery makes some good points, but it seems to give the impression that this is a new phenomenon.
I doubt it is.
Top of the Pops was one of the top BBC shows from the 1960s onwards until it faded away a few years ago. Before the advent of pop videos many of the bands played live, but in many cases when they couldn’t, a dance routine would be performed by Pan’s People. Tame they weren’t, and they did go out in the early evening on BBC1. So when the report talks about rating pop videos and banning some before the watershed, I say “What’s New?” Pan’s People got there fair share of complaints about exposing sexuality to the young.
The report also suggests that certain magazines should not be sold to those under 16. Will this make any difference? I doubt it. When I used to deliver newspapers as a fifteen-year-old, we always used to go back to the shop afterwards and thumb through the dirty magazines. And some were quite dirty! No not quite, very! We didn’t have the Internet, but it didn’t matter.
But what has changed is that in the 1960s and before, you had to beware paedophiles. Hadley Wood, which was near where I live, was full of them. All the kids passed messages between themselves, but we never told our parents as then we’d have been banned from going to the Woods to do things like train spotting on the Great Northern line to the north.
Thankfully, paedophiles seem to have gone from public places.
It’s a funny thing, but some of the most explicit photos I’ve ever seen, I saw when I worked in a factory as a vacation job from University in probably 1966. They didn’t involve children, but they did involve most other perversions.
Was it the same before the Second World War and even in Victorian Times?
Dr. Linda Papadopoulos has made a lot of good points, but I doubt that any will make any difference. Commercial pressures from MTV, Facebook and other American sites will mean that no legislation will be enforceable and kids are always curious and want to experiment. So it could be a losing battle.
What we must do is educate children properly, so that they take everything around themselves with a strong pinch of salt and choose the things that will enrich their lives and make them valuable members of society.
Airbrushed Photographs of Women
There is a report today by Dr. Linda Papadopoulos, that says that children are over-exposed to sexual imagery.
One of the points it makes is that photos are often airbrushed to make the subjects closer to what is considered to be an ideal. It says that that airbushed photos should be marked as such. I think there is a fat chance of that ever happening, as suppose they insisted on it in the UK, would it apply to imported magazines printed in the US and Europe. If they were not allowed to be distributed here that would be censorship!
It just shows how far this report is from what can be achieved in reality.
Look at this photo of a lady dressed how she would have been in the Belle Epoque era, I found on the web from 1895.
The waist looks very much that it has been retouched.
Plus ca change! Except then tiny waists were important and now it’s being stick thin.
Michael Winner
I must be one of the few people who actually like Michael Winner. He makes a refreshing change from most of the politically correct people that pass for presenters and stars these days.
His new program, Michael Winner’s Dining Stars, is either going to be very good or absolutely awful. But after hearing Michael on Richard Bacon’s program on Radio 5 on Wednesday, I’m hopeful that it could be the former. He was his usal outrageous self on that program, name-dropping like a good un’ and generally slagging off things that he didn’t like. But he also praised things that he did like.
I would agree with his comments on the north. He said that food is awful, the people and the countryside are good. But he did say that he’d never had a decent meal in a restaurant up north. Until a few weeks ago, I would have agreed with him, as being a coeliac, asking for a gluten-free meal up north brands you as a food-wimp and a southern softie.
But then, I had that wonderful lunch at The Manor House Inn at Carterway Heads. So perhaps, Michael should try that unassuming pub!
We always associate Michael with violent films, but he did make one of my favourites, Hannibal Brooks. He also produced, directed and wrote that film, which I think says a lot about Michael.
If I had to have a few celebrities at a dinner party, they’d be Michael Winner, David Bellamy, Janet Street Porter and Princess Anne. I’m not allowing dead people, but if I did, I’d include Danny Blanchflower, Ian Dury, John Lennon and my of course my late wife.
Portsmouth Go Bust
Well actually they are going into administration, but I suspect in their case it will mean the same thing. As I said earlier, who would buy a club, that doesn’t own the ground, the land around the ground, doesn’t have enough capacity and hasn’t really got any decent players or even a youth policy.
Where clubs have been bought without the ground, they have rarely succeeded.
So this looks to me like another stay of execution for a once proud club.
Fulham in the Ukraine
One of the Shakhtar Donetsk players is called Rat. He is numbered 26.
Facebook Virus Removal Tool
This is going the rounds on the Internet.
Hello,
This is a message to all Facebookers, we have had several reports of a virus spreafing itself through Facebook applications, if you or any of your friends have used any of the following applications within the past 48 hours it is essential that you run the “Facebook Virus Removal Tool” which is attached to this email. Please be aware of the threat these viruses contain, they log keystrokes on certain banking websites in order to steal your I.D.
Thank you for your cooperation to stop these theifs!
It’s actually a virus addition tool to find out the secrets of your computer, bank account and personal details.
Note the spelling. “i” before “e” except after “th”.
The Anonymous Widower 