The Tevez Defence
Carlos Tevez got himself off a serious charge by claiming he couldn’t read English according to many reports, including this one in the Mirror.
I would assume that he didn’t have any colleagues or friends, who couldn’t read English either. I once had a spam e-mail in Russian, so I asked one of the builders, who was Lithuanian, what it meant. He said it was spam, so I ignored it.
How long before the defence is used in a serious case like murder or rape? The accused in a rape case could perhaps claim that he didn’t understand what No meant.
Perhaps the best thing we could do is give Tevez six months to learn basic English.
Project Management – NuLabor Style
When I read stories like this, I get very angry.
The new fire control centres didn’t benefit anybody and cost everybody in the UK ten pounds.
I hope the idiots who put this forward were fired. But I suppose if they were, they probably got a gold-plated pension.
I also hope that the company who didn’t deliver the computer system, don’t get another government contract! But they always do!
The Infrastructure’s The Star
On the one hand I watching athletics on the BBC in the centre of Newcastle amongst all of the bridges and the iconic buildings. It’s called the Great North City Games.
On the other hand, I’ve just had an e-mail describing the Sound Tracks Festival in East London, which is taking place at three main venues and you get between them on the East London line. Someone has remarked that it’s quicker to get between stages, using the train, that walking through the mud at Glastonbury. And of course there’ll be acoustic acts, including bands and a harpist on the connecting trains. I wonder what the Brunels would have said, if they’d known that their Thames Tunnel, would be transporting mobile concert halls between the two sides of the river.
We now have some fantastic pieces of infrastructure, both new and old and we should be imaginative about how we use them.
Gordon Brown and the Gurkhas
During the Second World War, the husband of one of my father’s employees, had been fighting the Germans in the Western Desert. One of his duties at one time, was to liaise with the Gurkhas and he had many tales of their bravery, which I heard in the 1950s.
So I have a lot of respect for those from other countries, like Fijians and Zimbabweans who have taken the King’s or Queen’s shilling.
I don’t know who put the thought in my mind, but I’ve generally felt that to recruit soldiers from abroad has been one way to get the costs down.
So when the campaign started to give former Gurkha soldiers the right to settle here, I was generally in favour, although I had a few reservations about how it would be implemented fairly. Gordon Brown had no choice but to give in to the demands, as this report from the Guardian shows.
I don’t blame him for doing it, but he didn’t fund the consequences of his decision. He was very weak and didn’t think things through properly. In other words, he showed his true colours and probably hastened the end of his tenure at Number 10.
So now we have reports from Aldershot, about hardship and resentment from the local inhabitants. It led to a very heated debate on Radio 5 this morning.
All of this could have been avoided by Gordon Brown calculating what the cost of his actions would be. But then we all know to our cost that arithmetic wasn’t his strong suit.
Why Do We Still Mine Coal?
Mining coal is a dangerous business as this report from South Wales shows.
Our mines are safe compared to some. This report in the Guardian from 2009, says that in 2008, over 3,000 miners died in China.
So why do we do it, when burning fossil fuels are the major creator of greenhouse gases, that cause global warming? If you look at the science, to get the same amount of energy from coal and natural gas, you get forty percent more CO2 if you burn coal. It’s all because coal is pure carbon, whereas natural gas contains a lot of hydrogen atoms, which on combustion produce nothing but water.
You also get a lot of other pollution when you burn coal. Let’s face it, coal is a very dirty fuel.
One of the biggest mistakes we made in this country was not to get rid of coal mines, steam trains and coal-fired power stations a lot earlier.
The first real modern electrification of rail lines in the UK, were the Liverpool and Manchester lines, which were completed in the mid-1960s. It is totally crazy that only now, we’re still planning the electrification to Bristol and South Wales from London. It should have been done by 1970.
Cable Theft Halts Stansted Express
That’s what the Evening Standard is reporting.
Every day there is more of these thefts and the BBC South East News every morning, always contains several stories that could be down to cable theft.
Was It The Cat?
UBS has discovered some unauthorised trading according to this report.
I’ve heard some interesting stories.
In one a trader typed in the value he wanted to trade. He then went home and left the computer switched on, with the value still there. The cleaner then dusted his desk and accidentally did the trade.
Or that’s what they think happened. Luckily the guy who sorted it out made a profit on the deal.
In another incident, it was the cat that stepped on the keyboard. Or that was the explanation to explain the loss!
In both cases though the software should have picked up the inactivity and shut the computer down.
Avon Is 125 Today
Avon is 125 this week.
I suppose they know that some of their products have unusual uses. One is a good part of a home made fly repellant for horses.
Bill Turnbull Calls It Eastfield
On BBC Breakfast this morning, Bill Turnbull called the new shpping centre at Stratford, Eastfield. He argued that as it was in East London that should be the name.
Comparing Texas and the EU
I found this on the web in a piece talking about the Texan use of the death penalty.
Luckily we don’t live in Texas, where they own around 51 million guns (more than all of the European Union combined) and the Encyclopedia Britannica is banned because it contains a formula for making beer.
The population of Texas is incidentally 24.7 million and that of the EU is 501.3 million. As to the Encyclopedia Britannica, I haven’t seen one in years and don’t know anybody who has one.
I’d be interested to know how many people are killed accidentally by guns in Texas every year.
The Anonymous Widower 