FlyGlobeSpan and BA Cabin Crew
On the one hand the Scottish airline, FlyGlobeSpan, has gone bust and on the other we have BA’s cabin crew threatening a twelve day strike.
These are in effect two ends of the same problem. There are too many airlines chasing too little business and difficult choices have to be made. In BA’s case, they have to cut costs to survive and as I understand it, they are just reducing the conditions at the staff they employ at Heathrow to those at Gatwick and other bases.
Perhaps, the Scottish experience will knock some sense into the BA cabin crew. But it doesn’t look hopeful!
As Prudence bailed out the Scottish banks will he bail out this Scottish airline?
After all, there are a lot of Labour constituencies in Scotland!
Gay Soldiers
I was heartened by this article in The Times about a soldier who is openly gay. Surely the only qualification for a job like that is to be good at it. And brave! I couldn’t have done it!
From the article, I get the impression that no-one is bothered at all. Let’s hope it stays that way!
Good! Very good!
Busway Farce Goes National
The national press has been rather quiet on the Cambridge Busway. Perhaps, here in East Anglia, we’re rather irrelevant or perhaps Cambridge is just somewhere you pass by on the way to your second home in Norfolk. The truth about Cambridge is actually much more important, as without it we’d all be further into the do-dah than we are.
But today, the infamous signwriting error has been reported in both the Daily Mail and The Telegraph. It’s even in the Odd News on UPI.
Obviously, spelling is much more important news than a badly executed project with massive cost overruns.
Hot Air in Copenhagen
So today, the big climate change conference starts in Copenhagen. Yawn! Yawn!
I’m cynical anything of any substance will emerge.
Prudence bashes on about how he is at the forefront of reducing our energy use, but this article in the Telegraph says otherwise.
These are two paragraphs from the article.
His former chief scientist Professor Sir David King said he frequently urged Downing Street to spend money on energy saving measures in order to create jobs and cut carbon – but was repeatedly ignored.
And in a separate interview with the Daily Telegraph, the world’s top environmental watchdog Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), also said the Labour Government failed to “pick the low hanging fruit” of insulating homes and investing in renewable energy.
Typical Prudence, all waffle and bluster, and absolutely no substance. He doesn’t even have any style.
But I’m totally against this sort of junket. It should be done remotely by electronic means, with perhaps two or three important people from each country in Copenhagen to dot i’s and cross t’s.
Robert Fisk
There are few writers in the modern world of newspapers to rival Robert Fisk.
His piece today in The Independent on Lebanon, the holocaust, Anne Frank and the relationship between Israel and its enemies is a gem.
Read it!
Anne has always had a strong place in my heart. Whether it is because I have a small amount of Jewish ancestry or just because I hate injustice so much I do not know. Here’s what I wrote after a visit to Amsterdam in April 2008.
Everywhere in Amsterdam, there are posters of Anne Frank.
Not exactly Anne Frank, The Musical, as I really don’t think that would be the ideal work, but a symphonic tribute is being performed in Amsterdam based on her life and the famous diary.
It is quite right, that a little Jewish girl, her family and her diary caught up in the tragic events of the Second World War still hold the world in their thrall.
Her diary has now been translated into fifty-five languages and has sold over 20 million copies.
When we forget the story of Anne and the diary, then we will probably have lost our humanity.
As I write this book Cyclone Nargis has just devastated Burma or as the dictators prefer, Myanmar. Those dictators are ignoring offers of help from outside preferring to distribute the aid themselves, as letting others in might undermine their cruel regime, with thoughts of freedom and full stomachs.
Having read Wages of Destruction, by Adam Tooze, a book which describes the economic methods of Nazi Germany, I feel Hitler would be proud of their actions.
Because of the festivities the Anne Frank House was closed.
But next time I return to Amsterdam, I shall visit.
The festivities I spoke of, were the Queen’s birthday celebrations.
Ed Miliband and Disposable Nappies
Ed Miliband is getting a lot of criticism over using disposable nappies on his six-year-old son. Here’s the Independent.
This is absolutely right!
We used proper nappies for all our three sons. I know it was around 1970, but the pressure to use disposable ones was even then great from the manufacturers. I must admit, that we did use a disposable liner in the nappies, but this meant that you saved on the washing as the nappies weren’t so dirty. Tricks like this make proper nappies much cheaper and more environmentally friendly than disposables, which make up four percent of all household waste and end up in landfill.
The real luxury though was for the last baby, where we used a nappy service. You just put the dirty nappies in a bucket and a cheery guy collected them as he returned the freshly laundered ones. Much easier than anything else!
I think that I’ve heard that some councils are subsidising nappy services to cut the disposable ones going into landfill. If they aren’t, they should look at it.
Shame on you Miliband!
Common Sense from The Duke
The Times today carries an article about engineers from the Duke of Edinburgh.
What common sense!
I like this bit.
Yet engineering remains the driving force behind all technological advances, and plays an immensely important part in the improvement in social conditions. Furthermore, it is probably the greatest wealth creator in our whole society.
But how he ends the article is something that all politicians should note.
As the ever-growing human population consumes more and more of the Earth’s natural resources, it is going to take all the ingenuity of inventors, engineers and designers to maintain the rate of improvements in developed societies and to bring better standards of living to more and more people in the less prosperous countries of the world. If this is to be achieved in the 21st century, the challenge will be to make sure that bright young people, whatever their background, who aspire to do something creative and fulfilling with their lives, can achieve their ambition through engineering.
It will be engineers, that get us out the mess we are in.
Not politicians! How much hot air will they be blowing in Copenhagen?
Photograph a Chip Shop and Get Arrested
There has been a spate of officers arresting people for taking photographs in public. The Telegraph details it all here.
Here’s one example.
In the summer, Alex Turner, another amateur photographer, was arrested after he took pictures of Mick’s Plaice, a fish and chip shop in Chatham, Kent, evidently a building of great strategic importance to the jihadi godfathers in Waziristan.
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I take a lot of photographs. Perhaps, I should be hung, drawn and quartered for taking a photograph of a secret radar station!
The police should remember that they are a police service and they serve the public. How many people stopped for doing innocent things, will in future look the other way and ignore a suspicious package?
Lowering the Drink Drive Limit
The government has asked a legal expert to examine whether the drink drive limit should be lowered.
I’m not bothered for myself, as I usually only drink a reasonable amount each night in the privacy of my own home. Strangely, over the past few months, when I have gone out for a drink, it’s usually been for a meal as well and the amount I’ve drunk has been usually in the order of a glass of wine. Or I’ve been on a bicycle or driven by one of my children, none of whom drink alcohol.
But I am bothered for the pubs I visit locally. Will they still survive if patrons don’t drink? I suspect that as we never see a policeman in this part of Suffolk, that no-one would get caught unless they crashed.
But the whole episode shows the stupidity of Prudence and his government. He would never get the law on the statute book before the next election, so he would surely lose enough votes in the run-up to make it absolutely sure that Labour was voted out by a landslide.
The other parties must be laughing their heads off.
But anyway it’s all right for our national politicians. They live a lot of the time in London with tubes, buses and taxis. Many of them too have chauffeurs.
If like me you live in deepest Suffolk, we have no buses and tubes, and taxis to get home will often cost more than a meal for one with wine.
Social Networking is Good for Your Writing
A study has shown that children who use technology write better.
Children who blog, text or use social networking websites have better writing skills than those who do not, according to the National Literacy Trust.
I’ve always thought this and it’s nice to be proved right.
At school my English was atrocious and I just about scraped through my O-Level. I struggled along until I met a guy called Stephen Allender, who worked for a company called OTMA. In one course he straightened my writing out.
Looking back, I can see that what I lacked was rules, fluidity and practice. He told me to write in the first person, gave me a set of rules and this then enabled me to get the fluidity. I was also working for ICI and had to write lots of notes and letters, so that gave the practice.
Social networking, such as FaceBook, Bebo and MySpace, are the ideal places to get the practice you need. Often it is easy because you may be sending a message to someone you don’t know, so there is a low embarrassment factor.
Sadly no-one has been able to do anything for my handwriting.
The Anonymous Widower 