Pioz is the Most Indebted Village in Spain
Pioz in Guadalajara has just 3,000 inhabitants, but the village has run up debts of €16,000,000 and at the current repayment rate will take over 7,000 years to pay the debts back. It all stems from a previous administration that built an elaborate water purification plant.
And then there was the €150,000,000 airport at Castellon near Valencia, which never attracted a single aircraft.
No wonder Spain and Spanish banks are in trouble!
The Bookies Close Their Books on Greece Leaving the Euro
That effectively means it’s all over, as you never argue with a bookie’s judgement. Read about it here.
Congratulations Your Majesty
I’ve only seem it on one bus on route 21, so it might be unique.
Congratulations Your Majesty
Although, I have seen it several times, before I got this picture at Newington Green. In some ways to photograph it there is appropriate, as that is the area of London, where the non-comformists based themselves in the seventeenth century. It has a long connection with Mary Wollstonecraft. It is a place well worth a visit, as it has a nice garden and some buildings worth a look.
A Tragedy Waiting to Happen
The tragic fire in Derby, where five children died, was one of those incidents, where I thought there was a lot more to the story than initial reports, led us to believe.
It now appears that the father had had seventeen children by six different women and that a woman in her late twenties has been arrested for starting the fire. The father has also appeared on the Jeremy Kyle Show, which probably adds even more to the story.
A lot of C’s work as a barrister, concerned sorting out families like this one. Usually, at the centre of her cases was a woman, who couldn’t say no! She would often act for the Council to get the children taken in to care.
So what is the difference here?
The state this family lived in wasn’t good, so why weren’t some of these children taken into care and fostered? I have known of families with ten or more children that were well run and the children were well looked after, but usually in these cases, both parents were model ones.
So what were Derby Social Services doing?
It would appear very little in a constructive manner! Otherwise this tragedy wouldn’t have happened.
BBC Breakfast Has Been Dumbed Down
Whether this is because of the move to Manchester, I do not know, but BBC Breakfast isn’t the program it was when it was in London. Obviously, the move cost it two of its best presenters; Sian Williams and Chris Hollins, but the rapport and banter between the presenters seems to have gone too.
I think too, that the regular guests, like Dr. Rosemary Leonard, have not been replaced with others of the of the same quality. I know that it’s early days yet, but some have been absolutely dire, when talking about serious subjects.
And then there are many more segments about pop music and people struggling with horrendous injuries. Today, there was only three serious stories. One about plastic bottle recycling, another about MOT bias and another about goal-line technology.
The sooner the program returns to its natural home in London, the better. Incidentally, one of the stories on BBC London; about children in care in Hackney and how long it takes them to be settled, should have been covered nationally.
But what illustrates the dumbing down and lack of quality most, is the story about the grooming of young girls in Rochdale. That didn’t get much coverage at all in the last few days. Why not?
And what is the phone-in on Radio 5 about this morning? Celebrities!
Fracking May be Good for You
There is a great deal of opposition to the use of fracking to extract gas from shale in this country.
I went to a lecture at the Royal Geograhical Society yesterday called Unconventional Gas. It was very enlightening and I can draw various conclusions from the lecture. You can find out more about the lecture here.
The first is that there is a very large amount of gas available to be extracted using fracking and a lot of it is in countries, with pretty stable regimes, like Australia, Canada and the United States.
The second is that gas prices in North America are falling fast, because of the large amounts of gas now available. I believe, that Canada has far too much gas for its own use and will soon start to export.
So it is not inconceivable, that Europe will start to import gas from North America rather than from regimes like Russia and Qatar.
Am I wrong to therefore suggest that because of fracking, we may well find that our gas prices start to drop?
I have deliberately not discussed the use of fracking in the UK and Europe.
The technologies employed are still very much under development and have been used mainly in the very underpopulated parts of the United States and Canada. The extraction is now moving towards more populous states, like Pennsylvania, and only when it is totally accepted by the inhabitants there, will it be time to use it in Europe.
In the meantime we should keep a strong watching brief, investing in resarch in the best universities, as I outlined here.
But as with many things, there are many against the technology, when it starts to be used, but now it is totally accepted. Just look at the opposition Brunel, Stephenson and others had when they started building railways!
Obesity
They’ve just given a forum on BBC Breakfast for a very large lady, who calls herself a Size Awareness Campaigner. She objects to being called obese and wants doctors to use other words.
I would just use fat!
After all because of their overeating, they are pushing the NHS down the toilet.
Why should I pay my taxes to fund other clear up the mess causes by the bad habits of others. And of course that includes smoking and excessive drinking!
That item would never have been shown, whilst the program was based in London.
Did Mrs. Thatcher Wash Her Own Smalls?
According to the Standard tonight, Frau Merkel still washes her own.
Do You Think We Should Have a Whip-round to Buy God a New Bath-plug?
Our youngest son always used to say that thunderstorms were caused because God let the bath-water run over.
So, he might have said the title of this post, after all the bad weather, we’ve been having lately!
The Anonymous Widower 