Mushrooms in the Morning
I walked the fields this morning and found there were a lot of mushrooms.
Mushrooms in the Morning
You can’t see it very well in this photograph, but there was a complete circle.
Mushrooms in the Morning - 2
This picture taken from a different direction shows the circle a little bit better.
Mushrooms in the Morning - 3
There were a tremendous number of them.
What puzzles me, is why are they in a complete circle around an oak tree?
Judy Dyble has pointed me to an explanation in Wikipedia.
Is It That Hot?
The roofers are now putting the roof on the new building.
It’s late October and I know it’s hot, but two of them have gone topless!
Roof Trusses
I’m having a new building put up and by accident I took an interesting photo of the roof trusses in the sunlight and backed by the blue sky. I liked it, so I took some more.
Where Have the Photo Galleries Gone?
I’ve moved them to when they were actually taken. Thus, the Goa photos are now under November 2008.
I’ve also added a photo index to the blog headings. All are listed there.
The Only Polar Bear in the UK
It is sad that there is just one polar bear in the UK.
I’m not really in favour of traditional zoos, but where animals are endangered there should be a way of keeping them, so that future generations can know about these animals.
But keeping just one bear is probably not a good idea.
I’m also old enough to remember, when London and Whipsnade Zoos, regularly bred these magnificent creatures.
The Terror Awaiting the United States
We’ve had a basketful of large volcanic explosions and earthquakes in recent years. These thoughts were also brought about by my reading bits of Simon Winchester‘s excellent book on Krakatoa, whilst visiting my friend in hospital.
If we look at volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in modern times, we can see that they are by no means uncommon, but as we get more densely packed on Spaceship Earth, they cause more damage and loss of life. Especially as many of the most active areas are highly populated.
The Year Without a Summer, 1816, is a classic example of what can happen when a large volcano erupts. In this case it was Mount Tambora in modern-day Indonesia. In the post on Mount Tambora there is a list of the big volcanic explosions and it would seem that we get one every twenty years or so. The last big one was in 1991 and that was Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. It had a significant effect.
The effects of the eruption were felt worldwide. It ejected roughly 10 billion metric tonnes (10 cubic kilometres) of magma, and 20 million tons of SO2, bringing vast quantities of minerals and metals to the surface environment. It injected large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere—more than any eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883. Over the following months, the aerosols formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F), and ozone depletion temporarily increased substantially.
This just shows how what we can do to the planet are pinpricks compared to nature. Luckily, nature doesn’t vent its spleen too often.
But one threat from a volcano seriously threatens the United States. That is the volcano of Cumbre Vieja on the Canary Islands. If it fractures how Day and Ward predict, then there will a mega-tsunami that will wreak havoc in Florida and the Caribbean.
Living 30 metres up in Suffolk and at least 70 kilometres from the coast has its compensations.
The Kunstzaal Kleizkamp Raid
In the post on the Mosquito, I mentioned the raid on the Kunstzaal Kleizkamp Art Gallery in the Hague, which was being used to store the Dutch population records.
Whilst in Holland, I had some time to myself in The Hague so I tried to find out where it was. Using Google from my laptop, I found this Dutch article in Wikipedia. The reason I’d not been able to find this before was that the article is only in Dutch and Kleizkamp is spelt differently in that language, as Kleykamp. There does not appear to be any trace left of the gallery opposite the Peace Palace, which is one of The Hague’s most famous buildings.
The Peace Palace, The Hague
The article says that the gallery was a white house opposite the palace.
All that is there now is an anonymous office block.
NICB Bank, The Hague
If you translate the Dutch articles, there was a certain amount of controversy about the raid. Some said it should be done earlier and around sixty, mainly women, died when the building was bombed. But it would appear that the RAF didn’t have the capability to do the raid before and that it was preferred to do the raid on a working day, when the filing cabinets were open.
Feelings at a Wedding
This was the first wedding I’d been to since my wife died. Or perhaps should I say that it was the first wedding between young people, as I’d been to another involving one of my ex-business partners, who like me had been widowed. That was different, as it showed me a lot of hope for the future. It was also a nice touch, that the groom was having the same best man fifty years later.
But this one was a full wedding, with both a civil and a church ceremony. They do it that way in Holland.
As to the wedding itself, everything went well and except for a few small glitches, it seemed to go smoothly. But then what wedding goes absolutely perfectly. If they did Robert Altman’s film wouldn’t be so funny!
But it was the details that brought me to tears. Just words, but many times in the past at a wedding, my wife and I would smile at each other and repeat our vows and perhaps sometimes joke at some inappropriateness or funny memory. Not that I can seem to remember much of our marriage at all. Perhaps having only a couple of photos or videos doesn’t help. I’ve still got her wedding dress though and perhaps one day, it’ll fit a granddaughter.
Those memories made me sad and I was pleased that I’d hidden away at the back of the church.
Goldfinches
There are masses about this year. Each dot on this picture is one on my lawn.
Goldfinches
I’m no birdwatcher, but my books tell me that they tend to forage in flocks before flying off to southern and western Europe for the winter.
Inheritance Tax
George Osborne said yesterday that he’d like to get rid of Inheritance Tax, except for millionaires. I think he should go a lot further and I have have not changed these views much since I had a letter published in the Financial Times about it some years ago.
I’ve been against the tax for years, not because I would benefit from its abolition or because I’m getting to that age, when I should start to do something about it. But because as a control engineer by training, I just think it does untold secondary damage.
Consider :-
- How many bright minds are employed on both sides of the Inheritance Tax War in avoiding and collecting the tax? Abolish and they’d have to do a proper wealth creating job.
- It is generally believed that the super-rich even if they are domiciled in the UK, pay little Inheritance Tax. I’d love to see a graph of the size of sums paid. I suspect that there are few in the millions and most are in tens and hundreds of thousands.
- The tax raises about half the amount Air Passenger Duty does! With the rise in this tax though, I suspect that recent figures will show this to be incorrect.
- According to a survey by the BBC, many people would prefer to replace it with say 2p on Income Tax. I’ve got an e-mail from a former Tory Treasury Minister who believes the same.
- How many large houses in a bad state that are inhabited by an elderly couple or a single pensioner are not developed because they’d prefer to leave their children a wreck, so the children could make the profit?
- Perhaps some of those put out of work by the abolishing of the tax, could work out sensible development schemes that would create the houses we need and give the owners a good standard of living.
- If we abolished the tax, how many rich Italians, French, Germans and other citizens of the EU would come to the UK to enjoy the remainder of their lives. I’ve been here over 60 years and it’s a great country, if you ignore the Iraq War, identity cards, stupid planning regulations, Government human rights abuses, certain football clubs and a few other things.
- Hopefully these retirees would create a few jobs. All my rich elderly friends are still at it creating new businesses. Why shouldn’t they do it here?
- How many inventors and entrepreneurs would come, knowing that they could leave everything to their descendents?
So it’s a very wrong tax that is well past its sell-by date.
I’d pay the two pence extra on Income Tax to avoid paying it to money-grabbing accountants. Come to think of it I’d pay three pence!
Is that an offer that the Chancellor can’t refuse?
The Anonymous Widower 