The Diamond Light Source And Ebola
The headline of Ibuprofen ‘disables’ Ebola virus, drew me to this article on the BBC’s web site. This is said.
The painkiller ibuprofen and the cancer drug toremifene can disable the Ebola virus, say researchers.
Scientists used the UK’s national synchrotron facility – Diamond Light Source – to analyse the virus in incredible detail.
They revealed the two drugs could bind to the crucial part of Ebola that the virus needs to infect cells.
It may be only a starting point, but it looks like a success for the Diamond Light Source. I am indebted to Wikipedia for this description of the Diamond Light Source.
Diamond Light Source (“Diamond”) is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. Its purpose is to produce intense beams of light whose special characteristics are useful in many areas of scientific research. In particular it can be used to investigate the structure and properties of a wide range of materials from proteins (to provide information for designing new and better drugs), and engineering components (such as a fan blade from an aero-engine) to conservation of archeological artifacts (for example Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose.
This is a UK-funded and based facility, I hope that, after Brexit, this type of scientific machine, which cost £260million will still be able to be funded.
SNP Seeks To Replace Labour As Official Opposition At Westminster
This is the title of a story on Politics Home today.
I listened to Prime Ministers Questions today from start to finish and it is worth comparing the performance of Angus Robertson and Jeremy Corbyn.
Robertson’s performance was workmanlike and professional, but Corbyn’s contribution was not of the best quality.
I have not really listened to Corbyn’s contributions much in detail much before, but I got the impression, his heart didn’t seem to be in the debate.
I also thought that he was more long-winded than most other party leaders I remember well. Is he always like this, or is it because he has something else on his mind?
He is certainly not fulfilling his royal of leader of Her Maject’s Loyal Opposition.
If he doesn’t want the job, then I’m sure Angus Robertson could fill in!
After Losing 2-1 Roy Hodgson Resigns, So What Does Corbyn Do After Losing 172-40?
I think one man is honourable,
I’ll let others judge JC!
Who Will Join Corbyn’s Shadow Saddle-Bag?
The pool is getting smaller by the hour!
Tarzan Lives!
Tarzan has just been on BBC Breakfast tslking masses of sense on how to get out of the mess. Brilliant!
Now Is The Time To Change
In 1977, the climate for business wasn’t very good. So what did I do?
Together with three others, we started Metier Management Systems to create a ground breaking project management system called Artemis.
Wikipedia says this about the sale of the company several years later.
Metier was sold to Lockheed for US$130m at a time when the US$ and the £Sterling were close to parity. Since then, then company has been sold many times, each time for a considerably lesser amount, and with the company often renamed by the new owner.
The only sad part of this tale, is that the software I wrote in an attic in Suffolk, didn’t fulfil the potential, of which I believed she was possessed.
The moral of this story, is that the worse and more uncertain the times, means the better it is to change what you’re doing and perhaps start something radical.
It might even be the time to marry your long-term partner!
What Game Were Corbyn And Milne Playing?
To sabotage the Labour party’s support for Remain, as I detailed in For The Female Of The Species Is More Deadly Than The Male, seems to me a very strange thing for Seamus Milne and Jeremy Corbyn to do.
Most commentators felt that by voting Leave, it would put the country into a recession. Other commentators have stated that the EU needs the UK as a balance to Germany.
My father old me about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Hitler and Stalin , which he felt was two equally bad regimes supping together. To him, there was no difference between the extreme left and the extreme right and let’s face it Stalin’s Russia was as bad at killing people as Hitler’s Germany.
So in some ways to me, this seems like two of the hard left , have deliberately aided those to the right to remove the UK from the EU.
Perhaps, they are hoping that this will cause the EU to collapse!
And who would benefit from that?
Vladimir Putin.
I hope I’m wrong.
Certainly the pair of them have destroyed any credibility the Labour Party had left!
For The Female Of The Species Is More Deadly Than The Male
This report in the Telegraph is entitled Labour supporters boo and hiss at BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg during Jeremy Corbyn’s EU speech. This is an extract.
Labour supporters booed and hissed when the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg was called for a question during a Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on the EU.
Earlier this week it emerged Mr Corbyn had criticised the Corporation’s coverage of his leadership during a behind-the-scenes documentary by Vice News.
Perhaps because I’m sometimes a man of manners, booing somebody just because they’re reporting the news, isn’t on.
But today ths report by Laura has appeared on the BBC web site, which is entitled Corbyn office ‘sabotaged’ EU Remain campaign – sources.
This is an extract.
And documents passed to the BBC suggest Jeremy Corbyn’s office sought to delay and water down the Labour Remain campaign. Sources suggest that they are evidence of “deliberate sabotage”.
One email from the leader’s office suggests that Mr Corbyn’s director of strategy and communications, Seumas Milne, was behind Mr Corbyn’s reluctance to take a prominent role in Labour’s campaign to keep the UK in the EU. One email, discussing one of the leader’s speeches, said it was because of the “hand of Seumas. If he can’t kill it, he will water it down so much to hope nobody notices it”.
A series of messages dating back to December seen by the BBC shows correspondence between the party leader’s office, the Labour Remain campaign and Labour HQ, discussing the European campaign. It shows how a sentence talking about immigration was removed on one occasion and how Mr Milne refused to sign off a letter signed by 200 MPs after it had already been approved.
Read the whole article and see how Laura knows how to get her own back!
As if that wasn’t enough Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey have called for a vote of confidence in the Labour Leader.
|Does Jeremy Corbyn have a problem with the female of the species?
At least we now know a couple of idiots, who were partly responsible for the Brexit vote! A bit of support for Labour Remain supporters, might just have swung the vote.
It was like fighting Muhammed Ali, with one hand tied behind your back!
London’s Bouncebackability
Some worry about the ability of the City of London to survive after Brexit.
I don’t and this picture gives a clue!
St. Pauls in the Blitz
London and the City periodically suffer disasters and annoyances.
- The Great Fire in 1666
- The Great Stink of the 1850s
- The Blitz of 1940
- The Great Smog of 1952
- The IRA Bombings in Bishopsgate and other London locations.
- The Tube Attacks of 7th July 2005
- The Financial Crisis of 2007-2008
After every one of these, London showed an impressive ability to bounce back from something that was unexpected. You coud argue that after all these events, London recovered to a higher level.
The first two, threw up two of London’s great creators; Christopher Wren and Joseph Bazalgette. Bazalgette was the grandson of a French Protestant immigrant.
Will London throw up another great creator and thinker because of Brexit?
I wouldn’t be surprised!
They might even be like Bazalgette and a descendent of a recent immigrant. London has always benefited from troubles in the rest of the world!
No-one can know what will happen to the City and its financial industry and expertise. A vindictive Europe could put in regulations to try to cut London’s market share.
But I doubt it will have much affect, as London has every expertise you could need, speaks English, is in the right time zone and quite frankly is London, where real and assimilated Londoners duck-and-dive for the best opportunity.
London will undoubtedly change, but is there any reason to suspect, that it won’t do things that make itself more successful and more powerful still?
London was the capital of the world in the Victorian Age and I can see this happening again!
I Will Just Carry On
I feel this morning, just like I did on the 2nd May 1997, which was the day Tony Blair became Prime Minister.
I was slightly apprehensive then as to what is going to happen, as after John Major’s government had fallen, I wondered what a left-wing Government would do to the economy.
But I feel that just as John Major and Kenneth Clarke left Blair an economy that worked, I believe that David Cameron and especially George Osborne have left the country in a state to live with or without the EU.
I was very much for staying in, but since the vote only one large company has expressed regrets as this article in the Daily Post, which is entitled EU Referendum: Airbus assessing impact of ‘disappointing’ Brexit vote, details.
But I am an Englishman and especially a London mongrel, with genes stolen from all the best parts of Europe.
I grew up with stories from my parents and others of the Blitz, in the midst of some of the worst air pollution, any child has ever had to endure.
Since then, I lived through the bombings of the Irish troubles and although I wasn’t in London for the bombings of the 7th July 2005, I know many who were. Perhaps the biggest terrible event, that happened near me was the Moorgate Tube Crash of 1975, which was less than 200 metres from where I lived in the Barbican.
Londoners will do what they always do in times of troubles and that is just carry on! It’s in their genes.
My genes from the Tailor of Bexley, did for a few hours about running, but my solid Devonian genes, told the others to wait and let’s see what happens first.
I said that David Cameron and George Osborne have left the country in a good state for the future.
For years, this country has been too centralised, so giving power to the regions and big cities will become Osborne’s legacy.
If Manchester wants to develop its trams or city centre, or build offices, housing and factories, that should be Manhester’s decision and should not be decided by the dead hand of London.
Scotland’s new bid for independence, is a good thing, and it is a consequence of devolved government.
I can for instance envisage a time in say a hundred years, where London becomes a powerful independent city-state. In the nineteenth century we had several of those; Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, London, Manchester and Sheffield.
That model for the UK will return.
If you look at the most powerful country in Europe; Germany already has that model with Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, the Ruhr cities and Stuttgart dominating.
But look at France! What Paris and the elite want, they impose!
Perhaps the biggest consequence of Brexit, will be a desire for the people of Europe to have more independence from their own Central Government.
The Anonymous Widower 