Another Song For Ukraine
This one is I think Ukrainian.
Note that Ukrainians tend to pronounce W’s as V’s, so NLAW sounds a bit like love.
Apparently, Volodymyr Zelenskyy serenaded Boris with a version of All You Need Is NLAW.
I asked Google, if the Beatles were popular in Russia and found this article on the BBC, which is entitled Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground In The USSR.
The NLAW is an Anglo-Swedish anti-tank weapon, which is being used successfully by the Ukrainians.
Manchester Arena Attack: Families ‘Disgusted’ By Memorial Trespassing
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the introductory paragraphs,
Families of people killed in the Manchester Arena attack have said they were “disgusted” after a memorial site for the 22 victims was trespassed on.
The Glade of Light memorial in the city centre remains a building site and does not officially open until the new year.
Two bereaved families said they were appalled to find the security fences pulled down on Sunday.
The article also said this.
Ms Curry said she found hundreds of people were walking through the area, which is supposed to be closed to the public.
She said one man stood on a memorial stone and was abusive when challenged, another woman vomited all over the area, and groups of youths were openly smoking drugs.
I can’t understand what led to this aggressive trespass.
When, I am in certain cities, there does seem to be more low life on the streets than you habitually see in London.
I do wonder, if it is partly because of London’s transport regulations and actions as laid down by the Mayor and Transport for London.
London has an extensive CCTV network and after the London bombings of July the seventh and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, I’m sure it was improved.
Did the improved CCTV and the police action in the shooting the unfortunate Brazilian, deter a lot of low life from going to the centre?
Ken Livingstone or was it Boris, introduced a policy of banning alcohol on London’s transport system.
The precise details are given in this recent article on the Sun.
I have a feeling it had a positive effect, but did it mean that less drunks found their way to the centre?
In 2011, I sat next to a guy on a Manchester bus going from Piccadilly Gardens to Bury. I noticed that about a dozen youths were harassing the driver, trying to get his fare money and remarked on this to my companion.
My companion on hearing my London accent, said you don’t get that in London because of the contactless ticketing, as there is no fare money on the bus.
I was surprised at his reply and asked him to explain. It turned out he was a Trade Union Official, who looked after bus workers in Manchester. He told me his Union wanted a London-style contactless ticketing system, as it had drastically cut the number of attacks on staff in London.
Having worked with the Metropolitan Police on the analysis of data, they have also found that contactless ticketing helps in the tracing of people through London’s transport network and has solved several serious crimes.
Conclusion
I feel that terrorism and London’s reaction to it, banning of alcohol on public transport, contactless ticketing and other measures have helped keep drunks and those up to no good out of the centre.
Is The TP Group Worth A Punt?
I have been following the Class 799 train for some time. It is a hydrogen train prototype being sponsored by the owner of the train; Porterbrook.
The difficult task of fitting all of the hydrogen and electrical electrical gubbins under the floor of the train has been accomplished by the combined efforts of Birmingham University and TP Group.
But TP Group according to this article on The Times, which is entitled Directors In Line Of Fire As TP Group Takeover Bid Turns Sour, seems to have turned a bit difficult for the company.
I wrote about the Class 799 train in A Class 319 Train, But Not As We Know It! and I predict that it could be one of the stars of COP26 in Glasgow later in the year.
This picture sums up why!
The prototype may have designed for publicity, but I can see pictures of Joe, Boris, Angela et all going for a ride in this zero-carbon train, that started out as a British Rail commuter train on Thameslink.
I shall be watching the TP Group share price with interest.
Jaw Jaw Is Better Than War War!
There is an article in The Times today with a title of Britain Ready To Share Dutch-Made Vaccine With EU.
It talks of compromise and how Boris Johnson has effectively told his ministers to cool it.
I feel that Boris is right to seek a compromise. As Churchill said “Jaw, jaw is better than war-war!”
I wouldn’t be surprised that we have a lot to offer the EU about other things than making the vaccine.
Vaccination
There have been several examples published in this newspaper and other media outlets, about how we have squeezed extra doses out of the Pfizer vaccine and made sure we have potential recipients on hand, so that nothing goes to waste.
Perhaps we have a suitable brigadier, doctor, mandarin or project manager, who could put some drive and organisation into the EU’s flagging effort.
If it is a big loss of face to some EU politicians so be it.
AstraZeneca’s Problem
If AZ do have problem, it appears to be in the manufacture.
After all it is AZ’s first vaccine.
This surely, is a problem, that can be solved, even if it upsets AZ a bit on how it is done!
European Vaccine Reluctance
But I do think the EU’s vaccination is not helped by the population’s reluctance to have a jab.
We had Tom Jones and the US had Dolly Parton, amongst others who backed vaccinations.
Have stars of similar standing backed the vaccination in the EU?
Help From The Yanks
As usual, the Americans have arrived late to bolster the efforts.
Lets hope that their data published today persuades more EU citizens to take the jab and even one from the UK!
But surely any vaccine that gives you 100 % protection from severe disease, as the Yanks say that the AZ does, can’t be all bad!
Conclusion
I believe that as the UK and the EU share a common will to defeat the virus, that a good compromise can be developed over the next few days.
Let’s hope it goes better than the last time, we told the French what to do in a serious situation.
My father told me about Churchill’s dash to Paris in 1940 to offer union with France to try and save the country.
Read all about it in this article on the London School of Economics web site, which is entitled June 1940: Britain’s Forgotten Attempt To Build A European Union.
What Churchill Actually Said
In trying to find when Churchill used the title of this post, I found this page on the International Churchill Society web site, which is entitled Quotes Falsely Attributed To Winston Churchill.
The actual quote was “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war” and it was misquoted later by Harold Macmillan.
Does meeting Zoom to Zoom count?
The End Of The Beginning
At 16:08 on the 9th of November 2020, I sent this text message to the BBC.
Churchill would have dubbed Pfizer’s news the End of the Beginning in the War against the Covids!
Then at 17:00 Boris used the same phrase in his Press Conference.
Wikipedia says this about Churchill’s use of the phrase.
A quotation from a 1942 speech by Winston Churchill concerning the Second Battle of El Alamein.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought between the 23rd of October and the 11th of November 1942. So exactly, seventy-eight years ago, the battle was coming to a close.
As a biographer of Churchill, did Boris spot the historical link?
Let’s hope Boris, Macron, Biden, Merkel, Trudeau et al, get the chance to paraphrase another of Churchill’s quotes about the very different battle.
It may almost be said, “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat”
Let’s hope Pfizer’s vaccine is our generation’s Alamein and marks the turning point in the War against the Covids.
Certainly, the news has been well-received by experts, including Jeremy Farrar of the Welcome Trust, who was being interviewed by the BBC, when the news broke.
I am 73 and my parents told me how Alamein and other news like it, stiffened the sinews and summoned up the blood in the dark days of World War II!
Is The NHS The Cause Of The Rise In The Covids?
I was lying in my morning bath thinking this morning and I had the heretic thought, which is the title of this post.
How many prominent people in the UK have died from an attack of the covids? There have been some at an advanced age, but generally they were suffering from something else as well!
The highest profile person to be hospitalised by the covids, has been Boris. But despite his weight and obesity, he came through it unscathed, due to excellent care in an NHS hospital!
I’m 73 now, but if I look back to my twenties and thirties, I see an optimistic, fit, slim guy, who felt he was immune from health problems. I can also only remember one of my peers at Liverpool University in the 1960s going into hospital and it was so memorable, I can’t remember what he had.
The youth of the UK, don’t think the covids will happen to them and growing up in an NHS, which has looked after their every need, when they look around them, they feel it will get them through, if they catch the virus.
So the fact that the NHS is there and got the fat Boris, through it, means that they think, they’ll be alright in the end.
Conclusion
The success of the NHS could be a factor in the rise of lab-confirmed cases of the covids.
Are other countries with good health systems, that coped with the first wave, xperiencing a second one?
Should Campaigning Against Vaccination Be Made A Crime Against Humanity?
Boris is reported today on the BBC and in The Times, as saying that a coronavirus vaccine is the only way we will win.
Boris is totally right!
We will not be safe until everybody is vaccinated. Vaccination has virtually conquered diseases like smallpox, polio and measles.
Perhaps campaigning against vaccination, should be a crime against humanity!
I live in Hackney, where there is a lot of measles, caused by people being against the MMR vaccine. Will these idiots accept a vaccine for Covid-19?
Et Toi, Papa? Boris Johnson’s Dad Seeks To Become A French Citizen
Surely, this is the headline of the week in The Sunday Times.
Apparently, Stanley’s mother was born in Versallies!
And you don’t get any more French than that!
Police Powers Bill
Type the name of this proposed bill from the new Government into Google and you only get a hit from The Times.
This is what the newspaper says about the bill.
Gives police greater powers to criminalise travellers who set up unauthorised encampments and allows them to seize their property and vehicles.
I used to live in rural Suffolk for forty years on farms and there will be lots of Suffolk residents who will welcome this bill.
Travellers in parts of rural England, are blamed for a lot of things that happen, like burglaries, theft of ride-on mowers and illegal coursing, often at night.
My properties never suffered personally, although we did have lots of lights and checked that everything was locked up. But others weren’t so lucky!
I also feel from talking to local people in both Suffolk and Dalston, that crime levels are lower here. We’ve only had one burglary in my road, since I moved in and that was when a guy left his keys in the door.
I also remember one of C’s stories.
One of her cases was a divorce involving the so-called King of the Gypsies. She thought it would be a difficult case, but he was an Honorable man, who lived in a semi in a local town. He complied with the Court’s orders and was the perfect client. On the other hand his hatred for the travelling, was on a stratospheric scale.
But I can’t stop feeling that this is going to be the Bill, that will give Boris Johnson, his biggest trouble in the Commons..
Action This Day!
This was Churchill’s famous phrase and you can read all about it here.
I am getting sick of the indecision of Brexit and I suspect many in this country feel the same.
As I’m retired, it doesn’t make any difference to my business and those that I employ, as there is no business and no employees.
To my mind, Brexit must be sorted by the end of January at the latest, so that we can all move on.
- If we vote in Boris Johnson with a large majority, we might leave, although I suspect there will be challenges in Parliament, the Courts and on the streets.
- If we vote in Jo Swinson with a large majority, she will revoke article 50 and that could be the end of Brexit for at least a few years and hopefully for ever.
- If we vote in Jeremy Corbyn with a large majority, he will dither and prevaricate for a few years years, before we get another close referendum, which gives us more of what we’ve had for the last few years.
As someone, who voted Remain and now quite frankly doesn’t care, I believe the only way to get us out of this mess made by David Cameron, is to hope that Johnson or Swinson get a majority large enough to carry out their stated policies on Brexit.
As for Corbyn, who has a Push-Me-Pull-You policy on Brexit, everybody should make sure, that whoever they vote for, consigns Corbyn, his apparatchiks and their crack-pot policies to the dustbin of history.
The Anonymous Widower 