…grayblog…

Category: current affairs

  • Turkmenbashi

    Saparmurat Niyazov, RIP?

  • Willy

    Oh dear. Every man of Indian descent must be wincing in the knowledge that this story is currently the most popular on BBC News. And it looks like a BBC wag was the author of the article, with phrases such as

    over 1,200 volunteers from the length and breadth of the country had their penises measured precisely, down to the last millimetre.

  • Big bang

    You may have seen today’s news about a large fire at a fireworks warehouse in East Sussex, with its sad outcome.

    Our home is approximately 10 kilometres from the site of the fire. We had already heard distant sirens as fire crews and ambulances headed for the scene (although at that time we had no idea what the cause was). Then the house was rocked by a massive blast – big enough to shake the whole building, scaring up the cats and local birds and causing at least one other of my neighbours to come out to see what had happened. Goodness knows what it must have been like to be closer to the explosion.

  • Wine tasting classes

    The French governing party, the UMP, has suggested that children should be taught to appreciate wines when in school – which doesn’t strike me as half as daft as it might first appear. I’m not sure about wine alone, but there could be something in encouraging kids to learn more about art, literature, architecture, food and drink – to be able to critically appraise it and understand its origins. Of course, some of this sort of stuff is taught already as part of a wider education, but I know from my own industry that plenty of kids seem to come out of school with no idea where food comes from, what art is “about” and why architecture is important. Even my own wife can’t tell the difference between sage, marjoram and tarragon growing in our herb trough outside the door.

    I have no doubt that having a greater understanding of these things helps you to look beyond yourself, understand the world around you and further appreciate the inter-relationships between so many things in life. That has to be no bad thing, in my view.

    Anyway, in other news we have today found out that we will not be liable for Capital Gains Tax when Hels finally sells her flat in the spring, which means that we are tonight celebrating with gin and tonics, noting the subtlety of the fine gin, the delicate tang of the quinine and the sharp twist of lime (or getting drunk, you decide).

  • Self-regulation

    Note to self: write long post about self-regulation of blogs and why it will never work; why the current libel, race and discrimination laws should be sufficient; and how people clearly don’t get it.

  • The loss of two voices

    Two great voices have been lost to us in the last few days.

    Philippe Noiret, RIP. IMDB profile.

    Nick Clarke, RIP.

  • On rural housing

    The BBC have been running a series of articles recently on housing issues. Today’s article is particularly good and deals with the issue of rural housing and, in particular, social housing and the sustainability of communities. It is by Moira Constable, chief executive of the Rural Housing Trust.

    As someone who has spent a large chunk of my life living in small to medium sized villages, this is an issue about which I feel strongly. I particularly like the way that Constable highlights the fact that social housing actually does much to preserve those aspects of rural life that attract the wealthy (a village pub, cricket team, local shop, etc.). I really hate it when small villages are preserved in aspic – they become ghettoes of the wealthy. My parents live near the village of Slindon, much of which is owned by the National Trust. The NT has done much to try and preserve the village in a timewarp, with very little new development and tight restrictions on alteration of existing properties. There aren’t even any overhead cables or phonelines – everything like that must be hidden from view. The consequence, in my view, is that the village, whilst pretty, is now so expensive that no local person could afford to buy property there. I’m sure the average age of the population must be increasing significantly, year-on-year. A few years ago, the village shop and post office closed because it was no longer profitable – it has now been bought and is operated by the village residents as a non-profit organisation because the services it provides are so vital to the community.

    I’m not saying that these villages need massive new housing developments. As the article says, sensitive and small developments are more in keeping with their environment and can still provide the sort of housing that is needed. But it is no only rented or shared-ownership housing that is needed, in my view, but also modestly-priced housing on the open market. All too often, due to pressure from parish and district councils and the profit-driven motives of the developers, four and five bedroom homes only are built in small developments whilst smaller houses only appear in the large (usually fairly unpleasant) developments on the edge of town (which are often just as remote from amenities and services as rural communities). Perhaps there should be tax incentives to landowners to develop one and two bedroom flats and cottages, which is exactly what used to be built when landowners had to provide housing for their workers before public social housing came along.

  • Links

    • Grunty Muck-Lane has a rant about people getting his name wrong. I have the same problem with Graeme Spenser.
    • Towns across Europe are removing road signs, wholesale. The Dutch, in particular, are less profligate with road signs than we are in nanny-state Britain, but Hungary tops the list of countries I have visited recently for roadsignlessness. via linkbunnies.
    • Looks like we need to buy one of these now that Tom has discovered forward gear when crawling. I’ve been sitting in the conservatory typing this and he has just got halfway here from the living room to see what I’m up to. And I’ve noticed that he is useful for getting the dust from under the stairs – it’s only a matter of time before I can start sending him up chimneys.
    • America may finally embrace a dollar coin. About time, in my view. I think there will soon be some enthusiasm here to see the £5 and €5 notes replaced with coins, as they get tatty so quickly.

  • S1K

    The Sol 1K Problem. via Sore Eyes.

  • Rural fuel

    This story sounds awfully familiar. Our home is heated with bottled gas which is even more expensive than either bulk-delivered LPG or oil, the options described in the article. Each bottle costs us nearly £40 and, in deep mid-winter when there is nightly frost, we can get through a bottle in six days. Do the maths. We can’t upgrade to either of the bulk options without investing in a (costly) tank plus associated plumbing. You find that, after the first bill arrives, you quickly learn to put on a thicker sweater insted of turning up the thermostat. Our wood-fuelled stove is also a great friend.

    In addition, as the article hints, those of us living in rural areas, even though we are only a short distance from two small towns, have to use cars every day as there is no realistic public transport alternative. There is a weekday bus, but it runs only once per hour, goes only to one of the neighbouring towns and starts too late and finishes too early to be of any value to commuters. Bizarrely, it calls at the nearby railway station before coming to our village, so you can’t use it to hook up with the rail service. I’ve never actually counted them all, but our road consists of 31 properties but yet must be home to at least sixty cars. Parking is a nightmare.

    Now, I’m not expecting government handouts to help us out (although there could be more help to encourage people to insulate their homes and make them more fuel-efficient – this would both help them financially and reduce emissions). But a realisation of the problem in government and elsewhere would be a good thing. As suggested in the article, villages like ours are often home to those on very low wages (farm workers, for example) and how they manage, I really don’t know (actually, I do – they have wood-fuelled stoves and take wood home from the farm as a "perk". But that doesn’t heat your water or cook your dinner).