…grayblog…

Category: current affairs

  • Fiery Fred

    Fred Trueman, RIP. Peerless.

  • Interesting book

    EU wrestling with age-old ideas – which goes to prove that there is nothing new under the sun.

  • Vote Seagulls

    The Seagulls Party is formed to contest local elections and by-elections on a platform of supporting the new Brighton and Hove Albion stadium at Falmer. I don’t suppose that they will put a candidate up for Ruralville (we’re too far away), but if they do then they’ll get my vote.

  • Air-sea rescue in need of rescue?

    I’m not sure that I understand the logic behind the Government’s proposed part-privatisation of the maritime air-sea rescue service.

    Anyone living on the south coast will be familiar with the sight of India Juliet rumbling her way up and down the seafront in the summer, dragging ill-prepared and half-witted individuals from the water. From my parents’ home, she can regularly be seen; when I lived in Chichester, very rarely she would come into the city to drop a “passenger” at St Richard’s Hospital. She makes for a strangely comforting sight.

    The rescue service has been somewhat fractured for years, partly run by the Navy, partly by the Air Force and partly by the Coastguard themselves. I can see good sense in bringing the entire service under one control, probably the Coastguard. What I can’t understand is the minister’s assertion that the proposal will provide good value to the tax payer. Surely, if we must pay a private company for the helicopters and then lease them back, they (the private providers) are making a profit at the tax payer’s expense which, if it was under direct government agency control, we would not have to incur. Compared to some other capital projects where private finance might be involved, the sums here are relatively small.

    Having said that, PPP or PFI has facilitated some capital projects in other areas of government that might never have got off the ground otherwise, so it may work. From my untutored position, I’m just not sure that it is the most effective method in this instance.

  • Flawed logic

    I’m not sure that I follow the logic that is suggested in this news report that a speed camera in road works is not there to reduce speed but to increase revenue.

    Have you ever walked on a motorway? I have. I had the misfortune to breakdown on the M27 once and had to walk about 500 yards to an SOS phone (this was in the days before mobiles). It is not a pleasant experience.

    Each year, many people are killed on the hard shoulder in similar circumstances. The news article gives figures for the number of road workers killed and injured each year. I never feel any envy for the blokes putting out cones and signs when people are passing them at 80 – 90mph.

    Speed limits in roadworks are there for the benefit of those people working to maintain the roads you drive on. There is a simple and effective way of reducing the danger to them and avoiding getting a speeding ticket and penalty points – SLOW DOWN. There, it’s not rocket science. Leave ten minutes earlier, check the web for roadworks information, use any of the dozen or so mobile advice services (they are free on my phone).

    Incidentally, I saw a very effective use of technology recently to overcome the perceived problem of bunching and "panic braking" (which is caused only by those who think it is smart to speed up between cameras, because the speed limit only counts where you might get caught, obviously). On the roadworks on the A1(M), they have erected the cameras that read your number plate when you enter a section of road and read it again when you leave (the section of road in this case being the three miles or so that are currently being resurfaced) – and, by so doing, calculate your average speed on the section. I only saw one speeding driver (who deserved his ticket) – everyone else was observing the 50mph limit without bunching or panic braking and the traffic was moving freely – probably adding only a couple of minutes to the journey time. Perhaps this type of camera should be more widely used instead of the familiar Gatso.

    Rant over.

  • Food news

    Two items of food-related news (I don’t post anything like enough food news items here):

    • world’s most expensive sandwich goes on sale. I like the sound of this. Of course, it’s a splendid publicity stunt and well done to Selfridges for coming up with it, but I would like one. Or two.
    • we’ve just booked to go to Preuvenemint, (one of?) the largest food fairs in the Netherlands. This strikes me as an excellent plan – food and Maastricht in one go – hurrah! Sadly, we can’t find a decent hotel in the city – it seems that they are either all booked up or have trebled their prices in anticipation of the crowds (or both) – so we’re staying at a lovely auberge across the border in Belgium.

  • Stuff in the news

    Well, EURid has put the .eu domain registration process into the LandRush phase. I made my application some weeks ago (on Valentine’s Day, in fact) for a domain for my company under the Sunrise procedures (having a prior right as being a registered limited company under UK law), but have had no acknowledgement and no news. Should I be panicking? I tried to look it up on the EU WHOIS site (which is where the EURid site suggests I should go in order to track my application), but the server that runs that is clearly melting in some office somewhere in Europe. (In this case, it’s Diegem in Belgium – did you know that there is great competition to host EU offices? The French will battle with the Germans and the Spanish and all the other nations to host EU offices – which is why I spend a lot of time in communication with an EU department that resides in a rather grand converted hotel in the French city of Angers. But do you ever hear of British towns and cities battling for these honours? No, because the British tend to be happier sniping at the EU from the sidelines rather than actively getting involved, thereby missing a great opportunity for prestige and employment. Ooops. Ranting. Sorry.)

    Meanwhile, north of the border, the avian flu strain H5N1 has been found in a dead swan. The police are reminding citizens to report any dead swan, goose or duck, or any three dead birds in the same place, to DEFRA. What they forget to say is that DEFRA is woefully under-resourced (it’s not health or education, so HMG doesn’t throw money at it), so I forsee a situation very soon wherein the inspection services will be under immense strain (they are already) and will draft in support from every other department within DEFRA. So my local PHSI (Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate) guys will be sent off to some dingy hotel somewhere, given a crash course in avian flu diagnosis, and sent out to farms. Of course, as plant health guys, they have no jurisdiction and no powers and can’t actually do an awful lot – they won’t even be able to impound birds. Sound implausible to you? Well, it is exactly what happened during foot and mouth a few years ago – PHSI was denuded of staff (they already are terribly under-staffed as it is) who will have to work very long hours achieving not an awful lot.

    Whilst all this is going on, Mrs Housewife will stop buying chicken and eggs, spurred by horror stories in the Daily Mail, and agriculture (which is already struggling terribly – oh, sorry, that’s not newsworthy at the moment, is it? – you know, the fact that HMG has promised to pay grants to farmers who have made their business plans on that basis, but have yet to actually deliver money that was due months ago, leaving farmers with huge debts to the banks and no income) will become even more depressed. Gah.

    So, this weekend – get a British chicken, have a roast with some British veg. You’ll enjoy it and you’ll help a farmer somewhere (particularly if you go to your local farmers’ market and buy direct).

    UPDATE: I managed to get on to the .eu WHOIS, although it is mind-numbingly slow, and it shows my domain name as "application pending". The application and documents have been received, although they are yet to get beyond the "Initial" stage (i.e., the documents are in a filing cabinet and nobody has looked at them). The good news is that I am the only applicant for my requested name. Yay!

  • Meaningless

    I hate stories like this one. Look – the sample was of 46 (count them: forty-six) women aged between 23 and 83. Assuming an even spread of ages, only 5 or 6 were under the age of 30, which, I dare say, is an age group with fewer personal committments such as husbands or children that might rein in their more liberal attitudes. So it is barely surprising that 90% of those surveyed are quite conservative in their views.

    Go away, researchers – come back when you have something useful to say.

  • Wrong runway is no joke

    Everyone seems to be treating this story as a bit of a joke – a pilot landing on the wrong runway seems like a cause for mirth, with passengers recounting amusing anecdotes of finding themselves in the middle of an army base. But I think people are missing the point.

    The pilot had no clearance to land his aircraft at the army base. If, as he’d been bringing the aircraft in to land, there had been another aircraft on the runway, or a vehicle crossing it or even some fixed object in the way, the consequences could have been disastrous for all concerned – it certainly wouldn’t have been one of those "And finally…. [chortle!]" stories.

    Clearly, either the systems need to be improved to ensure that this sort of error can not occur again, or the existing systems need to be more rigorously enforced. I guess we will have to wait until the outcome of the enquiry to find out which is the case.

  • Chief Mouser

    Humphrey, RIP.