Many parts of the UK have local council elections in a month’s time. Don’t think it matters? Well here’s a quick reminder why it does matter and why you should vote at every given opportunity.
If you fail to vote undesirables (what ever your value of “undesirable”) are more likely to get elected … and of course your voice can’t be heard.
OK, so Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is on her way home to the UK having been released from 6 years detention in Iran. And let’s not forget that Anoosheh Ashoori has also been released and is non this way back to the UK.
Of course this is tremendous news for them and their families, at which we should rejoice.
But as always there is undoubtedly more to the story than we’re being told. So …
Q. Why are they released now?
A. Because the UK finally paid the almost £400M which Iran claimed it was owed.
Q. So why did we pay this money now, when it could have been paid years ago?
A. We now want to have friendly relations with Iran.
Q. But why would we suddenly want to be Iran’s friend?
A. Because the UK wants Western sanctions against them lifted.
Q. Why?
A. Very simply because we want their oil; oil which they currently can’t sell in the West.
You see just as with Kuwait many years ago, it all revolves around oil (and ultimately corporate greed). As Clare Short memorably remarked when Iraq invaded Kuwait many years ago: If the Kuwaitis grew carrots, no-one would care. So with Iran, my friends.
Boris Johnson needs oil (and gas) to keep the country running – to Hell with climate change – now the Russian (and Ukrainian) supply is effectively cut off.
What a cynical move, when we could (and should) have gotten them both freed years ago. Words fail me to describe my contempt for this government and its immediate predecessors.
Earlier this week there was a long read article in the Guardian by Dr Clare Gerada, a senior GP and former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners. In the article Dr Gerada draws on her own experience to show how the GP’s role has changed in the last 30 years. No wonder the NHS is haemorrhaging GPs because it is not a pretty tale.
We should be very worried, because we are clearly not getting the healthcare most of us would want, or expect.
So our pathetic government appear to have decided that all Covid-19 restrictions will be removed in two weeks time, as part of the plan to save Boris’s skin. Basically they seem to be saying that Covid is over, the case numbers are falling rapidly, there’s no longer any need to isolate, and we can all go back to normal. [1,2] Essentially this says “we don’t care; go back to normal; if you get Covid well tough luck, but it is now only a cold so continue going to work and spreading the disease further”.
Let’s look at this.
But it is worse than this …
Is it any wonder the vulnerable and the disabled are worried. They feel that the government doesn’t care about them and wants them out of sight and out of (their) mind. (From a personal perspective, friends are going to increasingly not understand of one’s avoidance of social gatherings etc.)
I have seen a number of respected scientists, including some members of Independent SAGE [9], suggesting that the government’s proposed action is nothing less than “criminal negligence”. We don’t know what is round the corner in terms of new variants, so they could well come back and bite us in the bum at any time. And when it does the consequences are going to be a direct result of yet further government failure.
Whether it is actually “criminally negligent” only a court could decide, but I would certainly class it as totally stupid and intensely unethical.
[1] Guardian; 09/02/2022; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/09/covid-rules-axed-england-is-pandemic-end-really-in-sight
[2] BBC News; 09/02/2022; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60319947
[3] Independent SAGE; 04/02/2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21TKKKFfGYo
[4] Zoe Covid Update; 03/02/2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUfjJ1z-a6s
[5] Zoe Covid Update; 10/02/2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Zm9OcULDs
[6] Telegraph; 24/12/2021; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/24/fourth-jabs-possible-covid-booster-immunity-will-fall-millions/
[7] University of Edinburgh; 21/12/2021; https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2021/covid-19-vaccine-protection-wanes-three-months
[8] QCovid Risk Calculator; https://qcovid.org/
[9] Independent SAGE; https://www.independentsage.org/
Most people in the UK will have seen recent Christmas stamps with a barcode, which were part of a trial.
Royal Mail have now announced that all their standard definitive stamps (that’s the plain, non-commemorative ones) and Christmas stamps will now have a barcode. Like so …
The idea is that we scan the barcodes using the Royal Mail app and we’ll eventually be able to watch videos, information about services, or birthday messages and other greetings from senders. Currently the only available video has been created for Royal Mail by animation studio Aardman, and features Shaun the Sheep. Further videos are planned to be released during 2022.
Beware: non-barcoded definitive and Christmas stamps will remain valid only until January 2023. Although there will be a scheme to trade them in for new models.
But, Oh dear! I foresee a whole new genre on Tik-Tok, Instagram and doubtless elsewhere. Be afraid; be very afraid!
Today, 1 February 2022, is Chinese New Year and the beginning of the year of the Water Tiger.
Once again this year I’ve brought my crystal ball out of retirement and asked it, and my dowsing pendulum, to help me guess what may happen during 2022.
Prognostication has been difficult again this year because of all the continuing unknowns and variables. This is due in large part to the Covid-19 situation, but also the on-going fall-out from Brexit and a dysfunctional UK government.
As before, I’ve divided the predictions into sections: General, World, UK, and Personal. Various items are redacted (although I have them documented) as some might be especially sensitive.
General
World
UK
Personal
Five items, including possible deaths redacted from here as the content is bound to be sensitive to people I know. However these items are documented in my files and will be tracked.
Obviously I shall try to keep track and will hope to publish the results at the end of the year. Let’s hope we have a better success rate this year and that the worst of the predictions don’t come to pass.
How many times have you seen a gap on a supermarket shelf, and on enquiring been told some variant of “Oh, it should have been on last night’s delivery, but wasn’t”? I know I’ve had this any number of times. Yet another failure of Just-in-Time delivery.
While this may be excusable when the product is perishable, like fresh fruit and veg, it really isn’t good enough for sanitary towels, drugs for the hospital, or parts for the factory down the road.
Just-in-Time delivery was a product of Toyota in 1950s Japan, and has taken over worldwide supply chain logistics since it hit the west in the 1980s.
Effectively every sector has seen it as a way of reducing cost: no idle stock overheads; no warehouses to be paid for; no warehouse staff to employ. And who can blame them when shareholders want ever more profit and managers need ever fewer overheads.
But as Kim Moody outlines in this Guardian article, there’s a problem. All too often it is Just-not-in-Time. Because the supply chain is now so incredibly complex and lengthy that any slight hiccup has a dramatic domino effect. And there is no safety margin in the way of warehoused stock.
A relatively small (in the overall scheme of things) hiccup can be enough to tip the balance. An unexpected exponential rise in natural gas prices. A large ship wedged sideways in the Suez Canal. A volcano erupting and disrupting aviation flight paths. And that’s without mega-disruptions like a pandemic, or own goals like Brexit.
Without every cog of the global supply chain working like well oiled clockwork, Just-in-Time isn’t. In today’s world logistics managers, and their downstream clients, work on the basis that the supply chain is working properly. They have no choice when the whole system is geared this way and they have no access to resources to provide contingency.
But, again as Moody points out, the contingency comes at a price – a price which is passed on to the end consumer. And as consumers we have gotten too used to ever cheaper everything, and fail to understand when prices rise. Joe Public doesn’t understand (or care about) economics; he cares about only his wallet and having strawberries all year round. Nor does he understand how this drive for ever faster capitalism is driving climate change.
We need to slow down. And we need to adjust the supply chains as well as our consumerism. We need to stop shipping stuff halfway round the world when we have the same product at home or very close by. Think: New Zealand lamb; Chilean wine; Peruvian asparagus – the examples are endless just in the supermarket. [On which note, well done to Waitrose for committing that all their own brand meat is British and for continuing to win awards for animal welfare.]
I end with Moody’s parting comment:
Now is the time to think about not just how we make and consume things, but also how we move them.
Why England is doing so poorly against Covid-19 compared with the rest of Western Europe? Two of our top scientific analysts, Prof. Christina Pagel and Prof. Martin McKee (both of Independent SAGE) take a quietly scathing look in this Guardian article from a few days ago.
CNN, capturing a widespread view, called England’s approach an “experiment” (a leader in the Irish Times prefaced that word with “reckless”).
. . .
Since 1 June, there have been almost 3m confirmed cases of Covid-19 in England. Rather than prompting concern, this seems to have instead resulted in a perception that England has transitioned to “living with the virus”. Each week in England there are still more than 500 deaths and between 150,000 and 200,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 … Yet these numbers are rarely discussed. Presumably they are considered a necessary price to pay for the majority to get back to living a normal life (of course, many of those who are clinically vulnerable, and their family members, do not feel able to enjoy this return to normality).
. . .
England has one of the highest burdens of Covid in Europe … England’s case rates are eight to 10 times higher than some of the best performing countries, such as Spain and Portugal.
. . .
Why are our closest neighbours achieving much better health outcomes given that they, too, have their children back at school, their students back at university, and their business and leisure facilities open?
. . .
[England] had fully vaccinated 67% of its entire population by the beginning of October, far lower than countries such as Portugal (85%), Spain (79%), Denmark (75%) and Ireland (74%). Crucially, much of the rest of Europe began vaccinating teens early in the summer.
. . .
Face coverings and vaccine passports remain widespread across western Europe … Many countries have also made major investments in ventilation and filtration, while some have made CO2 monitors compulsory in certain settings … In England these measures have been scrapped.
. . .
England, not for the first time, is the odd one out in Europe. The Sage modelling subgroup … warned of the potential for new surges this autumn and considered that “a relatively light set of measures could be sufficient to curb sustained growth” – advice the government has, once again, ignored. If it looked to its European neighbours, England might realise that they are already doing just this. They are demonstrating that there is a way to be open while keeping cases low [which] works. And we should be doing it.
So what do we have? Two jumbo jets week of people dying of Covid – and yet no outcry, no concern. Escalating rates of infection amongst school-age children. And a lack of enforcement of health and safety legislation which requires employers to provide a safe working environment – see this thread on Twitter. All because we have an inept, selfish government which the great unwashed UK numpties love.
How much better would everything be if everyone took on board the old tenet: Treat other people as you would want them to treat you. Think about it. There’d be a complete paradigm shift; in everything!
Our September collection of recently encountered quotes.
Bulut et al. found that sex could indeed improve nasal congestion as effectively as nasal decongestant for up to 60 minutes, returning to baseline levels within three hours. Granted, a good 12-hour nasal spray would last much longer, but it’s less fun. And some people might experience adverse effects from nasal spray, so having a natural substitution method for congestion would be helpful. The authors hope that there will be further studies to investigate whether masturbation has a similar effect for singletons.
[2021 Ig Nobel Awards, as reported at https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/feline-acoustics-the-smell-of-fear-and-more-receive-2021-ig-nobel-prizes/
Downing Street was first built in 1680 by Sir George Downing: an unscrupulous, brutal, and miserly man – which is rather fitting, given that the street which bears his name has been the home to so many politicians.
[https://historiclondontours.com/tales-of-london/f/of-mice-men]
Photographs are diary entries … That’s all they can be. Photographs are just documentations of a day’s event. At the same time, they drag the past into the present and also continue into the future. A day’s occurrence evokes both the past and the future. That’s why I want to clearly date my pictures. It’s actually frustrating, that’s why I now photograph the future.
[Nobuyoshi Araki (Japanese cult street-photographer), 10 February 2012]
Photography is lying, and I am a liar by nature. Anything in front of you, except a real object, is fake. Photographers might consider how to express their love through photography, but those photographs are “fake love”.
[Nobuyoshi Araki (Japanese cult street-photographer)]
Photography, well, not so much photography but life itself, is nostalgia I realized, having seen these moments: in this day and age of digital media, in the centre of Tokyo you see these sticks, right, they take these sticks and chase around crayfish and carp. Boyhood memories and stuff, that sort of nostalgia is the most important thing in life.
[Nobuyoshi Araki (Japanese cult street-photographer), March 2011]
If you have some sort of illness, disability, or are crippled – use that to your benefit. You also might not live in the most interesting place in the world, you might not have the best camera, and you might not have much free time – but these are all “creative constraints” which you can use to your benefit. It is all about your attitude, mindset, and the way you see life.
[Eric Kim at https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2016/08/10/12-lessons-araki-has-taught-me-about-photography/]
As photographers in the West, we are trained to shoot with prejudice. We are told to only photograph interesting things. But in the East, they are a lot less discriminating. A lot of the Eastern philosophy sees everyday and ordinary life as interesting and meaningful.
[Eric Kim at https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2016/08/10/12-lessons-araki-has-taught-me-about-photography/]
It must be kami [god]. What makes a photographer take a picture? What makes an artist paint a picture? It can’t really be explained. It’s a kind of instinct or impulse.
[Nobuyoshi Araki (Japanese cult street-photographer)]
I’m trying to catch the soul of the person I’m shooting. The soul is everything. That’s why all women are beautiful to me, no matter what they look like or how their bodies have aged.
[Nobuyoshi Araki (Japanese cult street-photographer)]
The Scientific advancements of the seventeenth-century and beyond were not something that occurred because an apple fell on Newton’s head. They were a part of a long tradition of scientific thought and inquiry that people just haven’t bothered learning about because the history is too complex for smug think tank guys to wrap their heads around in five minutes between power lunches.
[Dr Eleanor Janega on Going Medieval blog]
Moreover, medieval Europeans were absolutely committed to maintaining communal health, whether through sensible (and at times perhaps too harsh) social distancing, as we can see in the medieval treatment of lepers … medieval people were acutely aware of the necessity for providing for people suffering from an illness and also of keeping the general population separated from them.
[Dr Eleanor Janega on Going Medieval blog]
Yet we are still seeing several hundred deaths every week. In effect, it is as if a jumbo jet was crashing every few days. This is a toll of suffering and misery that, we are told, we must simply live with. After all, we have lived for many years with large increases in deaths every winter. Why are we suddenly getting so concerned? Yet we ignore how some other European countries, especially Nordic ones, have maintained high building standards and ensured that large numbers of their older population are not living in poverty, thereby avoiding this seasonal toll. But maybe the politicians have a point. Where was the public clamour as life expectancy of older people in the United Kingdom stagnated or declined during the 2010s?
[Prof. Martin McKee writing in BMJ, 14 September 2021]
The government says that its first duty is to keep people safe. This is the rationale for spending money on defence. It can, of course, decide that it no longer wants to assume the responsibility for safeguarding us from threats to health. But if it does, it should at least be honest about it.
[Prof. Martin McKee writing in BMJ, 14 September 2021]