current affairs

Brexiteer Appeasement

There was a scathing article form Nick Cohen on the Guardian website yesterday (so I guess printed in the Observer) pointing out what I said some while back that the EU has no reason to be helpful to the UK leaving the EU. In fact the EU hold all the chips except the timing of invoking Article 50.
I give you a few choice side-swipes …

The lie … which some Leave supporters may even have believed, was that there were no hard choices. We could have it all. Immigration controls, prosperity, access to EU markets, without compliance with EU laws … Whatever we wanted, at no cost at all.
An honest [campaigner] would have gone to the Nissan car workers in Sunderland and said words to the effect of: we may be able to deliver the immigration controls you want if we leave the single market but there is a risk that you will lose your jobs if we do.
We cannot strike agreements with 50 countries currently covered by our EU arrangements until we strike a trade deal with the EU, because everyone else will want to know where we stand.
We won’t strike a deal with the EU, for — what? — three, five 10 years? How many jobs will be lost and foreign investors driven away in the process …
Boris … says we are a great country. Not any more. What greatness we possessed came from our alliances. By voting to leave we have ignored the advice of every friend we had in the world. Now we are asking the countries we spurned to help us and they are finding reasons to look away.
The right says the EU will want to give us a better deal out than we had in because the EU nations will still want their exporters to sell to us. They don’t look at how politically impossible it would be for Europe’s leaders to tear up EU rules when they are having to face down their own xenophobes and Europhobes.

Yes, precisely.
We have shot ourselves in both feet.

history, personal

Ten Things

This month’s Ten Things is for those, like me, who were children in the 50s and 60s. It is a little nostalgia about radio programmes, in the days before everyone had television and before there were hundreds of radio channels — ie. when there was BBC Radio or nothing; the days of the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme.
So here are Ten Radio Programmes I Remember from My Childhood:

  1. Listen with Mother
  2. Mrs Dale’s Diary
  3. The Archers (and OMG it’s still going! Why?)
  4. Round the Horne (Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick)
  5. The Navy Lark (Leslie Phillips and Bill Pertwee
  6. Music While You Work
  7. Down Your Way (with Wilfred Pickles)
  8. Children’s Favourites (introduced by Uncle Mac, aka. Derek McCulloch)
  9. Does the Team Think?
  11. Palm Court Orchestra
personal, ramblings

How Long?

As of about 3 o’clock this afternoon, Noreen and I have been married for 37 years! Eeeeekk!
That’s 10 years more than we haven’t been married!
I can’t decide whether if feels like forever or feels like for never. It just is; it’s like an old shoe that is so comfortable you don’t know you’re wearing it. Although like all shoes you get a stone in it occasionally — indeed, contrary to the usual tenet, marriage is a bed of roses: it looks pretty but has thorns too!
Back in 1979 we were still coming out of the hippie-ness of the 60s and 70s, and we were still students at heart — we still are! So we did the wedding our way, slightly eccentrically. There wasn’t a lot of money around — the country was crawling its way out of recession, we didn’t have any spare money, neither did Noreen’s mother, nor my parents. So we did it all ourselves, made it all up as we went along, did our own thing, very simply, and still had a good time.
We were married at St Peter’s, Acton Green; at the north end of Chiswick where it merges into Acton. We had been living there for about 4 months, and going to church, so it seemed sensible to get married there. St Peter’s was Anglo-Catholic, and sufficiently high church that it even satisfied our RC friends.
We lived just 400 yards from the church, so we walked to church, from our flat. No, cars; what’s the point when it is less than a 5 minute walk? My best man was my friend Victor, from my post-grad days, who was old enough to be my father. Noreen had three “maids of honour” all her own age — friends from school and university — and all four had made their own frocks. Noreen was given away by another university friend, her mother did the flowers and one of my aunts made a cake.

w22

The reception was in the church hall next door and the vicar (who was later unfrocked!) made us a present of his fees. So the only think we had to pay lots of good money for was the caterer and the wine. And a few days away in Salisbury.
Total, a few hundred pounds. All in contrast to weddings, even then, which were costing thousands. And worse today when tens of thousands get spent.
Ah and like today, it was a lovely, bright, sunny, warm day.
Every year on our anniversary, Noreen and I look at each other and ask “How have we done it?”. We still don’t know! But I did wonder today, to Noreen, whether we might manage another 37 years. Now that would be something as we’d both be over 100!

history, links, science

Missing Links

Here’s our monthly round-up of items you may have missed previously. Slightly late again — apologies! There’s a lot here, this month too!
Science & Medicine
Research is showing that magpies possess self-awareness to rival that of primates, dolphins and elephants.


Humans are practically bald and are one of the very few (almost) hairless mammals which may be why we thrived as a species.
Now here is something which looks odd … it seems that women who have had their appendix removed are more fertile. Ditto for tonsillectomy.
So, the age old question … do women’s periods really synchronise when they live together? Spoiler: no.
A pain in the guts? Research is suggesting that the range and quantity of microbes in our guts may have a powerful effect on conditions like depression, MS and obesity.
However eating yoghurt is not enough to keep those gut living microbes in balance. [Long read]
Just like I’ve always known, travel sickness is a glitch between the brain, the ear, the eye and the stomach.
Now here’s one for the lads out there … just how big is a fart? Answer: somewhere between a bottle of nail polish and a can of drink. Maggie Koerth-Baker has the low down.
Your dentist knows — but likely won’t admit — what you have suspected: flossing is a waste of time.
IFLscience looks at the theories as to why time seems to pass more quickly as we get older.
Sexuality
The French (only the French?) have created a 3D model of the clitoris as an aid to their schoolchildren’s sex education.
Environment
So what is it really like to drive a Eurostar train? Andrew English in the Daily Telegraph finds it’s more complex than one might imagine.
Social Sciences & Business
So here’s something else we’ve always known: people who don’t have children benefit our environment more than any campaign. And that should be valued.
Noreen and I have done jury service three times between us. What are your chances of being called more than once.
Here’s our favourite zen master, Brad Warner, on whether “White Buddhism” is cultural appropriation.
History
There is something special on the Parisian road outside La Santé prison … the city’s last vespasienne urinal (below).

When the US Army took control of Japan after WWII they confiscated thousands of secret Japanese military maps, covering much of Asia, shipped them back to the US and dispersed them to libraries across the country for safekeeping. Now they are being brought back together and their historical interest realised.
London
In this new section, we look at items about my home city.
Once upon a time there was a plan to build a ginormous “Pyramid of Death” in London. Luckily it never happened.
Time Out looks at the complete history of Paddington Station.
Meanwhile Londonist takes a look at the history of floods on the Underground.
In another item from IanVisits he looks at the old North London Line which ran from Broad Street to Richmond, and is now part of the Overground.
It always surprises me what people can find by way of historic artefacts washed up on the Thames foreshore.
Londonist (again) looks at the top 10 of London’s “spy sites”.
And finally for London, here are nine places that apparently Londoners never go.
Shock, Horror, Humour
The Atlantic brings us the unbelievable, mysterious and Byzantine story of Jesus’s wife. [Very long read]
I often think that academics and medics, more than most of us, get up to some exceedingly strange things. One Dr Bruce Ragsdale has developed a taxonomy of the Occlupanida — this little plastic clips that are used to close plastic bread wrappers etc. Very odd.

And finally, thanks to the Guardian, Yes Minister explains everything about Brexit.
Phew! More next month …

natural history, photography

Moths

Let’s catch up on a couple of recent (like this week) photographs. Specifically we’ve had two common, but quite interesting, moths in the house in the last few days. First of all we had this …

Angle Shades
Angle Shades, Phlogophora meticulosa

I struggled to identify it as the illustration in my book looks nothing like this, but then they are very variable. Angle Shades are actually very common, and one often sees thier grey (or green; again they are quite variable) caterpillars around.
[By the way the gradations in the photos are 5mm squares.]
Then last evening I had this one flutter in the window and sit on my desk …
Straw Underwing
Straw Underwing, Thalpophila matura

This is (at least to me) much more interesting as I’ve not knowingly seen one before — but then with its wings folded it is just another dark coloured moth, so I probably have seen them and just not realised. Again it is quite common on rough grassland, of which we have plenty near here.
I know most people don’t like moths fluttering about, an they can be irritating, but many are actually rather spectacular when looked at closely. Oh and I think both of these were females.

current affairs, ramblings

Banking on the Mattress

So a couple of weeks ago the Bank of England reduced interest rates lower than ever to 0.25%.
They hope this is going to stimulate the economy. It isn’t. At least, as Mary Dejevsky pointed out in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago ever-lower interest rates have failed; so why should they work now?
Anyone with a mortgage has never had it so good. They are paying peanuts in interest. Meanwhile those of us who paid off our mortgagees years ago and are now the much vilified savers are being shafted — savings interest is struggling to match inflation.
The banks seem to have forgotten that people like me, the savers, are an essential part of their business. Without our money coming in, they don’t have money to lend. They need us, just as they need the pension funds etc.
But all the banks have ever done is shaft my generation. When we started our mortgage in 1981 we were paying 14.5% interest on it; within six months that was 17.5%. And we were being encouraged to save for our retirement — which we did as much as we could. That was barely sustainable; and totally unsustainable compared with today’s rates. We were being priced out. No wonder the bubble burst and people ended up in negative equity and the banking sector with a merry-go-round of toxic debt.
Having saved, against the odds, we are now being shafted for having done so by not getting a decent return on our investments. We’d almost be as well off with our investments in the Bank of Mattress. And we’re supposed to feel happy about this; go out and spend our money; make the economy grow and recover.
Sorry but why the f*** should I? That money you want me to spend has to support me for maybe another 20 (or more) years. If you aren’t going to give me a decent return on investing it, then I’m going to hold onto it for dear life and milk as much as I can from all of it.
On the same day as Mary Dejevsky’s piece, Simon Jenkins wrote (also in the Guardian):

Want to avoid recession? Then shower UK households with cash.
Just give people the money. Give them cash, dole it out, increase benefits, slash VAT, hand it to those most likely to spend it: the poor. Put £1,000 into every debit account. Whatever you do, don’t give it to banks. They will just hoard it or use it to boost house prices.
Britain is suffering from a classic liquidity trap. There is insufficient demand. Yet all the Bank of England [has done is] wring its hands, blame Brexit and go on digging the same old holes.
They are labelled lower interest rates, quantitative easing and more cash for banks. Those policies have been in place for some seven years. They have failed … Not one commentator … thought cutting interest rates to 0.25% would make any difference to the threat of recession.

And again …

In the present climate, there is not the slightest risk of inflation — the traditional hazard of monetary expansion: £1,000 “printed” and moved from the Bank into every household account would still cost less (at £30bn) than Hinkley Point or HS2 … There could be vouchers, scrappage schemes, Christmas bonuses and, horror of horrors, cash for the undeserving poor. Why not try it? All else has failed.

Yes, and out of the change from cancelling HS2 you could probably give every university student a decent maintenance grant and/or scrap student fees!
It’s a novel idea. Raising saving rates would be another. For indeed all else has failed.
It’s time for a new and different approach.
It might even be a vote-catcher!