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Not a glassbox bit, but what the heck!
I seriously reccommend a listenagain ot "all in the mind", which just finished discussing the Hubris syndrome in political leaders. Rivetting, although mainly confirming what I've felt to be the case...
xx
ed
Colin Blaine's giddy description of the planned aircraft carriers seems to forget one important point: the greater the size, the bigger the destruction they'll reap. If they really are bigger than a football pitch, maybe we should just forget the jets and let the Iraqi squad practice on deck instead!
Tuesday The big plan for the Railways was on the air. The electric service from Helensburgh to Glasgow could do with being brought into the 20th Century never mind the 21st. Our trains have no air conditioning for that purpose you open the windows. So in a train travelling at 70 miles per hour you have a 70 M P H wind whistelling round your ears.
Travel by train it is more comfortable than travelling by car when you can get Bell's Palsey and other inflictions for the price of a ticket.
Tuesday Was the big plan for the railways. The trains from Helensburgh to Glasgow could do with being brought into the 20th Century never mind the 21st.
Our trains have no air conditioning, for that purpose you require to open the window. So a train travelling at 70 MPH you have a wind of 70 MPH whistelling round your ears.
So travel by train it is more comfortable than travelling by car and you get Bell's Palsey and other inflictions free with the price of the ticket.
Gladly, Ed, I came in half way through David Owen, (it was him wasn't it?) But LA seems to be mis-firing, I wanted to catch up with the first 'Ramblings' as I have a friend on Bryher, but it won't work.
Phone masts causing sickness ?
What another load of clap trap!
The masts transmit little more RF (radio frequency energy) than a mobile phone does - and normally situated a great deal further away than a mobile phone is from your head.
What is the effect of people living a few hundred metres away from Crystal Palace which is transmitting thousands of Kilowatts! Do they have permanent headaches?
A note of pedantry to do with the report of the carrier order (a project which has been a political football for long enough, a scandalous process which has certainly harmed the UK economy by driving talent overseas in search of work and confidence in leadership). But anyway, I noted that the gentleman journalist reporting the story didn't appear to understand basic English, else why would he prefix the abbreviation 'HMS' with 'the'?
Oh, and the biggest carrier in history was and still is the USS Enterprise. Surely everyone who was once a school boy knows that!
ArtNAOS: What do I worry about? Increased neck and spinal injuries as people extract heads from rear ends in order to gaze into navels.
Which Enterprise is the biggest, Jon Luc's or Captain Kirks?
If we are getting two new air craft carriers does that mean they will fly real jets not just the Sea Harriers that are currently flown.
Wednesday's PM Newsletter began with:
*At time of writing - 11.43 - there has been no Prime Minister's Questions. Yet page 2 of tonight's Evening Standard says "Clash in Commons over 56-day terror detention" over a story saying "Gordon Brown clashed with David Cameron today..."
I know it ill-behoves a ´óÏó´«Ã½ type, but really - isn't that a bit made up?*
I missed the programme - was this mentioned? It should have been. Does nobody realise the degree to which our news media are letting us down?! I can't believe that stories covering hypocrisy and lack of transparency in the news aren't featured more often!
Oh. Hang on, maybe I can...
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE KNOCK DOWN THE NEWS EDIFICE AND BUILD US A NEW ONE THAT WORKS.
Thankyou.
Not strictly GlassBox, but whilst browsing around the ´óÏó´«Ã½ news site, I discovered this:
With Facebook groups dedicated to PM and Eddie mentioned on here by his team, and Eddie adopting Twitter, who's been talking to Rory? :)
jonnie @ 6, I wasn't paying total attention to that particular story (potatoes boiling over, and I too incline to think it may not be the most serious problem in the world) but I thought I heard someone who was being interviewed saying that he noticed and was malaffected if a mobile phone or a wi-fi connection was in use near him, even if it wasn't audible "I'm on the train!"ness.
I wondered how he gets through life, poor man, because I would have thought that level of exposure to radio signals was impossible to escape in this country.
Please could someone who was listening properly tell me what that bit was about? I don't seem to be able to get listen-again stuff.
As an ex Fleet Air Arm mechanic it was great news to hear that 2 new aircraft carriers are to be built.( The Admiral of the Fleet can now stay in his job--he had threatened to resign if the plans were to be scrapped) BUT what a pathetic choice of names - Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales!! The Queen has already had a ship named after her (QE2) and I don`t think we need to add to Prince Charles ego.
It has long been a tradition in the Royal Navy to re-name ships used before on the same vessel types. (The 2 names chosen have never been used for aircraft carriers in the past) There was a golden opportunity to use majestic names of the past such as Victorious, Eagle, Indefatigable, Illustrious etc etc or even another Ark Royal.
Finally will we have any aircraft to fly from them? Not at present -other than vertical take- off, resulting from the mis-guided policies of the 70`s etc to build 2 small carriers as the government of the day said it was the end of the large aircraft carrier!!!
I thought the interview with the Home Sec was brilliant. She waffled on and on and on then Eddie asked her "but how does this make us safer?" She said she'd already answered that but continued to waffle on and on (I wouldn't like to represent her in a police station - she'd talk herself into such trouble), Eddie waited patiently then gently asked "Yes but how does this make us safe". It was a brilliant moment!
Does anyone else get the impression that the Labour ministers always witter on just a little too long, jumping from topic to topic? The impression it leaves me with is
a) they don't actually answer the question
b) they are nervous
c) they don't believe in what they are saying
d) they hope we won't notice the above
If I feel that way maybe others do. Why then are they surprised we lack confidence in them
Well done Eddie once again for you impecible timing!
Mary
Re: mittfh (11)
I am over 40 years old and lonely. I have set up a Facebook profile but have only very few friends.
I can only assume that Facebook is for the under 40's
:-(
My query to PM was this:
Our new Home Secretary says we will be asking foreign visa applicants for biometric data, like fingerprints, in order to prevent terrorist attacks. She implied that this entailed keeping the proposed ID card scheme. The logic of this position escapes me. ID cards are intended for UK citizens; visa biometrics for foreign nationals. Surely we can have the latter without the former?
Sid
Dafydd @ Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:37:04 BST:
Next time we have someone from the builder's federation or the government talking about the shortage of housing, can you ask about all the empty properties in town centres, especially above shops (populating them helps to prevent crime) and, especially for the Federation of Builders etc, why do they STILL build properties where if the neighbour goes up or down their stairs it sounds like elephants coming in your front door. Thank You
1. Eddie getting shirty about not getting the Newsnight job eh?
2. MadMary surely thats a problem with the question again isn't it?
There are lots of thoroughly immoral ways we may feel safer. So what if we do? Our moral disquiet, pound for pound, is rather more valuable than our mortal anxieties isn't it?
To Stewart (9)
What Sea Harriers? Didn't you see the news? They scrapped them a couple of years ago in order to save a couple of million on upgrading the engines. A couple of million equates to pennies, barely pennies, in the scheme of things, especially considering how many more years of service the upgrades would have permitted from these aircraft. And now we're in a situation in which we're rapidly running out of serviceable Harriers because we're using up all their remaining flying hours and spares in Afghanistan, where they are flying missions that the Jaguar was intended for... but the Government had already retired the Jaguar years before the Sea Harrier as another cost saving measure...
And now we're left with just one small carrier available, and at the moment, as we have no harriers of our own available to use from it, even for training exercises, it's currently exercising in the Atlantic with the Americans and using their harriers instead!
The Forces are short changed, underfunded, used as a cash cow for other projects and run by an MoD that is plagued with incompetent and unaccountable management at every level.
The problem is that once you lose a capability, you almost never get it back again. The new carriers will take so long to get into service that we'll probably have no more carrier trained pilots by then! And it would be hugely expensive and difficult to get that capability back again after losing it.
Sorry, didn't intend this to turn into a rant, but then it's hard not to. Your comment about the SHARs is indicative of the fact that the piecemeal dismantling of valuable capabilities has been going on for years right under the publics noses, and they've never even noticed.
When it hits the fan again... and history is replete with lessons that tell us it will... we'll call and there'll be nothing to answer. There's nothing much to answer right now! The army can't help with the floods because they're all in the deserts of the Middle East!
This afternoon`s programme gave account of the floating houses in Holland.........
We we have floating houses here in the UK .......
We have produced two projects on the Thames where our laminated concrete pontoons support substantial timber framed houses. The special laminated concrete pontoons are of course completely water tight, and provide a 4` cellar space below the house for storage and services.
These pontoons will last for one hundred years without maintenance .
The same pontoons - supporting the same houses can be sited on flood plains and when the flood waters come they simply float up and thus save the house.
We can build houses on water and flood plains..... we do it.
This afternoon`s programme gave account of the floating houses in Holland.........
We we have floating houses here in the UK .......
We have produced two projects on the Thames where our laminated concrete pontoons support substantial timber framed houses. The special laminated concrete pontoons are of course completely water tight, and provide a 4` cellar space below the house for storage and services.
These pontoons will last for one hundred years without maintenance .
The same pontoons - supporting the same houses can be sited on flood plains and when the flood waters come they simply float up and thus save the house.
We can build houses on water and flood plains..... we do it.
Today`s programme mentioned floating houses in Holland. We have floating houses in England and we have two floating house projects completed on the Thames at Hampton Court.
We have constructed laminated concrete pontoons to suport substantial timber framed houses on the Thames. The pontoons support the house and provide a 4` cellar space for storage and services. The pontoons require no maintenance and will last for over 100 years.
The same system of pontoons and houses can be installed on flood plain land - and when the floods come along the houses float....... simple
we do it . see our web site.
JMP.
I think this flood is boring. There is not even an out break of Cholera. Cholera is a must have malady in any flood. What about bilharzia!!! approximately 300 million people are infected world wide. Tewkesbury not one case. That is surprising. No crocodiles either. Makes it dramatic.
Nobody has drowned not even a cow or even a horse
Nobody has used "The Mozambique rescue technique". Climb a tree. Helicopter rescue is 100% guaranteed even if the surrounding water is knee deep.
Water levels are just below the worktop - very suspiciuos. This is an insurance job between kitchen, carpet, laminated floor, skirting fitters and suppliers of white goods, sofa & TVs. They must have met secretly in some lodge and blocked a few critical manholes. They will rake it in. Millions of quid
The ceiling dry liners must have been pissed off to be cut out of the deal
Ed Iglehart (1), I bet you are left handed.
Ed Iglehart (1), I bet you are left handed.
Having sent this 10 times without the blog agreeing I have (how left handed is that?) I give up.
PS I am. D'you want to know why I think Ed is? 'Cos I'm not wrong. (How left handed is THAT!)
Picky (19):
You're right about the lack of harriers. More worrying is the fact that the nnavy have been talked into buying the American Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to replace it. This has been much delayed due to technical problems and escalating costs.
This is almost identical to the decicision in the 1960s (again by the government, not the Forces) to drop ddevelopment of a British strike aircraft (the TSR2) in favour of buying American Grumman F111s. The 'Merkin aircraft was delayed due to technical problems and escalating costs until the government dropped the contract causing a hole in our defence technology.
I can't see this government being allowed by their masters to cancel a big aircraft order.
re Jonnie (15):
" am over 40 years old and lonely. I have set up a Facebook profile but have only very few friends."
Is this a different Jonnie? Or is someone in Bournemouth fantasising? ;o)
LOTRS (17) Builders' Federation, eh? Last might I posted an email to PM saying:
+---------------------------------------------+
"Dear PM
My sister-in-law lives in Longlevens, recently flooded. She said that the storm drains
in the road were opened-up and found to be full of builders' rubble.
Outside our house a builder was sweeping his rubbish into the drain and my wife told him off. Naturally, she was the "Offender".
[For future flood protection, how about a levy on builders to pay for levees?]"
+---------------------------------------------------+
Is it possible, to get picture of a Dutch floating house on this blog?
MadMary @ 14: LOL. I liked your item d).
Mac (24, 25),
You're wrong. I'd love to know the reasoning, though.
Salaam, etc.
ed
VH @ 28, A month or so ago I watched as the chap sweeping the street casually pushed all the gravel that had escaped from people's car-standings in their front gardens and into the road, down the gutter and down into the storm-drain at the lower end of the road. I suggested to him that this might not be a very good idea, but he didn't seem to understand my point about blocked drains.
Next heavy rain we had (and we have been getting quite a lot, haven't we...) that drain wasn't letting water down it, and the main road crossing our side-street at the bottom of the hill we live on was under about three inches of water for quite a while. Much merriment, since this was during the rush-hour and every car that encountered the little floodette came to a halt whilst its driver debated whether it was safe to get the tyres under water. *grin*
The council eventually sent a special suction-truck-thingy to clear the drain, but I don't know whether the street-sweeping bod has been asked not to do it again. I don't think the street has been swept since: there's a lot of gravel in the gutters. *more grin*
Ed, (29) You typed 'to' as 'ot'
I do that too. And I am forever typing 'the' as 'hte'. I think its 'cos we lefties try to make up for the defficient right hand because we are very conscious of it in everyday life. (Scissors, tin openers etc)
I spaek as a two finger typist of course. There, I've left that one in just to show. Or p'haps just ot show.
Never mind. Back ot the theory drawing board.
Mac,
Nothing Sinister or Gauche about me, just a rather poor two-plus finger typist... I've thought the incorrect sequencing was probably something to do with getting just a bit old....
Actually when I observe my typing, I find I'm usually using the middle two fingers of both hands almost exclusively and thumbs for <space>.
I hope you eat with your right hand....
xx
ed
mac,
There's a story by Diana Wynne Jones called "nad and Dan adn Quaffy" which she attributes to her being both left-handed and dyslexic, and having a son who insisted that she learn to write on a computer instead of longhand in pencil.
She doesn't love computers, but she used one when she wrote this fine yarn in which the computer is a space-ship really. Maybe. Possibly it's some sort of android that takes over and starts demanding passwords and then takes a suffering author (whose son has insisted on getting her a computer) into an unwanted alternative universe when what she did want was a cup of coffee. It's very funny.
Re Ed, 31.
I'll get back to you when I think of something clever to say so don't hold your breathe.
mac under a pseudonym - thats my name.