Month: October 2013

To the Pearl River Delta.

I finished packing the night before. Early morning rushes never amused me, especially since I tend to remember things only when I’m halfway to the airport. The taxi I requested the night before arrived a few minutes early, the driver was an upper-middle aged woman with a desire to have a job but a lack of ambition to train for anything else. Fair enough, not everyone can reasonably be expected to claw his or her way to the top of society. We chatted for a few minutes as we drove to main bus centre in Saint Cloud – it’s possible, albeit slightly inconvenient at times, to live there without a car. The bus and train journeys were predictable. Quiet, comfortable – but underwhelming. The flights to San Francisco were somewhat more interesting, but only in how revealing they were about the collapse in service standards. One flight was on time, but the air host clearly hated his job and wished to make everyone have as unpleasant a flight as possible. The second flight was delayed by over an hour and all customer inquiries were handled by a woman who preferred prattling on incessantly about how much she worked with one of her colleagues and could only be bothered to pay scant attention to customers needing to know when their children could meet them at airport or if they should began preparing for their funeral arrangements as information came so slowly risk of death caused by old age was a real possibility for anyone over 15. The flight to San Francisco finally departed, half-full, with an assigned air hostess who neither listened nor cared to pay attention to anyone or anything. I asked for water without ice, that is, water with no ice put into it. For someone reason she thought that meant I wanted ice with a little bit of water in it – and for her to throw it at me like a Ryan Air check-in employee realising that she could not charge over-weight/over-size fees returning a bag. These experiences reminded me once again why I do not travel more than I absolutely have to in the USA – this was one of the USA’s better airlines for customer service. Continue reading “To the Pearl River Delta.”

Not Physics, but Fun.

I was leafing through the October edition of Physics World this morning (well we do don’t we?).  I get it here about a week after it is mailed in the UK.

Neat puzzle in this months edition in partial celebration of 25 years in print (for a hundred years before that it was called “The Physics Bulletin”).  Anyhow I thought the puzzle was fun and the answer was a treat.  Here it is.

Can you crack the code?

TNVERI SMH EG ZSMRNPMUD: M SLRN PYMP VERRNVPT M ZSMRNP PE PYN TQR THNNZT EQP NXQMS MUNMT LR NXQMS PLKNT

There is a word missing from the above.  Please provide the word in encrypted form as the answer.

Bleeding Hearts and buboes

First, let me make it clear that I’m not one of the first. I am well aware that my breakfast soft boiled would have grown into a cute little chick and that my sunday roast  chook was once precisely that. I know full well that the clinically presented prepackaged chops in my supermarket was once a woolly little baa lamb cavorting in a sunny spring meadow, and I’m quite happy to eat fishey wisheys with their eyes and heads on. I don’t have a problem with shooting, fishing, gutting or filleting, it’s a fact of life whether I’m doing it or somebody else is doing it to save me the trouble.

Now (as I imagine they say in the film industry) Cut to……

Scene

The Hollywood version of an English Baronial manor. The year 1348. His baronial highness is seated on a highly ornate and gilded throne while scores of scantily clad females dance in the great hall before him.  Jugglers and fire eaters  bring  up the rear. Enter stage left,  a peasant who is gasping for breath and has obviously been running . He  throws himself to the floor at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the throne

Peasant        “My lord, there is a case of buboes in the village”

His baronialness takes a long look into the middle distance while scratching his chin.

HB                  “Hie ye forth and find Sir Swarseneggar. Tell him to go to the village and kill two thirds of the population with his semi-automatic crossbow”

Peasant           “Aye my lord. Shall he destroy all the ones with the buboes?”

HB                    “It matters not. Any two thirds will do”

Fade out.

I’m not sure it would have prevented the death of millions during the plague and I’m not sure it’ll have any effect on the spread of bovine TB in the UK either.

I don’t know whether I’m Carmen or Cohen

Well, I do know that I’m neither of them but I’m in the middle of an identity crisis.

You see, I’m Cornish.  Born and bred.  Grew up here, went to school here, lived here all my life. Well, apart from the times that I lived somewhere else that is. Oh, and the  born and bred bit. It’s a minor technicality really, but as I grew up just on the Cornish side of the border, on the occasion of my birth the hospital in Plymouth was closer than the one in Truro, so I was actually born in Devon. Makes no odds though,  ‘cos as they say down here “Iffen the caat ‘as kittens en the oven it doan maken pasties do et?” So that’s it then, Cornish bred. I can belong to the story that at the bottom of every deep mine in the world you’ll find a Cornishman, similar to the other popular story that in every ships engine room you’ll find a Scotsman. Ahh….. another minor hitch. My father was actually born in India. He wasn’t of Indian descent it was just that his father, as part of the great British Raj,  lived in India  and designed bridges during the construction of the railway system. Dad’s parents were both Scots and at the age of four he was shipped back to boarding school in Scotland where he spent  the remainder of his formative years. Apparently he didn’t see either of his parents again until he was seven, which was considered quite normal then. Extraordinary

I digress

So technically then, I’m a Scot.  That’s great, I can handle that. It’s still part of the big Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Breton celtic thing. I’ve just got to realign myself to be part of the engine room story instead of being at the bottom of the pit. So I and all the thousands of the rest of us stood in engine rooms throughout the world can look forward to receiving our ballot papers for the up and coming Scottish independence vote then?

Err……. No.    Apparently you’re only Scottish enough to vote if you actually live there, even though both you and  your parents might have been born and bred in Prague.

So there you go. Gave up my beloved Cornishness to become a Scot, only to be told I’m not one.

Stand up and be elected

It’s refreshing to see that the worlds of politics and entertainment are finally merging with Backside’s hero – the toffs’ answer to Russell Brand – threatening to return to the House to lead the ever-amusing Tories into the next election.

So all together now!


Bring me Sunshine, in your smile,
Bring me Laughter, all the while,
In this world where we live, there should be more happiness,
So much joy you can give, to each brand new bright tomorrow……..

Repeat ad nauseam

A new sub-prime on the way?

I was amazed to read in the Huffington Post that the Occupy Wall Street movement has plans to introduce a credit card.

http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/10/01/occupy-wall-street-carte-bleue-credit_n_4023270.html?utm_hp_ref=france&ir=France

This seems, as many have pointed out, alien to the movement’s original philosophy.  The scheme is to collect 900,000 dollars and to issue prepaid debit cards to those who would not normally qualify for credit.  Of course if people can amass say $50 to put on their debit card , then they might as well just pay cash for their purchases, one would think.  Charges on the proposed new card would be lower than on standard credit cards, but I still can’t see the point of the system.

Another site gives more details

http://www.cutimes.com/2013/07/26/occupy-wall-street-intends-to-step-out-with-visa

The fee suggested is 99 cents per month.  So you put your $100 or whatever on your card and then pay another dollar a month for the privilege.  Might as well stick to the sock under the mattress – it’s free.