Category: General

I am now witnessing my first Minnesota storm. In the past 24 hours over a foot of snow has fallen and the wind has been terribly assertive in making its presence felt. While not yet utterly cold, that will be tonight when the temperature is set to fall to -24 C, I can now make a few observations about the weather and how it is dealt with.

The snow is nothing new to me. It snows in Germany, it snows in eastern California. The wind is notable but I have seen a number of gales in my life, nothing unusual in that. What is striking is how poorly the weather is handled. One would think that Minnesotans, infamous for living through some of the worst weather in the developed world, would have some sense in ploughing streets and pavement. None. None at all. The roads are covered with snow and the ploughs simply drive around doing nothing. In California that has never been the case, is not the case. The ploughs operate at all times during a snow storm keeping the roads clear and well-sanded.

My observations have been based on my walk to grocer’s and back, a total of just over two miles. A pleasant stroll in pleasant weather, a journey of slips and falls with a dozen eggs to think of as it is today. Naturally I have concluded that I will remain for the rest of the day in my warm flat drinking tea, looking at the snow fall through my windows, and being somewhat less than enthusiastic. A bit of good news is that I will be on a flight next week to Sacramento for Christmas before heading off to Germany and the UK.

I have just received my first Christmas card from the UK, needless to say I do not anticipate many more!!  It cost £1.90 ($3.05) to send it here and exactly the same size card to go to the UK costs $1.05!  THREE times LESS!

You have no doubt seen all the hoohaa about legalising the smoking of pot in WA?  Yeah, well, they legalised the smoking but you aren’t allowed to buy, grow or deal in it!  I am awaiting the falling of pot as manna from heaven! I swear these people are as daft as they come!  Last year they voted to privatise the sale of liquor and the prices roughly doubled, vaguely reminiscent of turkeys voting for Christmas!

Continue reading “Random Lunacies.”

I’m sure that all of my cherished colleagues on the Chariot need no warning about this.  I saw in the library where I do voluntary work in France that someone had donated a copy of  “Sex and the City”.  Having heard the name, I thought I would have a look at it.  On the front cover the Sunday Telegraph describes this work as “Jane Austen with a Martini”.  You wouldn’t need a martini or any other cocktail to knock you out.  This tedious, badly written book will have put you right off before you can reach for your cocktail shaker. Marie Claire describes it as “Hilarious … a compulsively readable book  … bite-sized chunks of irrepressible irreverence.” This probably says more about the low standards of that magazine and about the French sense of humour than anything else.

One line did please me. “Reputations are like cat litter.  They can be changed daily.”  Would you like to comment on that, Max Clifford?

Sack this dangerous idiot.

A trillion pounds of public debt, at least 100 billion more in the pipeline and this whacko – along with his dear leader – wants to waste another 2 billion quid’s-worth of taxpayers’ hard-earned for no return except that a few corrupt politicians and their criminal and business cronies in Africa and S America buy themselves a few new Mercedes, or Ferraris.

Building windmills in Africa is going to do absolutely SFA for the people who really need help. It’s not even better then doing nothing – in fact it’s worse then doing nothing because the wasted money could have been spent on something which would actually have helped African people – roads, for example or real power stations – coal, which is plentiful in large areas of Africa or a couple of Nukes.

Money for agriculture in Columbia? Narcotraffickers are estimated to control about 10 million acres of land, including about half of the most fertile and sought-after land in the country, and infiltrated the highest levels of institutions like the presidential intelligence service (DAS) and the Medellín branch of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, as well as controlling local politicians and elements of LEA. Where does he think that cash is going to go?

What we spend waste on foreign aid each year would build two nuclear power stations at home and keep the lights on – and the equipment working in our hospitals and schools.

Time to stop this nonsense once and for all.

Bravo’s recent ‘Moments’ post got me thinking about those milestone moments we all recall from time to time and today’s DT article about Oxbridge interviews pealed another round in my belfry.

Fifty two years ago, come the week before Xmas, I took the train for a 48-hour stay at the college which had invited me, a callow 17 year old from the grammar school, for their ‘scholarship’ exams. It was perishingly cold, despite an extra sweater under my school suit and mac, and it was almost dark as the porter showed me to a dismal, first-floor room in the far reaches of the college buildings. Continue reading “Plus la même chose”

Watching QI yesterday with my son, one of the panel was introduced as having been born ‘before there was television.’ I was born before there was television too… OK, television existed before I was born, but there really was no television – generally available – until I was, what, 5 or 6? The first time I aw a TV, and watched it, was HM’s coronation in 1953. We went across the road – St Andrews’ Road in Deal – to a neighbour’s house, along with 20, maybe, other neighbours to crowd into their tiny ‘front room,’ around a huge cabinet with a tiny screen, all of us dressed in our Sunday Best for the occasion, men in suits and ties and ladies in posh frocks.

One of my earliest memories is of waiting at a tram stop in Forest Gate in London when I was two +/-. There was what I now know to be a bombsite behind the stop which had become water-filled where there were always what I called ducks, which were probably seagulls, but to me, it wasn’t a bombsite, it was a magic place 🙂

I’d be interested to know what other charioteers earliest memories are?

This is very difficult. There have been some superb pictures submitted, all much better than my humble example.

Pseu: Beautifully coloured leaf. A wonderful picture.

Low Wattage: More dickie birds from LW, but what a great picture.

Ara: Trees and bushes on the turn. Very nice

OZ: Evergreen autumn. Fascinating.

Plus a few moans from our Antipodean and Southern Hemisphere cousins that it ain’t autumn there! 🙂

Anyway, after the consumption of much post-lunch brain juice and much pondering, I think that the subject matter and great colouring of LW’s Geese at Dusk photo just shades it. (And this time, it is in focus!)

Over to you, Sirrah!