Whacko of the Week

For sheer, bone-headed idiocy, I give you Caroline Spelman, the ‘Environment’ Secretary.

Climate change ‘could disrupt wi-fi and hit power supply’

Let’s see, wifi works in Moscow in the depths of winter. (Intense cold, arid.) Wifi works in Hong Kong at the height of summer. (Intense heat, humid.) Works everywhere else, too, as far as I am aware…

Let’s waste another 200 billion that we don’t have.

Story here. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/8502620/Climate-change-could-disrupt-wi-fi-and-hit-power-supply.html

A lighter view of what is “Green”

I officially declare this as a humorous C&P from an unknown source (well, I got it from my Golf buddy in NZ, who knows from where he got it!)

How Wasteful the Older Generation Was …

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment, look what trouble we’re in now.”

He was right, that generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

But…. Continue reading “A lighter view of what is “Green””

All over bar the grouting

Yesterday I went on my long awaited mosaic course… a ‘one day taster’- which I had originally booked in October 2010 to do in March 2011. The March course was cancelled and I was offered 7th May. This meant I had to cancel something else – it’s no good planning too far ahead I find.

On Friday night I printed off my list of instructions and packed my bag. A pencil, ruler, eraser,  a notebook, old clothes and an apron, proof of identity, and lunch. With hindsight I would have added to that list an old tea towel and a small dustpan and brush, plus a pack of plasters. Continue reading “All over bar the grouting”

A dedication: Ruffie

Dogs – grew up with them, can’t think of a home without one! Sadly, Ruffie, aged 13 and a bit, left our pack on Friday morning.

Bless her, half blind, riddled with arthritis of the spine and laid low with latter stages of Cushing’s disease, she still trotted around the block for her last walk and trusted me as I took her to the vets for the final time. Her heart was so large she could have carried on for another month or two, but when she started saying no to sausages, we knew enough was enough.
Apologies for the slightly sad blog, but I wanted to share a picture or two so that I could always log on and see her wherever in the world I am.

She was the perfect family dog, never needed a lead, was never happier than with a stick or at your feet of an evening and was totally loyal and loving. She taught my own two-legged offspring so much and I am forever grateful for her sharing her life with my pack. I shed a years worth of tears on Friday. Our other pack member, Robbie, (the ginger one in the pictures) has slept in her bed the last two nights.

The tears are only just stopping. Continue reading “A dedication: Ruffie”

Matthew Arnold

And then they land, and thou art seen no more.
Maidens who from the distant hamlets come
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,
Or cross a stile into the public way.
Oft thou hast given them store
Of flowers—the frail-leaf’d, white anemone—
Dark bluebells drench’d with dews of summer eves,
And purple orchises with spotted leaves—
But none has words she can report of thee.

Matthew Arnold – The Scholar Gypsy

Here’s an interesting article from the WSJ

Although it is about the education system in the USA, it is equally applicable to the current situation in the UK – well, in England, at least.

Extract.

Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—”for free”—from its neighborhood public supermarket.

No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes.

Of course, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families’ choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.

Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.

Read the full article here.