Burma

How typical of Russia and China to block moves by the UN Security Council to condemn the evil Burmese military regime! What kind of message are they trying to disseminate? In refusing to do anything (even say anything) about a brutal dictatorship - that employs military force against its own people, suppresses all forms of democracy, and utilises forced labour for the construction of its projects - the Russian and Chinese authorities merely confirm that their relatively recent apparent conversion to the notion of a more open society and free trade is no more than a veneer - a facade - concealing an inbuilt disregard for democracy as we understand it.

Since they refuse to impose sanctions against the Burmah Junta it is my opinion that it falls to us, the people of the Western democracies, to impose our own sanctions against Russia and China. I realise of course that refusing to buy Chinese made goods is extremely difficult because it seems that every other thing you pick up in the shops these days has been made in China. But I for one will make the effort.

At last - Some Competition on the East Coast Main Line

With the ill-fated GNER being replaced by National Express in December on the London-Scotland main line, I was pleased to learn that there will soon be some competition on at least part of the route. A new train company called Grand Central will later this month be commencing a high-speed service between Sunderland and London, via York.

If it lives up to the promises on its Website the service will be worth a try. Time will tell, but I wish them well.

Waste

Marmite .. "Love it or hate it" they say. Well for me it's "Love it .. hate the pot".

Why?

Just at the time we are all talking more and more about reducing waste and doing our best to recycle our garbage, food producers seem to be marching in the opposite direction and selling us stuff that we cannot recycle.

Sauces, condiments, drinks, etc. used to come in glass bottles and jars that could be recycled. Now they are coming in plastic bottles. And now Marmite has joined the Sqeezy Brigade.

Let's face it - it's not the consumer causing the mountains of environmentally unfriendly waste; it's the food producers and retailers. Why do vegetables have to be wrapped in cling-film?

It's not just the food producers: why does a new computer USB flash drive (or "memory stick") have to be encapsulated in an inpenetrable plastic casing ten times the size of the actual product?

We will not start making inroads into proper recycling and a reduction in waste until the manufacturers, producers and retailer play their part. This is where government pressure should be applied instead of constantly nagging the poor old consumer, i.e., you and me. We're doing our best but "progress" keeps knocking us back!

Blog-free Zone

This is a blog-free zone for the next week - I'm off to Wales, clearing my throat and carrying a spitoon ready for all those unpronouncable place names. For the benefit of blogging burglars my house is fully occupied for the duration.

Great North Eastern Railway (GNER)

On 17th August my wife and I travelled by GNER from York to Edinburgh for the Festival and the Military Tattoo.

It was a fast, smooth and near-silent journey. It arrived in York (from London) on time, and it arrived in Edinburgh on time.

The onboard staff were brilliant: helpful, amusing, polite.

We returned from Edinburgh by the same service, and all the above comments still hold true for the return journey.

It was therefore all the more saddening to reflect on the fact that GNER have had to relinquish their franchise for the East Coast Main Line service from London to Edinburgh and beyond, since their parent company (Sea Containers) got into financial difficulty. From December this line's franchise will be transferred to National Express (the intercity bus company).

I shall miss GNER, since it is probably the only train service since British Railways were privatised to have retained some semblance of dignity and connection with the great days of this prestigious line. It didn't give itself a fancy modern meaningless name, it didn't tart up its rolling stock to look as if a mad graffiti artist had been let loose on it. It also designed itself an old-style railway style coat of arms, and maintained a smart but dignified external and interior decor. It didn't pretend to be some johnny-come-lately airline on tracks. All its trains had inscribed in discreet letters on the side of each coach "Route of the Flying Scotsman" and the train we travelled on the other day was named "Mallard".

I hope that National Express will take on all the GNER staff, and will find it in their heart to maintain some of this line's heritage.

Pigeons living dangerously

This is Part II of the pigeon story.

Our August weather has been doing a passable impression of mid-November. This morning the wind is howling and the fir tree containing our nesting pigeon(s) is waving about like a thing possessed; the branch on which the pigeon nest (if one can dignify it with that name!) is precariously perched is bouncing up and down alarmingly.

The pigeon currently "on duty" is, however, clinging on for dear life (and probably suffering with the bird equivalent of sea sickness), and although there is another little pile of sticks underneath the tree the nest appears to be just about intact. I understand the incubation period is about 18 days, so we must be getting very near to hatching.

Wood Pigeons - Birds Living Dangerously

This is a pigeon that is one of a pair which has constructed a nest in a tree standing in my front garden.

The trouble is, pigeons are rubbish at building nests, and I marvel that so many of this species actually exist.

They just chuck a few small dead sticks together in an untidy pile and hope for the best.

In the case of the pigeons currently domiciled at my address their house-building skills are made even more questionable by the fact that what is laughingly referred to as their nest is balanced precariously half way along a single branch without any other visible means of support or stabilisation.

On the grass beneath the tree is a scattering of sticks that presumably were once part and parcel of a construction that is rapidly taking on the attributes of a Minnesota road bridge.

A few weeks ago pigeons were observed building a nest in a tree in my back garden. Soon after they completed the job there were scrambled pigeon eggs all over my garden steps, baked hard by the sunshine.

As for the current attempts - somewhat late in the year, (but the birds are not the only creatures confused by our changing climate) - I was recently privileged to watch at close hand the "Changing of the Guard". The pigeon's mate alighted on the end of the branch near the tree trunk and turned to face in the direction of the nest. Both birds were now looking at each other about 18 inches apart. The bird on the nest then nodded its head half a dozen or so times. Its mate repeated the nodding action, after which it slowly walked along the branch and eased itself on to the nest whilst its erstwhile occupant simultaneously vacated it, walked to the far end of the branch and flew off.

I hope that this crazy nest will fulfill its proper function for long enough to ensure survival of the next generation, though I have to admit that the incessant and monotonous cry of wood pigeons at 5 a.m. outside my bedroom window is just a little irksome.

I will report developments.

GB meets GB

As I write this UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting with US President George W Bush at Camp David.

It has been said that the only thing these two men have in common is their initials!

It is to be hoped that they find something more in common than just this. Whatever one thinks of the US President (and anyone who has met me or has read my garbage knows that I don't think much of him) the relationship between Great Britain and the USA is important. Any British Prime Minister should seek to maintain a good working relationship with whoever is the US President, but it is also important that it is not the kind of relationship enjoyed (if that is the right word) between "Dubya" and erstwhile Prime Minister Tony Blair.

To assert that Blair was Bush's "poodle" would be an understatement, and Blair's anxiety to please and to blend in with the Bush style (including the blue jeans and the cowboy swagger) was positively cringe-making.

I was amused the other day to read one journalist's view that Brown would certainly adopt a different style, including that of dress, in that he only had two Prime Ministerial modes of dress -
1. A suit.
2. A suit without a tie.
He was in mode No.1 in the Camp David golf buggy today, and so, in fact, was George Bush.

My hope is that Brown will pursue a tough line on a constructive Iraq exit policy. An Oxfam report out today states that hunger and disease are spreading in Iraq as violence masks a deepening humanitarian crisis. The charity said 28 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, 15 percent of Iraqis regularly cannot afford enough to eat and 70 percent lack clean drinking water, all sharp increases since 2003.

"The terrible violence in Iraq has masked the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Malnutrition amongst children has dramatically increased and basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs said.
"The fighting and weak Iraqi institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out. Nevertheless more can and should be done to help the Iraqi people," he said.

Two million Iraqis have been forced to flee the country since 2003, and at least as many have been displaced within Iraq. So much for deposing an evil dictator and rebuilding the country.

It ain't happening.

Floods

The UK is struggling to deal with the most serious flooding in living memory; the other week it was South and East Yorkshire suffering, now it is Shropshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Oxfordshire. Thousands of homes are under water, and ironically many of them are without water to drink because a water treatment plant has also gone under. The submersion of an electricity sub-station has compounded the misery for those who now find themselves without either water or power. The rivers Severn and Thames are still rising, with the worst to come, and many people near or in Oxford have been evacuated to a sports stadium. South-west London is said to be the next in line, as the Thames continues to rise. More heavy rain is forecast for the London area, exacerbating the situation, and this is set to combine with high tides.

All this coincides with a government announcement that they will still be going ahead with the planned development of hundreds of thousands of new homes in the south east to meet demand, many of which will be build in known flood plains. Of course it is now stated that building will only take place if proper flood defences and adequate drainage can be put in place.

Surely one solution when building in such areas would be to build higher footings, i.e., up to the damp course, say about 3 or 4 feet higher than is current practice. Why do our houses have to sit at ground level? Is this such an obvious and simple solution that nobody will put it into practice? Probably.

Anglo-American Special Relationship

I have just had the pleasure of entertaining two American friends for a few days and showing them some of the features of life in England. As I had been under the impression that we had become a more brutish and uncivilised society in recent years it was gratifying to be told by my American friends that in their opinion the opposite was the case. It was also good to know (considering the bad reputation we used to have) that our food and drink were quite acceptable!

I was brought up short one day with the question, "What, mainly, does Britain make?" Thinking about this I was faced with the unpalatable realisation that these days the answer to that question is "Not much".

In this connection it dawned on me when I took my friends to York that only a few years ago in this great City there was a beet sugar processing factory, three major confectionary factories, a railway engineering and carriage works, and a factory manufacturing glass bottles from recycled glass. All these have now closed. In other parts of the country we have watched coal mining all but disappear. The same goes with iron and steel production, and the small amount of steel manufacturing we still have is now owned by an Indian company. The British car industry has collapsed. We are still making good cars, but for companies owned by the Japanese or the Germans.

I wonder, therefore, in what way is our economy "booming" (terrorist bombs aside, that is) for apparently it is "booming". Have we just turned into a successful giant "Theme Park" for tourists? Apart from that, then the rest of our success seems to be mostly down to financial services.

Anyway, this is all depressing me, and I want to be optimistic about the future, and remind myself that the two Americans who came to see us, and who gave us such a memorable and pleasurable time, enjoyed their experience of my country.

Khalil Ahmed - should he burn in hell?

Khalil Ahmed, one of the two men who tried to drive a mobile bomb into Glasgow Airport's terminal building, and then set fire to himself, is now in hospital suffering from a life-threatening level of burns. Some might say serve him right if he dies, but in my opinion It is devoutly to be wished that his life can be saved.

He (and others like him) want to die, therefore I want him to live and suffer the consequences of his actions.

UK Floods

The horrific flooding experienced this week in South Yorkshire, the Midlands, and other parts of Britain has been described by some as an "Act of God". It is no such thing. It is an Act of Man.

For decades we encouraged farmers (with financial grants and subsidies) to rip out hedgerows to make bigger fields, and to put in subsoil land drainage systems.

Result? Faster rainwater run-off.

At the same time the River Boards of the 1960s and 1970s went on a mad spree of environmental destruction in the interests of Land Drainage, turning meandering river systems into straight, vegetation-free, drainage canals resembling aquatic motorways.

Result? Faster movement of flood water from A to B.

Whilst all this agricultrual mayhem was going on, town and country planners were merrily permitting housing and industrial development in flood plains, against the advice (in earlier days) of the same River Boards that were destroying the rivers' natural ability to balance the discharge of flood waters, and against the advice (in more recent times) of the Environment Agency.

In the older suburbs of our major towns and cities that were built before the age of mass car ownership you will also find people rooting up their front gardens and converting them into paved areas to accommodate one, two, or sometimes three cars.

Result? Additional surface water run-off to overload inadequate storm drainage systems.

At last, though somewhat too late I fear, farmers are considering the re-planting of hedgerows, and the Environment Agency talks about the desirability of allowing agricultural grassland to be given over to floodwater balancing. More voices are being raised by politicians and others about the need to take seriously the matter of building houses, factories and offices in areas known to be prone to flooding.

We have only ourselves to blame for many of our so-called environmental disasters.

Stirring up English Nationalism

I'm all in favour of devolved government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the Blair Government has made a complete pig's ear of the exercise by totally ignoring the gaping hole in their scheme which is ENGLAND!

The English are a fairly laid-back kind of people who are prepared to be kicked about a bit, but only up to a point. Take them beyond that point and they turn up the heat. I believe that we are fast approaching that "tipping point".

Already we have one sore point regarding medical prescription charges: in Wales prescriptions are free. If you live just on the English side of the border you pay the normal charges; if you live on the Welsh side you pay nothing.

Then there's the question of university tuition fees - in England students pay them and get into debt; in Scotland they don't.

Now the Scottish Executive is conducting a review of medical prescription charges, and they have also recently proposed that the size of primary school classes should be reduced.

All this is perfectly fine, and in many ways I have always found the Scottish approach to social affairs to be generally more agreeable than the English, and in any case with devolved government one expects there to be some diversity of political actions across the UK. So far so good. What I object to is the fact that England has no such devolved government; we are controlled by the UK's Westminster Government, and what makes that so unfair is that the MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland sitting in the House of Commons exercise their votes on legislation covering English domestic affairs whilst English MPs have no say whatsoever over equivalent matters in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Then we should also consider that much of the devolved administrations' social programmes are made possible by the fact that they are receiving significant subsidies from the UK government, which means that social benefits being enjoyed by the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are partly paid for out of taxes paid by the English.

I am heartily sick of this half-baked devolution, and at the next General Election I am going to cast my vote for any candidate who supports the notion of (ideally) an English Parliament, or (at the very least) a restriction on MPs from outside England voting on our affairs.

If Labour gets re-elected, I wonder what chance there will be of Prime Minister Gordon Brown (who is a Scot representing a Scottish Constituency) addressing this issue. I am guessing, not much. Is there a case for hoping that David Cameron's Conservatives might be more sympathetic, considering the Conservative Party in Scotland is almost wiped out these days?

June is rusting out all over.

The Full Waterproofs

This delightful picture of an under-water blogger is published in connection with a couple of recent posts: one relating to a canal boat holiday that was promising to be a washout (it wasn't) and the other relating to the exorbitant prices charged by some specialist shops for wet weather gear.

Two of my internet friends insisted on having sight of the full gear in use. Since the canal holiday was surprisingly free from torrential downpours I've had no reason to model this chic little outfit; until now, that is.

After a long, warm and dry spring, June has turned out to be depressingly cold, wet and windy, and last week the UK had to put up with severe weather leading to serious flash floods in many parts of the country. I had to put the full waterproofs into service just to put the bins out last Friday morning.

Today is overcast, with more rain promised for this afternoon, but I am at present being cheered up by the song of a thrush in full and enthusiastic voice in my back garden.

George Bush in Albania

Apparently the Albanians were hugely enthusiastic about George Bush's recent flying visit; they gave him a rapturous reception.

I recall that the Albanians were similarly infatuated with Norman Wisdom.

Madeleine McCann's parents

The other week I posted a plea for the return of 4-year old Madeleine McCann who was abducted from a Portugese holiday resort, and said my thoughts and prayers were with her parents at this time.

A friend of mine who reads this blog got quite fired up about the fact that the McCanns deserved no consideration because they were guilty of neglect, in that they went off to a nearby restaurant in the resort leaving their children unattended.

Well, yes - to a great degree I also felt they left something to be desired in the way of child care, and yet looking back on my own years as a parent I know that there were many times when I was less than a model parent, and I suspect that this is true of many of us. Most of us have not had to be reminded of our periods of neglect because we were fortunate enough to be on the right side of the statistical fact that the chances of someone abducting our children are in fact very remote.

Certainly I can say that my wife and I never left our children unattended in a hotel or holiday cottage room whilst we went out, but I am sure we were guilty of other kinds of parental neglect from time to time.

Many people find the McCanns guilty of gross negligence, but these two professional and intelligent people have already found themselves guilty and are overwhelmed by an unbearable burden of guilt that will be with them forever.

I make no apology for praying not only for the safe return of little Madeleine, but also for strength to be given to the McCanns.

Cruising the Rochdale Canal with Shire Cruisers - http://www.shirecruisers.co.uk

I have just returned from a narrow boat holiday on the Rochdale Canal in West Yorkshire, and living as we do in an age where society appears to thrive on complaint and litigation I feel bound to add some counterbalance to this culture by unreservedly praising and recommending Shire Cruisers of Sowerby Bridge. http://www.shirecruisers.co.uk

In terms of customer service, quality of boats, and the comprehensive level of pre-cruise information and training, they surpassed anything we have previously experienced in fifteen previous boating holidays on various parts of the UK inland waterways system. So I am happy to place this on record (and no, they haven’t offered me a free holiday to get me to publish this on the Web!)

To describe the Rochdale Canal I can do no better than to reproduce the introductory piece from the well written Pearsons' “Canal Companion – Pennine Waters” ..

Reaching Sowerby Bridge, the Calder & Hebble Navigation goes into a telephone box, puts its underpants on outside its trousers, and emerges as the Rochdale Canal, Superman of the inland waterways, fully equipped to take on the tyrannical Pennines.

One is treated to the glorious scenery of Calderdale, the steep wooded hillsides, the craggy granite outcrops of the Pennines, and the towns that not only nestle in the valley bottom but climb up the hillsides in a stone-terraced display of gravity denial; then there are the banks of wild rhododendron, yellow iris at the water’s edge, the singing birds in the trees, the ever-watchful herons silently standing in anticipation of a fish supper, and flotillas of ducks and geese.

We were on a short break (less than a week) and were therefore only able to travel westwards from Sowerby Bridge as far as Todmorden before turning round, but the somewhat tame distance of about 12 miles was transformed into a marathon by the existence of 18 manually operated locks raising us by about 200ft on the westward journey, so by the time we had returned to base our aching muscles testified to our completion of 36 lock operations.
We moored up in Hebden Bridge for several hours and were amazed to find that the town was closed! What kind of enterprise society is this, where all the businesses get together and say, “Hey, lets not make any money on Tuesdays!” To be fair, I was told that the shops do open on Saturdays and Sundays, but it still seemed a bit odd to turn up in the middle of the week to find everything battened down. We did, however, manage to get a good lunch at Moyles Restaurant.

We had no time to investigate Todmorden because in our attempts to turn the boat around we got stuck. Water levels were down a bit so turning the boat tended to be more of a mud wrestling exhibition. By the time a number of willing helpers had pushed, pulled and shoved, we finished up in the same direction as before and decided to go through one more lock to find another turning point. This decision introduced us to the first lock with a “guillotine gate” at the lower end, and an ambiguously-written British Waters notice drawing our attention to the fact that although the gate was electrically operated, the paddles (i.e., the valves for draining the lock) were manually operated from a control box “opposite this control panel”. I looked behind me to see what was opposite the control panel and found a smart looking metal box on a post. This turned out to be a repository for dog shit! The paddle controls were on the other side of the gate.

Todmorden was described by Susan of Shire Cruisers as the "Frontier Town" being right on the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire. The town is administered by Yorkshire but has an Oldham (Lancashire) Post Code. The poor dears are therefore totally confused.

A short way beyond this lock was our turning point, but again we needed willing land-based helpers (of which there never appeared to be a shortage) conducting a tug-of-war with the sharp end of the boat whilst I did the business at the blunt end with my head all tangled up with overhanging tree branches. After much heaving, reversing, tiller waggling, and a ruined hair style, the boat was now heading back east.

The meteorological office had forecast several days of the most appalling weather so we were tooled up with all the wet weather gear, but as it turned out it was a mixture of sunshine and showers, and not too much of the latter. By comparison with the forecast we felt we had been handed a bonus, making us grateful for the fact that weather forecasting is a somewhat inexact science.

Water above me, water beneath me.

Good news for my half dozen readers! It's a blog-free week coming up. My wife and I are off on a narrow-boat holiday on the Rochdale Canal. We aim to cruise from Sowerby Bridge to Todmorden and back. We shall have to negotiate more than 30 manually operated locks, so the opportunities for hard physical exercise and loss of weight are enormous, but there will also be opportunities to put the weight back on in canalside pubs!

Those nice people at the meteriological office are forecasting a week of cold winds and rain (thanks guys!) but at least being forewarned is being forearmed. Since these boats are driven by standing in the open at the stern (the blunt end), yesterday I equipped myself with full waterproof clothing, i.e., hood, jacket and leggings, during which I came to the conclusion that specialist sports shops are rip-off merchants par excellence. As I browsed through my local sports shop I thought "They're having a laugh aren't they?" .. £120 for a packable waterproof coat and £90 for waterproof overtrousers? I don't think so! I went to a general utilities and clothing store in the next town and got the lot for £25.

Fish Funeral

This morning I conducted a fish funeral. The largest of my three ghost carp died last night after gracing my humble fish pond for twenty years.

There was a very poor attendance at the funeral; no other fish turned up, and I acted as grave digger, pall bearer, chief mourner and priest. I consigned his earthly (watery) remains to somewhere beneath my shrubbery and despatched his spirit (if he had one) to meet his Cod.

Who's taken Madeleine?

I am posting this picture here in the optimistic hope that the more it is circulated the better the chance of somebody seeing 4-year old Madeleine McCann who was abducted a week ago from a Portugese holiday apartment.

Has she been taken by some sad deluded woman who can't have a child of her own, or is this yet another example (and I can hardly dare entertain the thought) of a paedophile's sick and evil mind?

My thoughts and prayers go out to her parents.

I know they are getting a lot of support, and several high-profile business people and football stars have combined to offer a huge reward for information leading to Maddy's return.