Competition

Posted on Jan 20, 2014 by cliverh

Well done ITV and BBC. Again you have managed to create some sort of ‘competition’ between yourselves on a Sunday night, but let’s face it; it could be any night.

The competition I’m referring is the much hyped new series ‘The Musketeers’ on BBC 1 at 9.00pm, and the the return of the very successful ‘Mr Selfridge’ on ITV1 at what time? You’ve guessed it – 9.oopm! What is it with programme planners and schedulers that they feel the need to compete with each others rival mainstream channel, set one programme against another and conspire to put them on at the same time? Do they imagine that ‘everyone’, has either a) a Sky box recorder or b) some other recording device or c) can be bothered to find the repeat (on ITV2 only) later at 11.25pm on a Wednesday or whatever? There is no competition! Only  ITV could  truly say they are in competition because they have to attract advertisers who ultimately pay for all their output. The Beeb don’t have a competitive element because they are funded by the licence fee, so don’t have to prove diddly to anyone, and certainly not to try to gain audience levels from ITV.

Let’s take an atypical example: Many older people, although we have all gone over to Freeview, only think there are still only five channels. Some have not ventured beyond the ‘6’ button on their remote controls. To them E4 and ITV4+1 are alien territory, only accessible by special people with unique powers. Well no, perhaps not that far, but even so they don’t venture much beyond the ‘5’ button, so the concept of a repeated programme later in the week is an unknown black art. Not everyone is tech savvy, so where does this leave these people who want to see both programmes, probably because they liked the first Selfridge and the read Alexander Dumas as a child? Well it means that they never see one of the programmes because a) they don’t know how to record on their Sky or Freeview boxes or b) if they did, they don’t know how to access them again. This is not to demean older or less technically adept people, it’s a fact that in this modern world everything is done by remote control or ‘online’. Again not everyone is up to date with the latest advances in technology, so I ask again: Why, on a Sunday night is ‘Midwife’ followed immediately by ‘Musketeers’? Why can’t one of them be put on a Tuesday when there is nothing else on TV anyway. Are the BBC afraid they might lose some viewing figures? So what, they get their licence fee anyway don’t they? And in any case they waste so much of it on unearned imaginary payoffs to people who in other walks of life wouldn’t merit one tenth of what they get when the Beeb chuck them out.

Just don’t get me on talking about the phrase uttered so much on all sides of the box: ‘And you can find out more online at “www.rubbish.co.uk” or somesuch. No, not everyone can, think on. The trouble is TV stations are run by younger and younger people with good eyesight, hearing and sharp brains, whilst us slighter older people need to find our glasses, turn the volume up and write down the address or  telephone number, not immediately key it into our smartphones, what’s one of them anyway?  Does anyone actually need to be able to see their social networks or emails 24/7? Would it matter if you looked at them on your PC or laptop at home? No didn’t think so.

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Catholic hierarchy?

Posted on Jan 12, 2014 by cliverh

Vincent Nichols to be appointed cardinal the Roman Catholic church. Many people will be saying so what? Of course it is of little consequence if you are a) non-Catholic or b) nonreligious. Note I don’t use the terms atheist (non-believer) or agnostic (doesn’t know either way). The appointment is given 3rd billing in the BBC news index, so it is obviously important; is it?

Well no actually, in the great scheme of things, to non-Catholics it doesn’t, he will be one of 19 new cardinals appointed, and every one is a potential Pope. This is the rub, we could see a British pope, if the current one, Francis dies. The last British Pope was Adrian in 1154, quite some time ago, and since Vincent is quite young at 68 he is very much a possible contender. So you may ask, what has got to do with the price of milk? Well quite a bit really; the Catholic church still sticks to the ‘no contraception’ rule and in my opinion this policy has caused the world population explosion. The millions of Catholics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and to a lesser extent Europe use absolutely no contraception and as a consequence have far more children than their more considerate neighbours.

Another aspect the Catholic church is against is abortion, which the Pope has reiterated today. That is too wide-ranging a subject to discuss widely here, but it adds to the overall feeling that the church doesn’t want to do anything about the world’s population. That is not something I agree with. The world is rapidly approaching 7 billion souls, and we are rapidly running out of resources (and space) to cater to all. What in the Catholic church’s thinking is wrong with trying to limit the number of people on the planet? In their perfect doctrine, the world’s resources and food supplies don’t figure in their quest to populate the world even more. God will provide. No he won’t, unless there is a divine intervention, and that’s about as likely as a renouncement of contraception by the Catholic church.

They should get with the programme and allow contraception, but then they would be the same as any Protestant church, and that would never do. God ‘elp us.

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Flood!

Posted on Jan 4, 2014 by cliverh

What a start to a new year. More water than you can shake a stick at, at least the water companies haven’t made any noises about hosepipe bans! But it has been reported widely that the Environment Agency are cutting back jobs, but ‘not front line staff’ as reported by the Beeb. Even so it is a pretty poor announcement to make when people are getting flooded out, and rivers are bursting their banks. Which got me thinking: why are announcements like that made by ‘government’ departments at the most inappropriate time?

There have been other such inappropriate announcements over the years, and they seem to coincide with something bad happening or something they are trying to hide. On this occasion it couldn’t have been more insensitive, especially with the weather we’re all experiencing. Although luckily I live on a hill so we’ll never get flooded, or if we do, the world’s coming to an end. But what’s the solution? Funnily enough not many pundits on the news offer a solution, but I have a few ideas of my own:

Dredge every river that is currently bursting its banks, there’s obviously not enough depth to carry extra water away.

Shore up obvious overflow areas on sea sides and river sides.

Don’t build houses on flood plains or too close to flowing water, you never know when flooding may occur.

These measures will of course cost money, maybe we can reduce the millions of pounds of aid money we send to countries which patently don’t need it to pay for it. I don’t hear other countries saying they’re sending teams of aid workers here to help us out. Sometimes we could do with help, so why not? Just because we’re ‘first world’, and in the main the countries we aid are ‘third world’, doesn’t mean we couldn’t use help, we’re all affected by nature. I feel really sorry for those who have been flooded, but not those who chose to go for a walk to ‘watch’ the waves. Trouble is the emergency services have to put themselves at risk to rescue people, but I doubt they think of that.

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2014

Posted on Jan 1, 2014 by cliverh

A happy New Year to my reader!

Let’s hope it’s a better year for peace than the last year.

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My Blogs 2013, a review

Posted on Dec 31, 2013 by cliverh

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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2013 an’ a’ that.

Posted on Dec 25, 2013 by cliverh

In the normal course of events a summary of the year is something I would avoid like the plague, but this has been a very eventful year so discretion overcame valour, and I thought what the hell; and at least it might put things into perspective, or maybe not. Note: The title of this piece is meant to reflect the way Robbie Burns  wrote some of his poems, and it is coming up to Hogmanay. New Year’s eve was just me and t’wife at home alone playing on the XBox doing (virtual) bowling. Still no good at it:

New Year Bowling

Still it got us up and getting some exercise, even if it was only waving our arms about. The usual winter was upon us already with extensive snow with more to follow later in March. But the next few weeks were in helping Teresa and Kev getting their stuff packed for the impending move to Melbourne. There was tooing and froing from their place in Essex and me finishing off floor-boarding the loft, in preparation for the expected storage of the stuff they wanted to leave here. That accomplished we waited for the first week in February when they jetted off to their new home in the Antipodes. This was covered extensively elsewhere in my blog:

We’re bound for South Australia

But we did visit them during the year but more of that later. March bought another birthday for me, golf with my occasional ex-works society and getting Kev’s car ready for sale, which they left behind after I volunteered to get shot of it. It went eventually via the Autotrader website which was actually a good move, better I think than eBay which I have also sold a car through. Anyway it went to a good home and Kev was pleased with the sale price. April, and a bit of spring at last but we had been asked if we wanted to go on a boat trip on the Mediterranean off Turkey, so a bit of preparation for resulted in the trip at the end of the month on the Kurt-K which was a hoot for the whole week. This is also described elsewhere, but it was a great trip and we are seriously considering going again. The main event in May was the laying to rest the old 3(F) Squadron at the church in Chitterne, Wilts. There was a huge involvement by all involved getting a marching standard party from the squadron, many ex Commanding Officers and members of the Squadron Association. It was a lovely weekend and many people met up with long lost friends and lost colleagues. After a flypast by a Typhoon from the squadron and a Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, we all sat down to a delicious lunch organised by our President who lives in the village. In the same month we also went to the first Ruffits we’d been to for a couple of years. imageThis was also a great weekend, I even got to sing a few songs. We borrowed a neighbours caravan who had offered it as and when we wanted. It was most welcome, but the weather was kind so the alternative awning on my van did not need to be an alternative. June was a  busy month, with the charity gig at Elmhurst Farm with cousin Steve, the Manston Air Day and the ‘Queue’ at Wimbledon, which looking back wasn’t that bad and it was a full day out in quite nice weather so what’s not to like. Apparently we’re having a go at the ballot for tickets next year. You still have to queue though, I believe even if you win tickets.

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The Wimbledon Breakfast

Then a surprise at the end of June. A mate had a ticket going for a Bonnie Raitt concert at the Royal Albert Hall because someone else had to drop out and he asked me if I’d like to go. Very nice of him and he drove us up there; her show was great, she’s been around a long time and played with all the greats in rock music. In July I was invited to a garden which for years has raised money for the local hospice, always a good cause. I played a couple of songs with the host and did a couple myself, I always enjoy performing live. We were also meant to be going on a balloon flight bought by our girls a year before, but for various reasons we weren’t able to and got at least some of the money back. Maybe we’ll have a go in 2014. We finished off the month going to the last ‘Top Gear’ recording at Dunsfold aerodrome; Charlotte had managed to get a couple of tickets via a friend. it was an interesting experience, not least seeing the television ‘machine’ at work, and although it seemed laid back and not very organised, in fact it sped through very quickly and the recording, which is transmitted pretty much as you see it, didn’t take much longer than the actual programme. There were quite a few retakes, especially with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond ‘corpsing’ in one piece, but seeing the end result on the TV at home was nice, even though we didn’t see ourselves and my ‘argument’ with Clarkson was cut out, never mind.

August was a busy month, and it ended in the Australia trip. First though I had been invited by a Belgian aviation interest group ‘Wings of Memory’ who wanted to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the death of Baron de Delys Longchamp, a pilot of 3 Squadron of which I am chairman of the Association. The Longchamp family came over and we had a fly past of a Typhoon from the squadron and a pair of Belgian F16s. A lovely day out.

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Then with all the preparations done, we flew out to Melbourne on 20th August, our longest trip ever and first time beyond Egypt. As recorded in several of my other blogs (see the archives on the right hand side), we had a great time, thanks in no small part to Teresa and her husband Kevin. It certainly made us wish to return as soon as possible; watching the cricket there today from the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) certainly bought back memories. But it was another tick in the box and it was great to see them having a wonderful life out there and embracing all that the country, and city, has to offer.

The beginning of October was strange, no not the jet lag from our journey home, we just couldn’t get back into the swing of things mundane. Still, after a couple of weeks things started slowly to return to some semblance of normality, whatever that is. October was also the month that the annual reunion took place in Leatherhead for the 3(F) Squadron Association, and although it wasn’t very well attended, all that did enjoyed it very much. It was the last one I shall organise, after doing 12 I’ve think I’ve done enough of them. In November, we were invited to another of my friend John’ soirs in his  house where the garden party was held, to watch a very good two piece band as well as throwing money into buckets for the same charity: The Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice.

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 We also had a lovely weekend in the Kent coast with cousin Steve and Bev. I always enjoy going down there, it’s exactly 100 miles door to door and we’re always made to feel very welcome; usually about three times a year. One unusual trip was to White City to help a friend buy her new car from one of the biggest second hand car dealers in the country, apparently they move 800 cars a week, quite impressive, although I won’t publicise their name.  Anyway it was interesting to see their selling machine in action, and our friend came away with her little 11 plate Peugeot convertible. I drove her Swatch car home, interesting journey, quite a sprightly little thing. Then it’s the run-up to Christmas.

The Christmas day dinner was interesting, we realised we were going to be on our own. So after other invitations didn’t suit us, we decided to go out, and we chose The Silvermere Golf Club who provided a superb five course meal with help yourself buffet at a very reasonable cost: A good decision. On Boxing Day we were invited to the neighbours to join in with their family, including old fashioned games, and all had a thoroughly good time. So now here we are at New Year’s eve, and I’m not expecting too much for the New Year, we’ll see what transpires through the course of it.  Have fun yourselves anyway.

A Happy New Year 2014 to my reader.

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And the moon turns the tide gently.

Posted on Dec 19, 2013 by cliverh

Well, so no surprises then. The Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nicholas Houghton said that although we will have top class equipment we might not have enough personnel to operate it.

So the ‘perfect’ politicians who made the decisions to cut back our armed forces have got it wrong, very wrong again. I’ve said it before, we are an ISLAND and as such need to defend our shores, yet the Royal Navy may struggle to provide us with enough protection. Again without wishing to sound like a broken record, we need our armed forces up to strength more than ever, and reservists are not going to fill the gap left by regulars. It’s always governments of whatever hue who see cutbacks in the forces as the golden egg to reduce spending, but this attitude is folly. The parallel with 1936-39 is uncanny, we didn’t notice the warning signs about Hitler, and were totally unprepared in September 1939. It could be said the world has moved on and someone like Hitler will never happen again. Oh yeah? That can be guaranteed? When our forces eventually pull out of Afghanistan, that will be seen as another ‘peace dividend’ and a good excuse to cut back even further. Yet the politicos never seem to listen to the senior forces staff, and treat their utterances with disdain. There has only been a ‘politically correct’ statement from the head of the Navy who said “We take a long view on our duties at sea and, on behalf of our nation, are fully ready to meet the challenge.” And I think a severe challenge it will be. Even though there has been no statement, in support or otherwise, of the statement by Gen Houghton, you would have thought such a political view would have bought a slapping down by the minister of defence, maybe it’ll come later. Whilst I’m not advocating a ‘spend all, provide all’ defence budget, we have to have contingency for the emergency situation, a form of insurance policy, of which a parallel can be drawn of any insurance policy, like for instance for your car or house. You pay it every year, but for 99% of the time never use it, but that 1% is what you need it for.

It’s so tragic for the family of the young girl found dead in a graveyard.
What goes through the mind of young men who do this sort of thing? What motivates them to think that killing someone they’ve done something horrible to, is justified or even necessary? Where is the moral fibre to stop these acts? Yes, young people get into situations where they are raped or assaulted and the perpetrator is drunk or on drugs but why oh why does it end up with death and a devastated family? The majority of us will never know feelings like that, and are equally repulsed by the act that was perpetrated. It’s an old cliche, but it’s been said in other areas of the media that this is a terrible time of the year for this to happen. WRONG! Any time of the year is bad, Christmas is just coincidental. I just hope that an exemplary example is made of her murderer(s), there has got to be a deterrent for this sort of crime, and no capital punishment is not, and never will be an option.

In the same vein, it’s no surprise that the two men accused of Drummer Lee Rigby have been found guilty of his murder; with the evidence presented there was no doubt about it. They called themselves ‘soldiers’, what an insult to the man they killed, who was more man, or soldier, than they could ever be. Using religion as an excuse for randomly killing someone, who they didn’t know for certain was a soldier is both cowardly and as it turned out the incorrect use of a belief. Muslims are in fact peace-loving, evidenced by the condemnation of the murder by the Muslim Council of Britain. So these two men were not acting in the cause of their religion, but in spite of it. May their sentencing, when its announced in January, reflect the heinousness of the crime, and they never see freedom again. At least then they won’t be martyred.

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NHS, stop knocking it….

Posted on Dec 12, 2013 by cliverh

The NHS in general and its performance in GP surgeries and hospitals in particular has come in for much criticism lately, some justified, some patently not.

I use the system, and have done quite intensively for at least 15 years. I won’t go into my conditions, some of which are chronic, that is they are long term, but not necessarily immediately fatal. The other type of condition is acute, such as heart failure, of which thankfully I have none. But even acute conditions needn’t be life-threatening. So my experiences? Mostly good, considering the number of people being treated, the qualified staff available and the facilities. Overall, in my estimation, the NHS does a good job under difficult circumstances, but obviously all patients have differing outlooks. In my area the system is well integrated with blood tests being done in a health centre are instantly available in another, so there is no chasing the central testing lab for results. The consultant I see is a professor who is highly qualified, and the staff, some not necessarily medical professionals, i.e. phlebotomists, are all highly skilled and caring. I found out the other day for example that the person taking my blood sample hadn’t had a pay rise for 5 years, and that staff at the local supermarket get a higher hourly rate than they do. That is totally obscene, that a shelf stacker, who can learn the job in about 2 minutes should get paid more than a skilled technician whose training is continuous and on the job. Its a good job we don’t apply these standards to doctors and consultants, who in my estimation are worth every penny they get paid. When you consider that MPs want 11% to take a basic salary up to £76,000 for trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to govern the county, it doesn’t quite stack up.

Of course, analysis of the reasons why the NHS is bursting at the seams and is under constant pressure would probably be because of immigration and the break-up of families, coupled with unemployment. I know someone who works as a doctors receptionist and people go into that surgery demanding aspirin for hangovers. When asked why they don’t spend 28 pence on aspirins from a chemist, the retort is usually that they are ‘on benefits’. So they can afford booze enough to get drunk but not the cure. Multiply that by the millions who use the NHS as a free entitlement, whatever the reason, and it can be seen that the cost will escalate. Like many I use the NHS for my conditions, but hardly use the system for other day to day ailments. The ‘free at the point of use’ principle is overused by many as a right, whereas the rest of us are quite happy to fork out for Lemsip or paracetamol. This is because a) we can afford to and b) we don’t want to hang around doctors surgeries to be told that a cold/cough is viral and cannot be treated by drugs. To be fair to GPs though, you wouldn’t blame them for sending serial cold complainers away with either a placebo or anti-viral drugs which will have no effect, except to make them feel that the doctor has done ‘something’ however ineffective that might be.

Now today, the head honcho (sorry Medical Director) of the NHS, Sir Bruce Keogh announced that NHS hospitals will become ‘seven day operations’ so that anyone entering hospital on a weekend will get all the specialists and consultants that are normally there from Monday to Friday. He made a very good point: the service industry generally is available at the weekend so why should the NHS which is after all a ‘service’ not provide similar cover? There will be a knock on effect of course with changes of contracts for all medical staff in hospitals, except for A&E departments, probably because they are already a 24 hour operation. That’s for hospitals, could we eventually expect GP surgeries to offer weekend surgeries? They don’t even cover out of hours calls themselves these days, so that may a sticking point. I think the juries still out on all these decisions. Time will tell.

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This Sporting Life

Posted on Dec 11, 2013 by cliverh

Football and Cricket. This countries national sports, both basically invented by us. As my reader will know, I’m not a football fan, for all the usual reasons: overpaid, over here, cheating, pansy footballers, but cricket is definitely our national sport.

The way some parts of the media have portrayed our lack of success (especially footy) recently anyone would think it was akin to the decline of the western world. The world cup next year in Brazil is all but lost because of the other teams in the group, as if I care. We only won the ’66 world cup because England got a bye to the first round proper, and only got to the final because we avoided our Nemesis: Germany. So that’s a waste of time going there then. As for the cricket, even though England are 2-0 down, they have won the last 4 series in what is the unofficial world cup (in test terms) between Australia and England. So although it would hurt to lose this Ashes series (especially 5-0), the Aussies lost the last one 3-0, so its not so bad. I’ve a feeling that England will come back on this one though. But at least the cricketers have had some success (except in the short games), but what have the English football team won since 1966? Nada, zilch, nix, nowt, zero. At least we won the rugby union world cup in 2003 and were losing finalists in 2007; not a bad record. When I talk to a group of football fans and ask them when did we last win the world cup, and they say 1966, I disagree and say no, 2003, which confuses them somewhat, until I explain. I just wish the media and commentators would get our national sports in perspective: its not all about football. I expect the biased BBC sports personality of the year on Sunday will have a lot of football, but hopefully Andy Murray will win it.

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So this is Christmas…..

Posted on Dec 10, 2013 by cliverh

…and what have you done?

It’s that time of year again, but then it has been since September, and as last year I can have a rail about the season. The usual over hyped aspects of this annual beanfeast are promoted and overexposed as it has been for decades, only more so every year.

It’s said by many retail sectors that Christmas is the most lucrative time of the year, so it’s no wonder that they devote so much money and effort trying extract the same from you and me. I cannot stand all the adverts and false Christmas bonhomie that abounds in earnest from the 1st October. Then as the last week or so approaches, there is a feeding frenzy on the TV with adverts filling the airwaves. I’m sick of it by the 2nd week in October, I even saw Christmas cards on sale earlier than that, and there are people who start their Christmas preparations at the same time. It’s obscene. And unnecessary. And wasteful. And the basic question is why? The celebration of the birth of Christ is lost in the mists of time, and is rarely mentioned, except of course at the obligatory televised midnight mass, usually from St Paul’s or somewhere equally church-huge, when senior clergy extol the virtues of praising Christ, his birth and the good that it does. Sorry but that is such a crock. The, (especially the Church of England); church generally has been getting a bad press of late, with various scandals involving all levels being caught doing naughty things, I’ll say no more about that. Needless to say these clergy should be a shining example of correct behaviour and decorum, but often they aren’t. It’s shameful. But back to the annual pagan festival that is on 25th December which isn’t even the true birth date of Christ. Why, why, why do huge numbers of people go excessive and spend massive amounts on what is essentially someone else’s (probably imaginary) birthday? Is Christ ever mentioned in these households? Is there any thought ever given as to what the whole deal is about? No, no, no. Then there are the ‘heartstring’ adverts on TV and in the papers. These are the ones where children, donkeys, dogs or any diverse numbers of things are shown in terrible conditions/malnourished/oppressed/downtrodden/abused. These proliferate at Christmas as if that is the time of year when people are manipulated into giving money to these causes because it’s a juxtaposition on what excessive amounts they are spending on their Christmas. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for charity and give regularly for good causes, but I dislike the cynical way the advertisers manipulate their audience into feeling guilty about their ‘excess’, although I suspect there won’t be as much excess this year, despite the upturn in the economy.

Anyway Happy Christmas!

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