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My Right Wing Agenda > Categories
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15/01/2010Well.. what a few weeks we have had!.. the coldest in a long time.. and it’s much more like how I remembered when I was young and probably colder!
I have to say our local authority has coped rather well with the weather, especially as the length was un expected… its ashamed the Govt didn’t implement the recommendations it got last summer but I guess we have come to expect this dithering on things that really matter and implementing interfering nanny state type rules, to trip us up etc etc… (I could moan about the expiry date on a photo driving license here as the paper ones didn’t expire… but I’ll save that back handed trip up by our govt for another day)
I’d hope the people realise a few things about the clearing of ice or snow / gritting in general… Firstly we aren’t a Scandinavian country that experiences this for months a year, therefore we don’t put the huge resource into it… and if your saying why not… ask yourself would you like to pay for it in higher taxes cause that’s the only way it could happen, and it won’t be just a few pennies and if we did ..but then what about the waste of tax payers’ money over the last decade when it would have clearly not have been necessary
The council has basically gritted the main roads, by doing this its meant that life carries on as near to normal as possible.. ie your shop gets restocked by the supplier but we have to cope on the local estate roads with snow… now just think if we had played this a different way this year say in the first few days we gritted everything (not possible due to lack of man power but we are being hypothetical here) we would have run out of salt/grit half way through the cold spell and after such a point we wouldn’t have gritted anything.. Therefore even your local shop that you could probably walk to that’s on a main road wouldn’t receive any goods and then soon people wouldn’t even be able to buy bread or milk…. It’s just a thought but I’d rather struggle on the local roads and have the main ones clear so life continues as best as possible…
We haven’t even considered pavements yet.. They aren’t like roads and they would need to be treated differently. If you were expecting the Authority to grit them, they would have to do it manually and by walking, not like the roads you couldn’t use “gritters”.. it would be totally un practical for them to do.. just think how long it would take to walk round your estate… or into town? Maybe how long it would take to walk into town, but going up and down every side street on the way…. You get the picture! Though I really don’t see why we try an move the onus back onto the resident to clear the pavement outside their house, it would bring back some community spirit and would save us all a bill at the end of the month! The sad thing is at the moment the law is an ass and discriminates against people who do this and actively makes them at fault should there be an accident. However did that get on the statute book I wonder!!
Anyhow all that aside, hopefully we will have a big enough rest bite to restock before we get any more cold weather, I suspect a bit more later this month or in Feb… and in all honesty I think we may be seeing a few more winters like this… I wouldn’t be surprised if we are on the way back to proper old style winters.. and that’s the reason I’m goanna be buying me a Ranger Rover (late 90s pre the govts wicked £400 retrospective car tax) soon (don’t worry I do have some off road intentions too…)… and if the weather gets worse over the next few years then a winch and some snow chains too… 02/12/2009Whilst travelling back from the superstore this afternoon, after buying lunch and heading back to the office, I was pulled for a random stop by the police... they were on a campaign to stop drink driving. Fair enough, though it did waste about 15 mins of my time.
I was surprised they were allowed to randomly stop people and demand a breath test without any suspicion (from watching those road wars progs on sky one they usually have to “smell” alcohol on you first) the office assured me that when they have these campaigns then it’s different! Fair enough though I might be interested enough to check this out.
So it got me thinking, putting my political hat on... ( I wished I had asked the officer... though I am sure I can ask the question through official channels later) how many people do they actually catch breaking the law this way, I could count at least six officers standing on the pavement, and there was probably at least one more in the van. I can’t actually believe that this could be the best possible use of the officer’s time. For a start it was the middle of the day, who’s drinking in the middle of the day!! Surely if they had to do these random (no doubt government initiated / driven by targets) campaign then you would do it at 5-7 am catch people who drank far too much the night before or sometime after 7pm when people actually go to the pub!!
But more importantly surely their time would be better spent on intelligent driven campaigns. I mean stopping someone randomly halfway down a dual carriageway, the % of people you stop coming out a pub is going to be statically low, where as parking sort of strategically outside a pub car park and pulling people who you see coming out would statistically give you a much better result! Or even better go back to good old fashioned policing if you see someone doing something that looks dodgy it probably is... what’s that called oh yeah gut instinct!! I’m sure the actual PCs on the ground miss this and loath all the bureaucratic interference.
But on the whole I am still uncomfortable with this method of policing as it targets the law abiding public, and doesn’t help with the perception that it’s easier to increase overall statistics by persecuting the regular guy for some civil wrongdoing, particularly the motorist, rather than focusing on real crime.
21/08/2008
Totally random post really, I have been fortunate enough to have lived in a detached house for all my living memory..
This evening I realised… my sisters were both out… so I have the house to myself, bearing in mind that it is sliding past midnight… I thought I would like to play some music.. so I am… The situation has come up several times in the last ten odd years… I remember a situation several years ago… and I do it periodically since, crank the music up.. then think crikey the neighbours must be able to hear it… so then pace around the outskirts of the house (garden) and realise that if you listen really really hard you may be able to hear something just about.. maybe the base line faintly… so therefore it your in another house with essentially the same again in acoustic dampening.. You won’t hear a thing at all..
The reason I bring it up… is when my friend comes round and I turn the amp on for the film we are watching he is always so conscious of the noise… who lived up until recently in semis.. & then my bro recently moved into a turn of the century terrace, has been talking late at night with a friend and that has carried to the next door!!
I guess I wish it was possible to just build lots and lots of detached houses.. I’m sure it would reduce neighbourly stress since we all from time to time need to sit down and crank the Sony up to ten and just resonate with the music. 12/08/2008Today I am annoyed with myself because I didn't notice the obvious problem and therefore solution. So it started today when decided to investigate why on my sky box, the vault and a handful of other channels breakup where as in other rooms on other boxes they don't.
I assumed that my box might be more sensitive to a good signal, and merely the dish was slightly miss-aligned... with this in mind I carted my Box and a TV out to the garden made up a quick sat cable to reach from the LNB to the Box and shimmied up on the roof to try and get a better signal / quality (remembering to take the card out the box first). I turned the box on and went straight to the Vault, and the picture was perfect... Ok it must be the cable run.. so I will try and get an even better signal here and it might work in my room... I did get a much better signal so the dish was miss-aligned, but on plunging it back in where it belongs the picture instantly started breaking up again... about 10 seconds of googleing later I read that DECT phones and WLANs can interfere since they all occupy the 2.4Ghz Frequency... This is where I feel really stupid... I know DECT phones and WLANs use 2.4Ghz and I also knew that the SKY frequency was the same... though I never put them together... I knew DECT and WLAN can interfere with each other...
So after moving the WLAN and DECT phone from their home right next to my SKY Box its all a-working properly...
funnily enough both the DECT phone and the WLAN are installed because I'm now a councillor... the Council paid to have the WLAN in, they won't let us use our own connection, for security reasons really but it does seem a bit of a waste of tax payers money... since I now have two WLANS in my house... I'm not about to get rid of my personal one... The DECT phone and line I bought and paid for to keep family stuff and council stuff separately... interestingly its the DECT phone that has the biggest effect on the SKY box...
The Vault is a cracking channel, plays all the top tunes from late 80s to late 90s... Now I can wander form room to room and hear the Vault in all its glory! 17/07/2008Well... since the times are hard and the belt is a tightening I have been looking for bargains on the supermarket shelf.... so naturally I have been straying a little further from the old world stuff I'm used to.. and glancing at the new world stuff.. and I have to say that there seems to be more discounts on the new world stuff (than old)... I have now dared for the first time in a long time started looking at the new world stuff.. and have picked up a few bottles... I have to say the difference is enormous; the best way to describe it is that the new world wines have a nasty taste of liquorice to them. And it spans across regions America and Australia, it also appears across grape varieties, I've had Australian Merlots' and American Cab Savs and they have this same distinctive taste.... I guess its back to the French and Italian stuff... 01/04/2008
Now... right now I'm hating BST, though next month I will be loving it.. Trouble is with us night owls, I'm writing this at midnight.. but it still feels like eleven.. and well now I get up at 6 something not seven something..its near impossible.. I'm sleepy the first hour at work..
Anyway The point is why can't we just run on summer time all year round.. who cares if its dark in the morning?? I don't like coming home from work in the dark and if clocks are running on summertime in the winter its going to be lighter at night.
Apparently during the war we ran on BST all year round and double summertime in the summer...
Hey ho just a though! 12/03/2008Firstly both the Welsh and the Scots have their own national anthem, but the English anthem is the same as the British one. Lets take the British anthem firsts. I don't feel that our current national anthem "God save the Queen" can be used as a anthem for all of Great Britain basically because of the verse which whilst dropped later stated "Rebellious Scots to crush" makes this an uncomfortable song to have as the national anthem. IMHO pomp and circumstance march number one is a much more suitable contender, the lyrics are more suitable to Britain and make reference to our glory days at the height of the empire. Apart from this I don't know who ever though God Save the Queen was a good tune it sounds awful has no umph to it. At the last night of the Proms we all look forward to Land of Hope and Glory it has that real feel good proud feeling and it to touches on our Christian heritage which I feel we are sadly loosing.
England deserves its own anthem and God Save the Queen just doesn't cut it for all the reasons above with the possible exception of the line about us Scots. Another argument for not having god save the queen is that probably about ¼ of the country are basically republican, I certainly used to be very republican but mellowed in the years (mainly as I can't come up with a better solution at present.. though I suspect a flawed solution might be better than the status quo once our majesty passes on and hands the head of state on to Charles.. a debate for another day). Since we have nabbed Pomp and Circumstance march number one for Britain that really does only leave one other track, which sounds as good on the football terraces as it does at the proms and that is Jerusalem, by William Blake and set to music by Elgar. It not only has that proud sounding tune that is necessary for a anthem but again makes good references to our heritage as a Christian country.
Let me know your thoughts Gordon. 14/02/2008Well it has to Be Saint Emilion as I have no more graves... so my woes on lack of selection is even worse than earlier thought... though I do have 4 different types of Saint Emilion in... (I guess it's no excuse!)
Today I have been enjoying the end of a good Saint Emilion, I then opened a Graves since I finally had a night in.. Though tonight of all nights that's probably a bad thing.... now I'd appreciate some help because I'm struggling to decide what is best... my friend at work had a really go saint Emilion on my recommendation (of the region not the particular bottle) and then in Tesco there was a Saint Clare Saint Emilion down to 6 quid from 12 and I have had it and liked this before so he bought it and didn't like it.. Fair enough, though I have had a couple of bottles since also, he said they were watery and I can see where he is coming from its not a real strong wine, but I also have had an amazing saint-Emilion (Artus des Moines) which my friend brought me back from France completely different to the Saint Clare.. I think he would like this one.... but this is half the problem... a very specific region can make quite different wines...
The other point I was going to bring up at this point is I have noticed when I go to meetings inevitably we drink wine.. Well why not otherwise would we still be going... but that's not the point.. the point is more to do with the origin of the wine and unfortunately it seems to be new world and worse than that mostly a Shiraz blend. I really don't get why this stuff is so well received when to old French stuff is much more refined and civilised in taste.
Anyhow.. time to open another Bordeaux.. now should it be Saint Emilion or a Graves??? (The bad point here is I only have the two in.. I need to go to France and stock up I think) 05/02/2008Again today someone decided that they should check my age whilst I bought 2 £13 bottles of French Bordeaux. Ok so I might look young but really do those young kids buy expensive bottles of French red? No they surely buy those awfully Alco pops.... which to be honest taste awful and well should they even exist???? Or some nasty value cider?
The whole attitude of this country is really the issue they don't have this problem in Europe (oh wait aren't we in Europe... well maybe we aren't so equal after all) I never get any grief when I'm in France they have no issue with me buying a bottle of wine...
I know its not the shops fault they get find too.. so they are over cautious but really its a sad state of affairs when we get like this.. I'm 27 now and about 1 and a bit years ago I noticed the increase in challenges before then I rarely got asked... I sometimes think there is a sub plot here to get people used to carrying proof of age.. like driving license so that we come to accept id cards... |
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