A419

Armistice Day - my offering

2011-11-11T20:53:00.000Z

Charles Sorley is not one of the better-know war poets. Born in Aberdeen, he was a pupil at Marlborough College and nearly all the small number of poems he left behind were about, or inspired by, the nearby downs - or the war, or both.

Many people say that Armistice and Remembrance days are used to glorify and glamourise militarism. That was never the intent, nor of course does it reflect the feelings of those who experienced the reality of war as Sorely did before
he was killed by a sniper at Loos at the age of 20.

This was one of several poems found amongst his belongings: 'When You See Millions'

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, 'They are dead.' Then add thereto,
'Yet many a better one has died before.'
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

A message from my mate Steve

2011-10-14T21:17:00.001+01:00

This is really just to post post the message below from a good mate of mine from a long way back - call him Steve. I'm a member of the Labour Party and like to think I care about my fellow human beings. Steve's words, and obvious distress, challenge me to do something on both counts. Maybe they will make you feel uncomfortable as well; well the language might - so be warned.

A bit of background first though. After school, Steve became an apprentice, served his time, studied and became a welder. He's bright and enjoyed studying so went on to get higher qualifications. He became a welding inspector, then went to work at Manchester Poly as a demonstrator - demonstrating welding to engineering students, helping with practical work etc. He started studying for an MSc.

When I first met him his sport was fishing. That was the only exercise he took - and it showed. He was a big lad - to the extent his XL boiler-suit was tight on him. Then he started jogging. Couldn't make it round the block on his first try, but he kept at it. A couple of years later he was a regular at fell races and raced all over the North of England. He started cycling as well - to help get fit and as a way of covering the six or so miles into work. On his way in one day, he was cycling past a side-turning when a car turned right - and drove straight through him. He spent a long time in hospital, had a string of operations on his legs (no more running), brain operations and the accident left him with quite serious heart problems. (Steve's a big reason I drive like a granny.)

Steve has been trying hard to put his life back together. He wants to work - and he's a determined little chap. Bit by bit he's been trying to get himself employable and into a job I'm sure he'd be good at and in which he could continue to help youngsters. It's easy to dismiss his comment below about Ed M as being unfair - but we Labour supporters shouldn't. Steve is a natural Labour voter. He obviously has no illusions about what the Cameron government is doing but equally obviously isn't gong to be knocking on doors asking people to consider voting Labour any time soon. Why not? Please read. It's about money, but not just - or even mainly - about money. It's about how our response to the economic crisis is striking straight at the heart of all that's best about working-class morality and character whilst throwing money at bankers and other gross-profit-takers and protecting them from the consequences of their actions.

OK - I said this was Steve's bit, so here we go:

Hi Pete I'm dreading next April when this bastard of a government puts me in the same class of some twat whose been dragged in front of a magistrate and given community hours as a punishment. Apparentley it'll be against the law to be ill for more than 12 months. Biggest set of twats I've ever known and Milliband with his sick smile whilst good guys are losing their jobs completely disheartens me about politicians. Think I'll rent some cheap house and open it up as a crack house because there will be a big increase this way when kids of today have no sound future, unless they become bankers/ investors and the government will bail them out and give them bonuses for dropping enormous bollocks with our money.

Got a letter this week from the DWP it outlines what will happen to my ESA come next April. With being made useless after 29yrs service I had to sign on. After a few months they realised that I was disabled and still undergoing treatments for leg and heart. This led to being transferred from Job Seekers to Employment Support Allowance. Under an agreement we drew a plan of action to return to work when my health allows. This plan was to study for the Teaching Assistant qualification whilst still attending hospital treatments. Now when the new guidelines go through parliament at the end of this year. Anybody whose been drawing ESA for a year come next April will have this support STOPPED. So this leaves me following an approved plan for return to work without any financial support. The voluntary work I've done at the school which strengthens my knowledge of the work involved becomes no more than work in the Community. i.e the tie up with a convicted criminal. The school have said that they'd love to offer me a position on completion of my studies but they are in the same boat and can't afford a new member of staff. (This ConDem crew) ... They'd have all of us working for sweet F.A. in the community, opening libraries, swimming pools and teaching, as long as it doesn't affect the yearly bonuses for the bankers who are vital to this country in keeping us in shitesville.

Flow Sweet River Flow

2011-10-02T13:20:00.003+01:00

Having run (ok - shuffled) 3 or 4 miles round a couple of lakes in the morning it became important to find somewhere cool and shady to walk in the afternoon. This is the Thames just upstream from the village of Ashton Keynes and as you can see the trees mostly still have their leaves and provided enough shade to make the pith helmet unnecessary. I can't walk this stretch without thinking of Ewan Macoll's song - click on the title for link to a version by Christie Moore, excellent on his own, but do check out the other personnel as well!

The sweet Thames wasn't flowing much though as you can see. For most of this stretch you can walk across and end up with your boots covered in dust - and this is 8 or 9 miles downstream from the source, upstream it's barely distinguishable from the fields it flows through in most places. Not sure why that is, we haven't had a lot of rain for sure, but maybe it's also to do with the gravel pits being dug out on either side. Along here in winter the river banks are about the only dry land with the river one side and lakes the other. Increased water extraction for growing local populations is probably a bigger factor though, Swindon pumps it's water from underground not far from here and most downstream cities take some of their water at least from the Thames. Swindon is also distinguished by having the first sewage works to empty into the river, so - over to you Oxford, Reading, London ... (I'm told that's too much information.) (Also that it accounts for the taste of Southern beer.)

In the words of another song: "Roll on Big Brown River".

Trautmann, Post War Britain and "Be ye the men your fathers were?"

2011-09-30T15:04:00.000+01:00

Reading Alan Rowlands' biography of Bert Trautmann, Man City's goalkeeper and their big star when I was in short pants in the Children's Enclosure at Maine Road. I still call myself a City fan, though I've seen more Swindon games than ever I did City's, so that's one reason for picking this book. More though, Trautmann's life was interesting to say the least: German paratrooper in WWII; fought on the Eastern and Western fronts; captured, POW, internment camp in England etc - also I thought the book would remind me of the bit of the North I grew up in - so, OK, a nostalgia trip. What I didn't expect at all was how much Trautmann's description of England and the English (British) in the immediate post-war years throws up stark (and unflattering) contrasts with today.

He was apparently captured by the British within minutes of escaping from the Americans. He dived over a hedge and almost landed on top of a surprised Tommy having a pee, whereupon he heard his first English English: "Hello Fritz - fancy a cuppa?". Well - it's a good story. Much more revealing though is the first impressions of the German POWs as they looked out at England from the train taking them to their camp. Suppressed laughter, ridicule at the tiny shabby houses the British working-class lived in, the poor city centres, old fashioned transport and machinery everywhere. They couldn't believe how such a backward nation could have stood so long, and fought so well against a modern country like Germany. But the big surprise - to them and to me - was their treatment in the POW camps and beyond.

Trautmann describes his first Christmas in England, how invitations came from local families for the German prisoners to spend Christmas day with them and he and another POW called Egon accepted the hospitality of the Staniforth's (who's daughter Egon promptly fell in love with and later married). This was Christmas 1946. 1946! With hundreds of thousands of people grieving for fathers, brothers, husbands, wives and children killed by German action; with 500,000 houses unfit for habitation because of German bombing; with Britain's treasure all spent on the war; with men and women working 50 and 60 hour weeks using ancient machinery in factories, trying to rebuild their country and their lives. With all this, ordinary people could not only spare a thought for German soldiers missing Christmas with their own loved ones, but do something very practical about it. Poor people, spending precious time, money and energy to take very deliberate and personal action to try alleviate a fellow human being's misery - no matter that human being was trying to kill British people and destroy their country only a year ago. Why? Compassion? Morality? Instinct? Northern good-nature? War-weariness and a desire to move on? All these and more no doubt, but none the less amazing to me - and more so to Trautmann who says:

"It was very difficult for us to understand. Here we were, POWs in a country that was still under severe rationing, and yet every man received the same amount of rations as the civilian population. We had the same amount of meat, eggs and other basics, our treatment by the British was to our minds unbelievable."

And of course that same mind-set, morality and desire to put the past away and build a different, better future, lead to the building of the post-war council estates - replacing at least some of the hovels that Trautmann saw with well-built housing, mostly with a patch of garden, hot running water and indoor toilets. The NHS of course; internationally the UN and Bretton Woods. All requiring being prepared to sacrifice the personal for the wider good, choosing the long-term over the immediate; being prepared to put others before ourselves and taking compassion as a given. And daring to believe the future could be better - if we were prepared to make some sacrifices in the present.

"Be ye the men your fathers were?" No. We're not.

Cotswold Water Park ... and the ugly

2011-09-10T14:03:00.001+01:00

I've tried, very briefly and therefore inadequately, to say what I think is good about the Waterpark, and what is bad about it. One final poke at Watermark, before I move on to the ugly - Private Eye reports that further down the Spine Road Watermark, having applied for permission to infill - to stabilise the banks of a lake as I understand it - have grossly exceded the area they had permission for at Lake 31 . But enough of Watermark. There's more.

On the opposite side of the Spine Road from Keynes Park and the above lake is the Lower Mill estate. There was a lot of fuss in the national papers - well the Guardian a few years back when Jeremy Paxton announced he was releasing beavers into a lake on the Lower Mill estate he'd just bought - oh, and incidentally building 600 holiday homes next to the lake for people who wanted to see the beavers (and could afford the prices). He makes much of the work done to improve local habitats and talks of creating a nature reserve. For example in the Guardian piece above he says:

"We've been able to attract 11 pairs of breeding nightingales, we've got two families of otters. We've just hatched five barn owls, before that four tawny owls. We've got 14 roe deer, the largest bat project in the country, the largest housemartin project in country, breeding kingfishers, grebes, ringed plovers, oystercatchers, egrets and the bittern, which is Britain's rarest breeding bird."

Well - just to be clear - all the species mentioned in that quote were there before Jeremy Paxton arrived on the scene (see Wiltshire Web as an example or just Google away. (And the bitterns especially were there before, but have still never bred - they're visitors.)

He also says he has attracted "cutting-edge" architects to the Cotswold countryside.

Well, if this is cutting edge architecture, all I can say is that the architects' previous commissions must have been exclusively in the fields of middle-Eastern refugee camps and pigeon lofts. These places fit in with the pylons - but not with anything else in the Cotswolds I think.

Incidentally, sorry about the very bad photo. This is partly due to the fact that I'm a very bad photographer, but another factor is that the development is on the far bank of a lake that the estate discourages access to. This shot was from the nearby Thames Path.

Because as Miranda says, not only is the architecture inappropriate, but the signage is definitely off-putting - misleadingly so - and I'm sure that's deliberate. The housing development she mentions here is this Lower Mill housing estate:

"We hadn’t been to Lake 57 before. Access is along a road where some exclusive (and extremely ugly) houses have been built. The housing development looks like Canary Wharf has been transplanted into the Cotswolds, all that shiny steel is so inappropriate and hard on the eye. Plus they are rather heavy on the “Private Keep Out” signs. One of these signs is placed at the beginning of the road. It is clearly meant to be discouraging. It states that down the lane is “Private Property” and gives the impression that the road only leads to the housing development but there is also a small “Thames Path” sign too so we followed that."

I would also add that they're heavy on the high fences and hedgerows, blocking views over the lakes and bearing in mind that:

‘the area should become a water park serving the interests of aquatic
sportsmen, naturalists and others who wish to enjoy in a general way
a stretch of inland water’.

(see Wiltshire CC's document on the setting up of the Water Park.)

I don't see how how large holiday villages such as this, that go out of their way to exclude and discourage visitors can possibly be appropriate development - especially when they include a chuffing $382,000 kennel

Cotswold Water Park - the good bits

2011-09-09T11:05:00.001+01:00

What makes the Water Park special? Well, the parts owned by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust are generally delightful to walk and important scientifically and environmentally. One place I visit whenever I can is Clattinger Farm

According to the Trust:

Its lovely richness as a wildlife habitat is a lasting tribute to its previous owners, who farmed the land traditionally and did not use any artificial fertilisers. Today, Clattinger is considered the finest remaining example of enclosed lowland grassland in the UK, and is of international importance for its hay meadow wildflowers.

So, nationally important for very good reasons. This is a snap of a burnt orchid - the county flower of Wiltshire and somewhat rare - growing in one of the meadows at Clattinger. In May and June the fields there are full of orchids and with meadow-plants few of which I can name - to my shame, I guess, but on the other hand we maybe worry too much about being scientific and knowing and naming and too little about enjoying and being.

For me, having a place to be out and about with the kids and dogs (on leads), out in real countryside, in a place that makes you feel welcome - which the Trust's fields do - is one of the great things the Waterpark provides. At last the parts not fenced off for holiday homes do.

Waterpark Watermark

2011-09-08T20:27:00.009+01:00

The Cotswold Water Park is currently looked after by the Waterpark Trust - lots of links and background on the site, but briefly, it comprises the largest expanse of inland water in England - larger than the Broads - formed as a result of gravel extraction. It's situated close to Cirencester, "the Capital of the Cotswolds" and ten or so miles from Swindon along the A419 and straddling the border between Wilshire and Gloucestershire.

It has been in the news recently, most notably because of the imprisonment of Dennis Grant, CEO of the Waterpark Society, for misappropriating £660,000 and for the death of Nick Hanson, Finance Director, who died whilst police investigations were underway - more on this from BBC here

The Waterpark Society was originally set up by Wilts, Glos and other LAs. According to this document from Wiltshire Council with the intention that:

‘the area should become a water park serving the interests of aquatic
sportsmen, naturalists and others who wish to enjoy in a general way
a stretch of inland water’.

And until the last 10 years or so, that's petty much what it was. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust (Visit their site! Give them money!) in particualar has made some brilliant purchases - Clattinger Farm in particular - see their list of wildlife reserves It was a place for walking, fishing, sailing and birdwatching - quiet away from the A419 and a major winter waterfowl refuge.

Then things started to change. Holiday homes were built at one lake, then another, and another until now there are hundreds of them. Each lake they are built on becomes a gated community, with no public access. Dennis Grant was obviously a key player in this change and Cotswold Lakes blog has plenty of background to the Dennis Grant affair; knock-on losses to the Waterpark Society (£1.5M) and links to recent news.

Obviously he and his associates had a different view of what the Waterpark Society was there for. Three years ago, he was suggesting an Alton Towers - or rather three mini Alton Towers as a suitable development, with a "wildlife corridor" that crosses the A419 - a busy trunk road linking the M4 and M5. The Society's logo to be changed to a flat hedgehog, presumably.

If you're bored of reading, have a brew and watch this short youtube video on the involvement of local Conservative councillors with profitable business links to the Waterpark Society and the impact of Watermark's developments.

The change is, if anything, accelerating and access being lost at a faster and faster rate. A current, very sad, example is Lake 12, which has been run by Gloucestershire County Council as an outdoor pursuits centre for many years and is used by sailing and canoeing clubs from Swindon as well as Gloucestershire schools and youth organisations. Exactly the kind of thing, I would say, that the Waterpark Society was set up to encourage and protect. Now though, it is up for sale, and an organisation, the Lake 12 Partnership , has been hurriedly set up to try to buy the lake and preserve it in it's present use.

Much of the building at the Eastern end of the Waterpark West (along the Spineroad from the A419) has been carried out by a compant called Watermark - see Page 18 here for background on Max Thomas, owner of Watermark (in its various forms).

As well as building, Watermark lease the old Keynes Country Park. As I understood Private Eye, this was for a peppercorn rent - but I think I've go that wrong because according to the Wilts & Glos Standard Watermark payed thousands for the lease but had pulled out in Nov last year - claiming that doing so meant the Society paying Watermark £300,000. However, they're still there according to all the signs at the entrance, where they now charge for entry even if you're walking.Last year a teenage girl drowned at the beach at Keynes Park - now run by Watermark - after warnings about safety at the park.

More tomorrow ...

Cotswold Water Park

2011-03-20T21:00:00.000Z

A couple of snaps from my day out in the Cotswold Water Park (a dozen miles up the A419 from Swindon).
The Mute Swan is the world's largest flying waterfowl. If there were just a handful left in the world, or if they were only found in some exotic faraway land I'm sure we'd appreciate them more. They're always impressive close up though - especially a male, like this one, bigging himself up and churning up the water behind him as he sees off intruders - a couple of Canada Geese in this case, just disappeared stage right.
He's in aggressive/protective mode because his significant other is already on their nest and looking distinctly broody. Swans pair for life of course, and this pair have been nesting in the same spot for the last five or six years at least - next to a busyish road with a children's playground on the other side and feet away from an all-weather soccer pitch. They cope well though, raising eight young a couple of years ago.

This is a lousy shot from bright sunlight into a dark barn. In fact the maternity wing at Lower Moor Farm - a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve. Should you be in the area, and that way inclined, Lower Moor is a good place to park and explore. I spent a couple of hours wandering from there to the adjoining Clatinger Farm (also WWT) where these mums-to-be and their offspring will soon be out in the fields. On the way I saw my first butterflies of the year - a peacock and then three or four brimstones. A couple of hours walk in land managed with wildlife in mind - and it won't cost you a penny, not even for parking.

My Fresh Idea on lifelong learning

2011-02-13T12:06:00.000Z

I posted this to Labour's "Fresh Ideas" site- but it wouldn't take it because of "inappropriate words". Buggered if I can see any inappropriate words in this:

Lifelong learning

Education is expensive and many youngsters leave school under-qualified and with a negative view of their time at school. Most of us will change, or want to change, our work over our lifetimes. People who have been out of the workforce will want to return. And our country needs us to be adaptable and innovative in our work - and the present way we teach often puts up insurmountable barriers for people trying to improve their education.

My suggestion is simply to split assessment from learning - which opens the door to a completely different approach to learning without, as I see it, any massive reorganisation or additional physical or human resources.

1.Schools and colleges provide examination facilities and mark coursework.

2.Learning is a much more diffuse process making heavy use of material on the Web and may not involve formal teaching at all.
3. Libraries could be one place for learning to take place via PCs and written material. Library staff could provide guidance and advice on material, rooms could be set aside for mentoring (below).
3. Students may have a mentor to help identify realistic targets and learning materials, motivate and advise - but not all will. Meetings with the mentor will be intensive and very small group or 1-1 say one hour a week/every other week or so.
4. Students pay to be assessed. Learning materials are free. Mentoring could be free for (say) young unemployed; subsidised for others.
5.Students can take as long as they want to get their qualification, suspending or reducing learning if they have work or other commitments. Why do we care where someone learned their skills and gained their knowledge or how long it took them?

We have the physical resources and the people here-and-now to do all of the above if we wanted. In the Open University we have a world-leading institution with many years experience in teaching and assessing in a very similar "hands-off" way. The institutional change we need is to get away from a pattern of learning and qualifying that was established in the 19th century.

Who's teaching COBOL these days?

2011-01-20T22:30:00.001Z

El Reg reports on Micro Focus' latest COBOL offering, quoting MF as saying:

Despite the language being over 50 years old, there still exist more than 200 billion lines of COBOL code with five billion lines added to live systems each year ...
... more transactions are processed by COBOL applications than there are Google searches made each day.

Well MF have an interest in bigging the language up - but it's still definitely huge and growing and it still runs a lot of big business-critical systems and there're still a lot of COBOL programmers needed . And I'd take a bet that there's not a University or College anywhere in the UK teaching it as a standard part of any Computing/Software Engineering/IT course.

And things seem pretty much the same in the US, judging by this interview with Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan. He says:

Infosys’s clients still require ... things such as COBOL and CICS and other computer programs of the mainframe era.
“American engineers who know those technologies are retiring and it's not as much a part of the U.S. engineering curriculum,” which is caught up with technologies of the Internet ...

And that gives a clue to one place where it is being taught Big Time - India.

Indian companies like Infosys take good graduates, train them up in skills such as COBOL - which they can see a market for in the developed world even though local entrepreneurs can't - and make good money on a big scale. Now you may say that's because costs are lower in India than the UK/USA and I'd agree up to a point. But I'd still guess that UK firms employing these COBOL developers are paying something in the high teens of pounds per hour off-shore and upwards of 50 pounds per hour on-shore. And I've taught on 2-year courses that turned out people with equivalent practical skills who proved they were perfectly capable of doing this kind of work. Many of the students were 16 year-olds with OK but not execeptional GCSEs, some were adults returning to work, coming out of the forces ... And they could and did do this stuff. And their equivalents today would grab an employers arm off for significantly less than they're prepared to pay someone to do the work off-shore in India.

I don't see how this can make economic sense...

Are people using painkillers to self-medicate against depression?

2011-01-18T23:39:00.000Z

Letter to the New Scientist in response to an article by Linda Geddes linking inflamatory responses with depression:

In her article "Happiness is catching" (15/1/11) Linda Geddes reports on "...growing evidence that cytokines associated with inflamation can cause depression."

Incidence of depression is, of course, high and growing in Western societies, where there is also concern over levels of painkiller consumption. Might these three phenomenon be linked - so what we are seeing is large-scale self-medication with over-the-counter non-steroidal anti-inflamatory drugs ( NSAIDS ) against depression? Maybe NSAIDS are being used, not so much for mood enhancement as mood normalisation, by suppressing inflamatory reaction to some environmental factor (stress possibly?) that in turn triggers depression.

Quantum Diaries ... CERN has a blog

2011-01-12T21:23:00.000Z

Who CERN?

The story begins in 1949 when the French Nobel Prize winner Louis de Broglie first suggested that Europe could pool its resources, using the universal language of science to create a centre of excellence for basic research in physics and a place where the countries of Europe could work together to peaceable ends. In 1952, the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire, CERN, was founded with the single objective of establishing such a place. Two years later, CERN had done its job and gave way to the European Organization for Nuclear Research, but by then the acronym had stuck ...

and why?

Today, we do very little nuclear research and our main field of endeavour is particle physics: studying the tiniest constituents of nature in a bid to understand some of the biggest questions around, like how the universe evolved, what gives particles mass, and what the unseen 95% of the universe is made of.

Rephrase that last bit and it's saying that no-one has yet observed the extra 95% of matter that has to be there according to current theory and that no-one knows what mass is. So there's plenty of work to be done.

Along the way, they get some neat images as well ...

Other than a brick in the wall?

2010-12-27T14:06:00.008Z

From a Princeton University article on Learning and Development in a Management/HR context:

We rely on the 70/20/10 formula that describes how learning occurs:
    * 70% from real life and on-the-job experiences, tasks and problem solving. This is the most important aspect of any learning and development plan.
    * 20% from feedback and from observing and working with role models.
    * 10% from formal training.

And from this article on what makes a good innovator from FastCompany
'...innovators "connect the dots"; they associate experiences and facts that others keep separate. The well-worn illustration of this is Steve Jobs connecting a calligraphy class he took in college with computers to make the Mac font more beautiful.'
'...innovators try things just to see if they work while others want to know if they will work before they try them.'
'...innovators are curious, and they ask questions not just because they are after something but because they enjoy the journey of discovery.'
'...innovators are great networkers and they network without a precise goal in mind. They like meeting and talking to new people with opposing views ...'

All of which suggests that learning is something we do, not something we have done to us. Also that the most effective learning is a lot like play and often involves other people who are not teachers in any formal sense.

And none of which fits easily with a view of learning as passing exams and demonstrating that learning objectives have been met.

Playing the film backwards

2010-04-19T21:09:00.002+01:00

A couple of miles down the Spine Road from the A419, a mile along a single-track road, over a gate and into this field at Clattinger Farm with its large patches of snakeshead fritilleries and other spring flowers. Once fritillaries were a common flower in pastures all along the Thames and indeed over much of Southern England. They're nationally scarce now because of changes in agricultural practices, though local authorities are reintroducing them on roadsides and suchlike. Which is good.

But these are natives growing in the meadows that make this farm not just nationally, but internationally important. In the same family for generations, the Clattingers resisted selling their land for gravel extraction and have never used fertilisers or weedkillers or pesticides. It's because of that, and the fact they cut the grass just once and late that the fritillaries are still here - and they will soon be followed by orchids. The farm is now owned by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, a precious time capsule for botanists, agriculturists, lecturers, lispers, losels and lob-lolly men. On this day it was busy, three other people briefly visible at the far side of the field - but it was a sunny weekend.

No planes flying either because of the hot ash from Iceland and I hadn't realised how habituated I'd become to their sound, military planes round here; big jets from the USAF base at Fairford and Hercules transports from Lyneham. Lyneham through which our dead from Afghanistan are repatriated.

All of which brought to mind Michael Tanner's "Retrospect":

On the day they played the film backwards,
bombs and their victims reassembled
green mountains grew out of Coca-Cola cans
forests grew out of the Sunday Supplements
whole landscapes out of cars.
And the soundtrack grew so quiet
you had to begin to listen.

Mandela, Swindon and the vagaries of history

2010-02-11T22:44:00.003Z

Today is the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. The local paper has an interview with Baron Joffe of Liddington: a local now, Joel Joffe is S African born and was a lawyer who represented Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial. The trial became, at the insistence of the defendents, a political showpiece rather than an attempt to save themselves from imprisonment or death. It was of course front-page news around the world and dramatically reminded the world what was going on under the apartheid regime in S Africa. Joel Joffe was obviously a key player in that and gets acknowledged as such in Mandela's autobiography, but it was someone else that Desmond Tutu singled out:

"If you could say that anybody single-handedly made apartheid a world issue then that person was Trevor Huddleston"

Trevor Huddleston was a member of an Anglican religious order and served as curate at St Mark's in Swindon's "Railway Village" before moving to Sophiatown in SA, where he stood up (literally) against police, thugs and politicians in defence of the people in the huge shanty-town he was serving. He went on to become Archbishop of Mauritius and the Indian Ocean - surely one of the larger sees? (sorry) - and on his death, Nelson Mandela gave a speech at his memorial service in which he referred to "... the vagaries of history [that] brought him to our land".

Indeed so - and took a young lawyer from Africa to become a Peer of the Realm in Wiltshire, where from his home he could, if he so wished, take a pleasant walk along the Ridgeway to the White Horse of the White Horse Vale - about which GK Chesterton wrote his epic ballad, including the words "I bring you naught for your comfort ...". "Naught For Your Comfort" was the title of Huddleston's briefly famous (or notorious) book that did so much to rouse the consciences of, especially, the English middle classes, by describing the horrors and routine humiliations of daily life under apartheid.

Update 2/12/2011 Having found a broken link (to the ANC site) I went Googling for a replacement. In doing that, I got side-tracked several times (as one does) and found this small story about Huddleston, a very sick child - and a trumpet. And I left with a little lump in my throat, a smile on my face and a feeling that, yeah - people can be pretty wonderful and yeah, maybe miracles do happen.

Wintertime in the Waterpark

2009-12-24T18:25:00.002Z

North up the A419 to (confusingly) South Cerney. A flying visit showed most of the smaller lakes completely frozen, on one of the larger ones there were Shoveler and Tufted duck, Black Headed gulls and coot. A heron and an Egret working the stream nearby, and on the footpath between the stream and the lake - this chap (or chapess, I'm not good on foxes). Quite tame, came towards me quite fearlessly, maybe looking for food.

Merry Christmas all.

Remembrance Day

2009-11-10T23:04:00.002Z

My contribution.

Charles Sorley was a pupil at Marlborough College, 5 or 6 miles from the Southern end of the A419. He walked, ran and reflected on the Downs as many Swindonians still do today.
He was killed by a sniper at Loos at the age of 20, and this was one of several poems found amongst his belongings - When You See Millions

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, 'They are dead.' Then add thereto,
'Yet many a better one has died before.'
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Open University's iSpot website identifies moth never seen before in UK

2009-10-14T19:47:00.002+01:00

Anyone can post pictures of wildlife or plants they've seen on the OU's iSpot website. If you don't know what you've found you can ask an expert. In this case, somebody did just that on behalf of their 6 year old and the answer was - a moth that had never been seen in this country before.

The site is funded from the National Lottery BTW.

What God thinks about money

2009-09-16T22:18:00.004+01:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury ("The ABC" to we Anglicans), speaking again about bankers - their lack of remorse for what they have so recently done, their greed, failure to recognise their failings - and their rapid return to top-level remuneration whilst poorer working folk pay for their unprecedented incompetences speaks of:

the... diffused resentment, that people are somehow getting away with a culture in which the connection between the worth of what you do and the reward you get becomes more obscure.

Or, as my gran used to say:

You can tell what God thinks about money when you loook at the kind of people he gives it to.

Bones To The Stones

2009-08-14T18:38:00.007+01:00

I've been to a couple of the local breakdance competitions - this one was Bones To The Stones in beautiful downtown Swindon. With dancers and supporters coming from along the M4 and down the old A419 from Cheltenham (they have some good dancers there).

It was a good scene. Firstly I've never seen a friendlier competitive event - with competitors genuinely supporting and applauding each other's efforts.

The specatators were interesting too ...

Breakdancing attracts young (teens/early 20s) males and their partners, mates mates' partners from all backgrounds. I don't remember seeing such a racial mix around Swindon in such a small group. Like I said - marvellous atmosphere. Not a harsh word: lots of laughs, cheers, applause not a negative in sight.

Thing is as well - it's all organised by the breakers themselves - they know each other, have contacts with other groups in other towns, they're there because they want to be. All they need is to be given a bit of space (little-used bit of shopping mal floor by the Big Screen in this case. They do their own organising.

Good dancing too (scares the wotsit out of me mind).

Grammar Schools

2009-07-23T21:05:00.006+01:00

Chris Dillow has a posting on Stumbling and Mumbling about Grammar Schools. There's some good links and I guess the general theme is that there are rsearch findings for and against but few or none finding dramatic differences.

I went to a Grammar School in Manchester in the 1950s. A couple of years back I met up with someone I'd known since I was 5. We were at his house and he brought out the old School Photo Album from our primary school days. We showed the kids us in short pants, reminisced a bit and followed our younger selves through 6 years.

The first photo was a reception class - huge, the picture filled with toothy kids faces. Three or four months later the reception class split into 4 streams. Ours was the 'top' stream. The smallest. He asked if I noticed anything significant about the kids in our class. I'd looked at the same photos lots of times and yes - two things seemed to mark us out. One - we were better dressed. Now you have to remember, this was Manchester - and not the posh end - but we were, by and large better dressed. My socks were darned, but I didn't have many visible patches on my clothes. Kids who ended up in the lower grades generally did have patched clothes, obvious hand-me-downs and so on. The second difference I noticed was that we were taller as a group and the difference was especially noticeable between top and bottom classes. So those were two things I'd noticed - and reflected on from time to time.

My old mate though had gone on to become an academic. He listened to me, nodded, and then pointed out the obvious thing. So obvious I'd never even given it a thought - the same group of kids stayed together almost intact all the way through the school. None joined the class: one, two, three maybe, left for a 'lower' class. One did so and came back the next year (my mate). Next we went through the final-year photo and worked out where we'd all ended up. Grammar school - almost every one of us. One or two we couldn't be sure about. None we could say definitely went to the local Secondary Modern.

Chris Dillow says of one of his sources:

Atkinson, Gregg and McConnell estimate that 11-year-olds of high ability who are so poor that they are eligible for free school meals are only half as likely to get into grammar schools as those who aren’t eligible for them.

Know what I think? They had no chance from the day they walked into their primary school. Those like me who 'passed the eleven plus' were picked out, put in small classes and coached to pass. The others weren't. If my experience is at all typical - and I'd bet it is - then I reckon selection for Grammar School happens not at 11+, but at 5. And it's done by the primary school teachers.

Could be some worthwhile research out there around that sort of thing I guess.

Web of words ...

2009-06-22T21:00:00.002+01:00

Tim Bray is usually worth listening to on things Webby issues (see blogroll "Ongoing" ). Generally he's thought about such things before he writes and he knows whereof he speaks. Today, he says:

The tree’s branches are real but only there to support the leaves. The sizzle is enticing but the steak is why you sit down. The eye candy is cool, but the Web is really about words, and mostly written words at that.

Full article here

Orchids on the tip

2009-06-15T22:29:00.003+01:00

Meanwhile, earlier today at the Swindon end of the A419 a group of bee orchids to go with the common spotted ones at Clattinger Farm below. Clattinger's orchids are, of course, growing on their ancestral land - not so these. Bee orchids (I think) like disturbed ground. These are on a thin soil cap on top of an old tip between Nationwide and Intel and a short walk from Swindon's Old Town. So, one way or another, a recently introduced species I guess.

Clattinger Farm

2009-06-12T22:52:00.009+01:00

May and early June is the time to visit Clattinger Farm. According to the Wiltshi re Wildlife Trust ...it is considered the finest remaining example of enclosed lowland grassland in the UK and is of international importance for its hay meadow wildflowers.

I'm sure they're right. And yet farms like this were the norm when I was a lad on the outskirts of Manchester. The local farmer used to let us kids play in his meadows after they'd cut the hay - and encouraged us to chuck it about. He said we helped dry it out. Well, I hope we did, but since then I've wonderd if he didn't just like to see bunches of kids rolling and squealing about on his land like so many escaped piglets.

He sold our mums milk as well, delivered from a horse-drawn float. And there's a very useful thing I remember it doing that a lorry or a van can't: as the farmer's lad picked a couple of handfuls of bottles from the float and clanked them down on the doorsteps, the horse would keep pace with him, but a little in front, and stop at the next customer's house ready for him grabbing another couple of deliveries.

Another useful thing horses can do that vans can't, of course, is have little horses.

That was then and this was a couple of weeks ago. With this years little Belted Galloways coming along nicely. Munching their way through orchids and suchlike. The place is a botanical wonderland no doubt, but on a sunny June day, what sane man wouldn't want to just lie in the grass and and remind himself that he belongs here just as much as the flowers and insects and birds; with the smells of land and animals and blossoms from the hedgerows? "I have arrived, I am home, in the here and the now ..." (And I know that is meant to apply to wherever one may find oneself - like a city street or at work. But this day 'here' was was especially 'home'.) And it was loverly.

Easter, South Cerney

2009-04-14T00:00:00.007+01:00

Down at the posh end of the A419 for Easter. To All Hallows in South Cerney for Sung Eucharist - a neat little village with a neat little village church. The church is Norman, a gem and amazingly unimproved. (They did put a steeple on top of the tower at one time - but it fell off.)

The church was near enough full with, I guess, a little over a hundred people. The singing was good, even from the congregation - as befits a parish that includes Down Ampney.

Not a joyful service for me I must admit, but that was a personal thing. I noticed someone a couple of pews in front put a comforting hand on a shoulder - and there were a few tears closer to. The big festivals still mark out the year for many people and we can't help thinking of those who were there last time - but never will be again.

Sundown

2009-04-13T23:45:00.002+01:00

Easter Saturday in the Water Park. I was a little late getting back from a walk and sundown overtook me as I walked by this lake. I have no word for the feeling that I think everyone has as the world slows and stills just before the Sun disappears - something somewhere between melancholy and awe I think.
A recognition maybe that we miss so much by letting ourselves get caught in the world's traffic - and the sure knowledge that after one particular sunset, we will see no more.

A-hunting we will go ...

2009-04-06T20:26:00.002+01:00

The Open U's conducting a survey and needs volunteers willing to go eyeball-to-eyeball with a banded snail in order to further understanding of natural selection - and possibly global warming.

Details here on how to join, downloadable instructions with free snail identification chart - and video footage from a live snail hunt to whet your appetite.

The Jewel in the Crown of the A419

2009-04-06T19:46:00.004+01:00

Cricklade's North Meadow is the Jewel in the Crown of the A419 and just 5 or 6 miles from Swindon . For reasons largely to do with mediaeval law North Meadow has never been intensively farmed, As a result, it's stayed as 'unimproved grassland' - 'unimproved' in this sense meaning full of wild flowers. It's most famous for the half million snakes-head fritillaries that flower around Easter each year. These are snaps of some of the few in bloom on Sunday - in 2 or 3 weeks the field will be full I should think.

Spring is springing

2009-03-27T09:29:00.004Z

Out on the Ridgeway with the dogs a couple of weeks ago. This is just a couple of miles out of Swindon and about 400 feet up, but there's a great sense of solitude. These were the only people we met all the time we were out. I guessed they were a dad (on the bike) and his daughter out riding.

When I first came to Swindon, I was told about Wiltshire's "Big Skies" and I thought of the Pennines that I used to walk and had a little smile to myself. But it's true, the skies are big round here. I think it's the more-or less unbroken view to the horizon through 360 degrees. When you're in hills or mountains the sky stops at the next hill, hereabouts it just goes on.

These wood anemones are my favourite spring flowers I think. Not as showy or early as snowdrops, but a proper sort of flower. And when they show, you know that our bit of the planet is starting to turn itself towards the sun more and spring is springing.

This snap was in Croft Copse behind Intel and Nationwide and just a couple of hundred yards from Swindon's Old Town. Natural spaces in towns are as important as open country - for humans anyway.

Diego Garcia

2009-01-23T22:11:00.002Z

The Times has an article by Frank Pope - a biologist and diver with seemingly good credentials describing biodiversity in the Chagos Islands. He identifies the presence of a military base as being instrumental in preserving the natural environment there, by restricting human access. He is concerned at the prospect of allowing the return of some of the native inhabitants

The conditions that have created this resilience and diversity are threatened by developers. Although most descendants of those evicted in 1965 appear reluctant to return, some are being encouraged to by people wishing to promote resettlement of the outlying islands as resorts.

So, the inhabitants don't really want to go back, but they are being pressured in to it by "developers".

The island in question is Diego Garcia. The islanders were forcibly evicted by the British in the 1960s to create a forward base for the USA. They have won their case for repatriation in the High Court and in the Appeal Court. They lost on government appeal to the House of Lords just before Christmas. They said they would take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. Perhaps that case will be coming up soon.

The government makes no pretence that their forced removal was just:

[Foreign Secretary David Milliband at the HofL appeal] said: "It is appropriate on this day that I should repeat the Government's regret at the way the resettlement of the Chagossians was carried out in the 1960s and 1970s and at the hardship that followed for some of them.
"We do not seek to justify those actions and do not seek to excuse the conduct of an earlier generation."
(Times again.)

Diego Garcia was used as a base for the bombing of both Iraq and Afghanistan. So was RAF Fairford - another nominally British USAF Forward Base, just a couple of miles North and East of the A419.

Pictures from Diego Garcia here.

Sorley and the Downs

2009-01-13T21:11:00.002Z

I've just discovered Sorley - or rather discovered some of the rest of Sorley. I knew only his Song of the Ungirt Runners with its:

And the wave howls to the skies.

The winds arise and strike it

And scatter it like sand,

And we run because we like it

Through the broad bright land.

(Often mis-quoted as " ... we run because we want to ..".)
I have run on his broad bright land (the Marlborough Downs) and it is indeed wonderful running country. Try to find an excuse to run the Ridgeway around Avebury, 4 or 5 miles South of the M4 Junction 15 (opposite exit from the A419). Park in Avebury (cheap) or a layby (free) and head upwards. Soon you'll find yourself floating between the world of men and the great wide sky, running on short, springy turf past artefacts made by men dead for hundreds and thousands of years by the time Romans came. Sorley's poem is spoiled for me, however, by:

The tempest strips the trees
And does not leave them warm.

It's that "Does not leave them warm". That clunks for me. I wait for it like a bum note on the Town Hall clock. But there aren't too many poems about running and he was 18 I guess when he wrote that, so easy to forgive. He was dead at 20. Killed by a sniper's bullet at the battle of Loos.

In between, he wrote some war poetry. Graves, apparently (in Goodbye to All That), ranked him with Owen. He stands alongside Owen and Sassoon - but has a different feel altogether and made me reappraise them. This is Sorley - (The sonnet: When you see millions ...)

When you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,

- familiar Sassoon/Owen ground, and I was waiting for their irony, the bitterness and revulsion, tenderness and pity ... and it never came, for me at least. If there is (and there may be) irony, it is mighty spare. What we get is:

Say not soft things as other men have said,
...
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
...
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Owen switches from the general to the personal giving us the tenderness of boys with shining eyes saying their goodbyes. Sorley seems to be heading the same way with:

Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you

Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,

Perhaps, like me, you find yourself unconsciously changing mood in preparation for a softening in the tone, anticipating him allowing us to remove our heads from under the cold tap of truth ...

In which case, the next two lines will not leave you warm.

When you see millions ... and some of his other poems on-line here, his only book of poems republished here.

Kingfisher

2008-12-30T23:19:00.001Z

Some amazing shots - from an amateur photographer via the Daily Telegraph

Purpose-Driven (US) Airmen

2008-11-30T22:29:00.003Z

An airman at RAF Lakenheath has apparently (as Do-Nothing Dave would have it) sent a copy of a Powerpoint presentation: "A New Approach To Suicide Prevention: Developing Purpose-Driven Airmen," '[which] was shown at a commander's call that was mandatory for an estimated 1,000 of Lakenheath's Air Force personnel, and sent out by email to the entire base of over 5,000 the following day.'

As tasters:

The slide "Current Problem" says:
"In the last two years, completed suicides have escalated throughout the Air Force"

"The Air Force did not use spirituality as part of their suicide prevention briefing until 2005"

So, er, within a year of introducing spirituality as part of their suicide prevention briefing, completed suicides by US Airmen escalated.

I see.

UK Airmen were no doubt up the pub. (And not committing suicide.)

Further on, slide "What's The Big Idea - 2 Nations" contrasts the US and its leaders Washington/Lincoln with the Former Soviet Union and its leaders Darwin/Marx/Lenin/Stalin.

I kid you not. 5,000 US Airmen based in Britain were told that Darwin is (not was) a leader of the Soviet Union.

Lakenheath is 25 miles from Cambridge.

Slides here . More comments and links from The Daily Kos

Is this a send-up?

Incidentally, RAF Lakenheath's website has a banner with "Royal Air Force Lakenheath" on the left and "America's Air Force" on the right , RAF Lakenheath

Is this a send-up?

Letter to US (and us) from Afganistan

2008-11-24T18:06:00.001Z

Conor Foley has this "letter from an Afghan Feminist" on Liberal Democracy and asks people to link to it. Happy to oblige. It's dignified, it's from someone from Afghanistan where our soldiers are killing and dying - and it's not in any way a feminist polemic.

What else do you need to know?

Oh yes, the link - here

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

2008-10-07T23:27:00.002+01:00

This is an article from the University of Chicago Magazine on the impact of humans on the environment. It starts in S. America talking about the (largely ignored) long history of human habitation in the Amazon and its effects on forestation but raises a whole lot of questions about how the Western/European mindset, and also (especially?) academic terms of reference may be imposing a framework for thinking about 'pristine' environments that is simply wrong and missing important truths.

In turn, for me at least, this way of thinking highlights again the fundamental assumption that humans stand opposed to - and not part of - 'nature': unlike ants, for instance.

Some snips from a substantial article:

Old notions about tropical forests die hard, however—and not just in the popular mind. Even today, researchers complain, academic specialization hinders a truer understanding of the relationship between forests and people, as ecologists, archaeologists, and other experts often communicate poorly across disciplinary boundaries.

One way to see the contradictions that still cloud Western thinking about forests, Roderick Neumann suggested, is to contrast conservation philosophy and practice in Europe and Africa. ... [in Africa] preserving nature has meant excluding humans. ...

“Typically these evictions are based on neo-Malthusian concerns of overpopulation and claims of irrational and sustainable resource use,” Neumann said. “And these ideas continue in conservation initiatives today.”

The European Union turns the logic of African fortress conservation on its head, he said. Rather than preserving biodiversity by forcing people out of protected areas, its policies work to keep rural people in place. ... Officials justify these policies by contending that human activity has increased biodiversity in Europe rather than diminished it, while scientists discuss “coevolution” between nature and culture, suggesting that it has gone on for many millennia. According to both policy and science, nature and culture are too closely intermingled to be separated.

“I’ve found no such discussion for Africa among foresters and conservationists,” Neumann said. “The continent is the source of all human evolution. Would not the same process of coevolution hold in Africa as well? And if not, why not?”

Where ospreys dare

2008-09-29T20:25:00.002+01:00

From the RSPB blog at Loch Garten way up in the wilds of Scotland, a post from Fairford - a small market town and emergency Space Shuttle landing site 2 or 3 miles East of the A419 ...

UPDATE FROM FAIRFORD. Hi everybody. We have been keeping watch for Nethy. Last evening we went back to the location where we saw her last and were amazed to here her distinctive cries just as it was getting dark. With great excitement we decided that at first light this morning, we would set out to see if we could spot her. We chose a good spot under a well covered tree next to the river and waited. What happened next was just unbelievable. She suddenly appeared over the top of the tree we were under and circled round several times. she looked so graceful as she glided around and she also took time out to see off another bird calling out as she did. She looks in extremely good shape.

Ospreys were reintroduced into the UK in Scottish Highlands - but they're migratory birds and need water, not mountains. One, maybe two have been in residence at Fairford for a month now - the first report had one in a tree dining on a pike it had just caught - that must have been worth seeing. My patch is the other side of the A419 (West) there have been sightings of fly-overs from there, presumably the same birds. That this area is osprey migration route has been known for a few years and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust have built an artificial nest for them - just in case ...

More sightings (starting late August) at the Gloster Birder

Thoughts ahead of the Conservative Party Conference

2008-09-28T23:18:00.003+01:00

Couple of snippets in today's news remind me why I am so glad we have a Labour Government and not one lead by David Cameron.

Firstly, Treasury Minister Angela Eagle has become the first sitting female MP to enter into a Civil Partnersip. See BBC Report - if only to check out the photo. Ain't that lovely?

Labour brought in the Civil Partnerships Act and also repealed "Section 28" of the Conservative's local government act which had frightened Schools and Local Authorities into either not mentioning homosexuality at all in Sex Education and Counselling, or doing so only in a negative context. (It was illegal to 'promote' homosexuality - but nobody ever defined what 'promote' meant.) The effect was that teachers and youth workers had to withhold support, advice and expressions of understanding from some of the most vulnerable, frightened and confused young people in their care.

Campbell said:

Blair has moved heaven and earth to allow the promotion of homosexuality in schools and has abolished the married couples’ allowance, taking away the last recognition of marriage in the tax system.’

Oxford Journal, 28 July 2000
and both Acts cost Labour support. There was then, and is now, considerable bigotry and prejudice against homosexuals - and a lot of that within Labour's own constituency.

Also from the BBC, the Minimum Wage is to rise.

The increase from £5.52 to £5.73 an hour will help reduce the gap in pay between men and women, the TUC said.

The minimum wage has increased by 59% since legislation was introduced in 1998, compared to a 44% rise in average pay over the same period.So, over the past ten years, the gap between the poorest working people and the average has closed. Cameron was also against this:

‘Labour would spend and tax, restore union privileges and burden business with the minimum wage and the Social Chapter. Mortgage rates, prices and unemployment would rise – as they have under every previous Labour Government.’

Staffordshire Newsletter, 25 April 1997

Again there were strong feelings against the Min Wage - whipped up by the right-wing press. But Cameron (and the press) were wrong on all counts. Unemployment has never gone back to the levels Labour inherited: mortgage rates fell from their level under the Conservatives within a year and have never gone back - see here

All these took guts, all were opposed by Cameron. Remember next time you here someone say "they're all the same". They ain't.

Swindon teenagers - absolutely typical

2008-09-15T23:19:00.002+01:00

Absolutely typical! Teenagers!

And note this. As marketing people know, Swindon is extremely typical of the UK as a whole. So if this is the kind of thing teenagers here get up to - then you can be pretty sure this is the sort of thing most teenagers are doing all over the UK! Music! Dancing! Tee-shirts! Oh Yes!

(Check-out the kiddie in the red T - how wicked is that!)

Don't know what the country's coming to!

Beware the demon birding - LOL

2008-09-15T21:25:00.001+01:00

I haven't even got to the stage of writing lists on scraps of paper.

Not often, anyway.

Scottish farming threatened by rogue aliens

2008-09-13T17:17:00.003+01:00

GM rape seed, in this case. According to The Scotsman ...

If the plants had grown large enough to flower, seeds could have spread, contaminating other crops and causing cha os for the farming industry.GM crops -banned throughout the whole of Scotland still manasged to turn up, growing, at 3 locations.

A Monsanto spokesman said that, although the firm developed the gene in the crop, it did not supply it to these trials.

On the other hand:

... Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said

"This is the industry that tells us it can control cross contamination of GM into other crops, but which can't even control cross contamination into its own seed supply system.

You must admit, he does have a point on the face of it.

When Johnny comes marching home ...

2008-09-07T20:54:00.003+01:00

The Grauniad reports that nearly a tenth of Britain's prison population consists of ex-servicemen - article here. Seperately (and earlier) a BBC report interviews a couple of representative ex-Army blokes who've been sleeping rough in London for over 20 years - one of the says:

" I can't cook I don't know how to do shopping. You learn discipline and how to march but that's all the army's done for me."

more here ...

Of course they risk being imprisoned for sleeping rough under the 1824 Vagrancy Act

- brought in largely to deal with all the soldiers returning from our glorious victories in the Napoleonic Wars for whom a grateful nation couldn't find jobs and who in many cases probably wouldn't have been able to cope any way. As the BBC report says:

There are many other factors at work, he says, including alcohol abuse - and the sheer loneliness of civilian life. ...
"One of the great ironies is that on the streets is the only place they find the cameraderie they had in the army and the company that they do not get in a nice little one bedroom flat in a suburban street.
"Social isolation is a real problem for ex-servicemen."
and
one in four of the people sleeping on the street has an armed services background.

Or as Kipling had it:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy go away";

But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play-

German perspective on globalisation & fishing

2008-08-09T12:53:00.005+01:00

From time to time there are articles in the papers drawing attention to the plight of the British fishing industry - often implying that Britain is uniquely disadvantaged by other scheming EU countries.

Extracts below from an article in Der Spiegel - not only showing that things look very similar from a German perspective, but also putting the EU's efforts into a global persepective, my emphasis throughout ...

"The Pinkis brothers and their crew have been out since 2 a.m., 10 nautical miles off the coast of northeast Germany's Mecklenburg region,

"There are about 3,700 ocean fishermen left in Germany today ... the Pinkis brothers are among the youngest members of the Wismarbucht fishing cooperative. Uwe Pinkis is 45, and his brother Klaus is 42. Fishing, in Germany, is a dying profession.

"The Pinkis brothers are their own supply chain. They catch, process and sell the fish themselves ... Together, they gross €60,000 ($93,000) a year. [so about GBP40,000 between the 2 of them]

"Hartmann [owner of a much larger factory ship - the last Ocean-Going German boat] does well when fish is in short supply in Japanese supermarkets, because he's paid more money for his halibut. His business does poorly when the Chinese economy falters, because that prompts the Chinese to shift from buying Hartmann's expensive ocean perch to cheap fish from Vietnam. But one thing is constant: Not a single fish caught by the last German deep-sea fishing vessel goes to Germany.

"For most domestic fishermen, selling their catch in Germany is no longer worth the trouble. These days they supply only 15 percent of the fish on German supermarket shelves. ... Alaskan pollock [is] caught by Russian trawlers, frozen, sent to China to be filleted, refrozen and then shipped off to German supermarkets.

It's a substantial article, well worth the read. (IMHO)

Orchid time

2008-08-05T22:37:00.005+01:00

Pyramid orchids, growing, like the ones below on an old tip close to Swindon's 'Old Town' - a hundred yards or so from the sewage settlement plant.

These are bee orchids, who go about trying to lure passing large insects into a brief romantic relationship in order to spread their pollen about a bit.

Can't help feeling the flowers get more out of it than the bees.

(Though since I'm not an insect psychologist, that may be an unwarranted assumption.)

Springtime in the Waterpark

2008-06-18T23:27:00.003+01:00

Spring has been and gone now of course. I am a lazy blogger. (Small excuse, been finishing off my latest Open U. course - more on the OU shortly.)

These cottages in South Cerney date from the 18th century - the lilacs are no doubt more recent, but well established nontheless. They're only in bloom for a couple of weeks, of course.

And these gentle beasts are Belted Galways at Clattinger farm. The field they are in, and which they help keep in its pristine state, is a SSSI and of European importance. What makes it so special is that it has been farmed for over a hundred years by the Clattinger family in the same, traditional, way: flooded in winter, grazed (as in pic), cut for hay just once at the end of the summer - and never had weedkiller or fertiliser applied to it. More about Clattinger Farm shortly.

But there have been some good days - this chaffinch was singing none-stop in the cherry tree - and wouldn't be put off simply by some human walking past. Hardly even stopped to have his photo taken.

And I don't know what her real name is, but for me she will always be Gemima. (When I first saw them, all eleven little puddleducks were in the puddle, but by the time I'd got the camera out and done the fiddly things they'd up'd and off.)

Why the A419 grabs me ...

2008-04-30T00:10:00.004+01:00

Left is a shot from a footbridge over the A419 just North of Cricklade and before the turnoff for the Spine Road and South Cerney. Right is a shot from the same footbridge with the camera turned through 90 degrees and so slightly Southish. The lake (pit) on the right only exists because under the shallow topsoil hereabouts is lots of lovely valuable gravel that is in great demand as a constituent of concrete - especially for roads such as those on the left. In the snap on the left, you can just see new excavations starting.

Soon the 419 will be a causeway.

Science and religion

2008-04-16T21:59:00.001+01:00

In this article in Nature Philip Ball says this quote from Adelard of Bath is “perhaps the most elegant and dignified defence of science ever written:”

"If we turned our backs on the amazing rational beauty of the universe we live in, we should indeed deserve to be driven therefrom, like a guest unappreciative of the house into which he has been received.”

Perhaps he's right ...

Life is good (compared to the alternative)

2008-02-19T23:45:00.005Z

The Water Park is nationally important for wintering waterfowl like these gadwall which the RSPB has as an 'amber' species with less than 800 breeding pairs in the UK. These two are almost certainly wintering birds, of which there are ten or twenty thousand - still not a lot for the whole country. They're one of those birds that look fairly non-descript until you get close enough to see their detailed markings when they become quite beautiful, the male especially with a kind of tracery effect to his breast and flank feathers. These particular ones were two of a dozen or so that seemed to be paring up nicely on the pedalo lake at the Hoburn site.

'Tufties' (tufted duck) always make me smile for some reason (no offence meant chief). I think they have a permanently startled look about them. This one's showing his tuft nicely.

This is a snap of 'a fox in his lair in the morning' that I took a couple of weekends ago. The cheeky sod was on the other side of a narrow lake at Coate Water (more images and notes here ) watching the strange human with the two daft dogs, but not not taking the trouble to move or anything: no doubt having calculated some time ago exactly how long it would take any one of us to get from where we were to where he was.

Coate Water is 'Swindon's favourite place' according to a survey in the local paper, an easy walk from home - and just off the A419 as it hits the final stretch before the M4.

... and this is a female sparrowhawk one of the fox's mates got to 12 miles or so up the A419 in the Cotswold Water Park. There was what looked like the site of the hawk's kill - a big circle of feathers - on an open patch of ground two or three yards away from where I took the photo. Which suggests she maybe had a fresh kill of her own, was busy feeding at the time - and forgot about her own back.

A lesson for business people everywhere.

2008-01-27T23:47:00.000Z

The inquest continues into the death of local nurse Mayra Cabrera who died an hour after giving birth in the Great Western Hospital in Swindon where she worked. Someone connected a bag of anaesthetic that should have gone into a drip in her spine into one in her arm by mistake. There are procedures to prevent this - and apparently they weren't followed. A Sister in the hospital seems to be being blamed. She is part of the same group of Philipina nurses that Mayra belonged to, they were all friends and socialised together. If I make a mistake customers may get upset. If it's a bad one I may get fired - but dear God! what the person who made that mistake must be going through.

I hope she has some compassionate friends.

Report from the local paper.

Meant to include in my last post this picture from 31 Dec of aubretia blooming bravely on a garden wall "flowers spring and early summer" it says in the book.

And this was from yesterday (Sat 26th) by the lock at Cerney Wick - right next to the A419. One of 3 (I think) 'roundhouses' along the old Thames and Severn canal. These were lengthsmen's houses, a lengthsman being responsible for maintaining a 2 or 3 mile length of the canal. The houses are small: one room down and one up, I think, and the lengthsman was expected to keep his horse inside as well, so they say. Like all the old artisans' dwellings in the Cotswolds, these are now highly desirable residences, only available to the wealthy.

We've had a lot of rain and the fields are flooded. Good news if you're a wader. Nick Adams reports "1,000 lapwing and 500 golden plover" by one of the lakes down the lane from here - no doubt feasting on the creepy-crawlies brought to the surface by the water.

Which brings me to this review in the Observer of Richard Fortey's Dry Store Room No 1 - all about the Natural History Museum and the odd-balls and odd-happenings that made it what it is e.g.

Another was Geoffrey Tandy, ... Tandy's reputation as a cryptogamist was wildly misunderstood by someone in the War Office, who despatched him to Bletchley Park to work on the cryptograms, or hidden messages of the Enigma code. He turned out to be the right man in the right place at the right time: when some sodden notebooks written in code were recovered from German U-boats, Tandy preserved the damaged paper exactly as he would have preserved decaying seaweed, and presented the real cryptographers something they could work on. It was, says Fortey, "a most fortunate screw-up."

And also:

Quentin Wheeler, keeper of entomology, and a colleague named a series of slime-mould consuming beetles after the US administration: Agathidium bushi, A rumsfeldi, and A cheyneyi.

But here's the thing. President Bush phoned the guy to say 'Thank you"! Can you believe it? Can you imagine the conversion?

"I have President Bush on the line - can you take the call" ...
"George dubya Bush here. Hear you named some slime-eating bugs after me, Don and Dick. Phoned to say mushpreciated. Lot of folks out there bad-mouthing us right now ..." !

What do you say?

The turning of the year

2008-01-18T20:29:00.000Z

Dawn patrol. Con trails over beautiful downtown Swindon as NATO pilots practice the arts of war from 'RAF' (really USAF) Fairford . A guy I know who used to fly in the RAF reckons these joint exercises are invariably hugely embarassing. On one occasion when they were flying with German crews they were called out of their planes because radios were on the wrong wavelength; then sending the wrong ID signals; then the ground crew were in place, but discovered their equipment was by the other gate at the wrong end of the runway; then delay while they hired a Transit from the local garage ... After putting up with this in courteous silence for half a day, one of the German pilots raised a laconic eyebrow and said: "I think I see why you British win the wars: you practice the chaos in peacetime."

It was a good Christmas: family and friends ... a quiet one ...

- apart from the drums.

Then in the New Year, the inquest started on a nurse at the local hospital who died there in the summer one hour after giving birth - because someone mixed up two different bags for the two drips she was on. Mayra was a Phillipina and had worked at the hospital she died in for sometime. The person who made the mistake almost certainly knew her the inquest is ongoing - but her husband and child now face deportation because his entry visa is conditional on his late wife's employment status.

"Laughing or weeping, the world must go on."

Happy New Year

One of those unexpectedly Good days

2007-12-12T00:06:00.000Z

Off work, desperately trying to use up my holidays - turned out a magical 'clear blue sky after frost' kind of day out at the Water Park. In just over an hour I saw: Mallard,Coot, Moorhen, Fieldfare, Grey Heron, Shelduck, Little Egret (which my bird-book says exists only in 3 small colonies on the South coast), Shoveler, Tufted Duck and a Kingfisher that flew straight towards me, not noticing me till the last minute then doing a 180 and heading straight back across the lake - giving me the best view I've ever had of one. Plus of course all the land-birds. But the lakes are the Big Feature now, with the winter migrants streaming in.

Which brings me neatly to Tim Bray who is a mainly techie blogger (see blogroll) and also a Canadian. He has some pithy comments on matters of moment currently exercising the press in the UK:

... here in Vancouver, it’s a whole lot more than 20%; the last tally I heard said that 46% of the city’s residents weren’t born in Canada. ¶

I try to judge by the evidence, and on the evidence, immigration is a very good thing.

and his erstwhile countryman Conrad Black

I have long loathed Mr. Black ... I’ve also loathed his wife Barbara Amiel ... reciting the dogma: we should slash social benefits and labour laws to motivate the poor to work harder, and simultaneously slash taxes and otherwise send money to the rich to motivate them to work harder. ¶

[and, back on the Black, as it were ] ... (what a pathetic thing to do, sliming into the British House of Lords) [it seems he] was pretty well guilty as charged. He provides further evidence that extreme right-wingers are, by and large, scummy greed-heads.

But still, years in jail? Figuring out some way to strip him of his ill-gotten gains and make him go out and live among ordinary people would be much better poetic justice.

I missed the obits for Peter Harding, for a time probably Britain's best climber, and the inventor of the hand-jamb (a technique he worked out on Pennine gritstone that is basically to insert your hand into a vertical crack and make a fist so as to fill the crack (jam it) with your hand tight enough for it to take your weight. (Tough on the hands under any circumstances - and it's not called gritstone because it's soft and gentle.)

Any death is of course a tragedy and loss for family and friends, but how can you not rejoice and celebrate a life like this? Lived into his eighties, still climbing well into his seventies - and grinning while he did it. Marvellous. Obits here from the Climbers Club and here from the Indi .

November birds

2007-11-11T20:22:00.000Z

Do birds 'see' the Earth's magnetic field?
GrrlScientist on research at the University of Oldenburg showing that a pigment found in a garden warbler's eye responds to magnetic fields - and includes the throwaway line "...we know that migratory birds orient themselves to the Earth's magnetic field using blue light" ... I didn't, but then again...

In their homeland, the migration of Canada Geese is a famous milestone in the year, with huge flocks flying thousands of kilometres - south as far as Mexico in atumn and then back north in springtime see New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit .

These Canadian's are fully fledged UK residents though. I think these particular ones are permanent residents at this lake at Hoburne, South Cerney but the British Trust for Ornithology tells me that some UK Canada Geese migrate north to Scotland for their moult.

This coot on the same lake is nest-building. In November! Is this just one odd-ball? Normal immature behaviour? Evidence of global warming? It may be significant that we haven't had a frost yet.

Meanwhile, back in the world of man. Police dragged a Range Rover out of a lake just up the road from here following a murder back in Swindon. Yet another man-woman thing according to the local paper . Men = violence?

Ups and downs on the 419

2007-10-29T20:04:00.000Z

The winter visitors are arriving in the Water Park; coot as always, but grebe as well, more than I remember from previous years. There were 8 or more keeping together in a loose flock on the boating lake and, whilst dog-walking, I set up a little egret from bushes by the stream - about 10 feet away from us. I'd never seen one of those in the wild anywhere and half thought it might be an escapee from a wildlife park. The RSPB though reckons the UK gets about 1600 visitors a year. I looked for confirmation from locals and found John Booth had seen a pair by the Thames a couple of miles away on the same day. In checking that out though, I found this list from Gareth Harris (who's the Biodiversity officer for the Water Park - so he should be accurate):

715 Coot , 7 Mallard, 17 Moorhen, 42 Great Crested Grebe, 53 Pochard, 4 Red Crested Pochard, 37 Wigeon, 138 Tufted Duck, 13 Gadwall, 25 Teal, 2 Goldeneye, 3 Cormorant, 33 Mute Swan, 3 Grey Heron, 11 Canada Goose, 4 Black Headed Gull, 3 Shoveler, 2 Little Grebe, 166 Lesser Black Backed Gulls, 1 Herring Gull, 4 Common Gull, (total of 1284 waterbirds) 1 Kingfisher, 1 male Cetti’s Warbler with noted passage of Redwing, Fieldfare, Skylark and Meadow Pipit.

Now that was from 6 or 8 lakes - but there's about 150 lakes altogether in the Water Park

( Both lists here: )

On Saturday, at the other end of the A419 though, The Swindon Advertiser reports:

A DOG, a deer, a lorry, a motorbike and three cars were caught up in a chain reaction that left hundreds of motorists trapped on the A419.

Basically, a big dog chased a deer onto the dual carriageway; both got hit by cars and killed. Then a lorry driver didn't see the parked police car till too late ... then 2 cars ran into the back of another car ... and 2 and a half hours later, they finally got the traffic flowing again.

Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair: Hooray for mainstream media

2007-10-04T21:25:00.000+01:00

Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair: Hooray for mainstream media

Ye chuffin' gods!

You can call me a credulous, naive, barmy old git IF YOU WISH (ok - " You're a credulous, naive ..") but I am truly shocked. Not that journalists sometimes take freebies, but that in this particular case where they must know about Murray's claims, they take freebies from this guy, who's motives are as transparent as Jordan's tights, then write exactly what they must have known he wanted them to write before the plane even took off.

Sheesh. Craig Murray where are you!

Another thug seeking cudos from buying a football club ...

2007-09-02T22:33:00.000+01:00

Craig Murray is a brave man. Today's blog entry concerns the Russian who wants to become Chairman of Arsenal (as Abramovitch is of Chelsea). Not mincing words Murray, sometime British Ambassador to Uzbekistan begins:

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist

and later ...

Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World's most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the "privatisation" process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.

and ...

The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.

I don't suppose the guy's too pleased with Craig Murray either.

The Joy of the Open Road

2007-08-02T23:23:00.001+01:00

Now that's what motoring should be all about - not just the wonderful car, but just look at the expression on the passenger's face it's a 'first-time on the most wonderful ride on the fairground' kind of expression. This was the second of two vintage cars pulling out of the car park at the top of the Spine Road, just off the A419. The first one was quite splendid, a Genevieve look-alike - all shining brass, polished wood and leather. Love the lights on this one though. None of that new-fangled electric stuff with wires and things. Magic!

Meanwhile, on the 419 itself, stressed-out, bad tempered motorists driving like miserable idiots not able to raise a smile between 'em. 'Lemmings this way' as my favourite graffito used to say ...

Fairford

2007-07-07T00:05:00.000+01:00

The West window at St Mary's Fairford (Glos).

The church itself is fine enough, but the windows are literally and absolutely unique. This is the only parish church in the country that still has the original mediaeval glass in its windows. Apparently made by one Barnard Flower, the Master Glazier to King Henry VII, between 1500 & 1517. The way glass was made in those days has been lost, so I understand, and it truly is different from yer modern 18/19 century stuff, even to my uneducated eye. The best I can explain it is that these are water-colours compared with the later oils - clear, transparent. There is also a - I was going to say 'innocence' - about the images, but that's not quite right. Unselfconscious perhaps. There's a freshness, to the images but there's also an earnest certainty and confidence about their messages.

We're used to human models for all kinds of art being perfect professionals, but the artist here used local people, some of the faces very like the ones you see walking through the town. More on the glass from the Fairford History Society .

If you do (walk through the town, that is) there's a decent chippy down the road from the church and take the riverside walk if you get chance - eat your chips there, it's less than 5 mins away, just keep heading down. The Colne is shallow, crystal clear, weedy but with a clean bed - perfect trout water. And you'll be very unlucky not to see a few.

Spring has sprung

2007-04-08T11:28:00.000+01:00

Actually, these wood anemonies have been out for a few weeks now at Croft Copse (At the back of Nationwide's HO - not far from the sewage settlement plant), so probably I'm late (story of my life). Nevertheless, their appearance each year never fails to put a smile on my face - for a while at least.

One year I'll get just to sit and watch for the exact moment that winter turns to spring and have time to be there as the ground starts to warm and the first leaves push uo into the air.

Maybe.

Down the good-old A419 though, on the lake at the Hoburne Holiday site, this Great Crested Grebe was just taking this specially selected water-weed back to his special lady. They are practising their courtship rituals at the moment - which involve much head shaking, ducking and diving and present-bringing like this. Apparently almost hunted to extinction for their valuable head-feathers (ladies hats) back in the 19th century, they're pretty common now on the Water Park.

The coots have got somewhat past the courting stage though and have beaten the grebes to the best nesting sites. So much squabbling and territory protection/invasion.

No prizes for guessing who's got the biggest house, though.

Moonraker stuff

2007-04-04T23:17:00.000+01:00

A tutorial on accessibility here Dive Into Accessibility : some good stuff on (X)HTML at A List Apart - what caught my eye especially was
The Holy Grail - just a template for a 3 column layout, but looks as though it may be neat. (Has a tutorial/explanation with it as well.)

Also links to "Knoppix on a USB key" - aka Damn Small Linux (DSL) which claims to run on a 486 with 16MB RAM. Download or purchase from Linux store Land of Linux (LOL?)which has other mini-distros such as puppy. All cheap.

John W. Backus - hail and fairwell

2007-03-21T20:37:00.000Z

Hail and fairwell to John W. Backus the inventor of the first high-level programming language - Fortran, released in 1957 - as well as being half of the Backus-Naur team that gave the world (E)BNF (Backus-Naur Form) - a notation for describing the grammar of formal languages such as those used in programming. John Backus also worked on the early Algols (58 and 60). Obit. from the NYT here

And, as a memorial of sorts, or a great compliment perhaps, Sun have just announced the release of a new programming language - Fortress '...a big jump on Fortran' The prototype Fortress, released as open-source software, is intended to take the place of Fortran. Sun claim a list of features, including what sounds like run-time optimisation and claim:

"These and other features enable the application of Fortress to a variety of programming tasks, including large-scale business applications and high-performance computing,"

... and so the world (of computing) goes.

A short walk on the oldest road ...

2007-03-10T18:29:00.000Z

Saturday out around Liddington Castle with the dog. Only 600 feet or so above sea level, I think, but one of those places that feels high. Walked along the Ridgeway as it heads across the Marlborough Downs towards it's finish (or start, depending) at Avebury. Silbury Hill is part of the Avebury complex of course and is currently in the news because archaelogists have just discovered a surprisingly unknown large Roman settlement close by it (surprisingly because archaeologists of various levels of competence have been crawling all over the area for nearly 300 years).

Just off the Ridgeway path was this old thing which I think is an old Shepherds hut or caravan. In the very old days, shepherds would take a tent out on the downs at lambing time and more or less live with the sheep until all the lambs were safe, having meals brought out to them. The museum at Avebury has one of these on display and claims that they appeared as a spin-off from Brunel's Great Western works at Swindon, being based on, and built in the same style as, railway rolling stock. They were pulled out to the downs by ponies (much like those in the background of the snap) at lambing time. The life is beautifully described by W.H.Hudson in A Shepherd's Life His old shepherd 'Caleb' lived in the south of the county ('Cheese' as we in the north are 'chalk') - but the life would have been very much the same.

Hudson lets Caleb end his book:

After our long Sunday talk we were silent for a time, and then he uttered these impressive words: "I don't say that I want to have my life again, because 'twould be sinful. We must take what is sent. But if 'twas offered to me and I was told to choose my work, I'd say, Give me my Wiltsheer Downs again and let me be a shepherd there all my life long."

I wonder how many of us today think of our work like that?

So the US is winning in Iraq

2007-03-04T23:12:00.000Z

Truthdig has an interview with a Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.) - the theme is 'the coming war with Iran' but she has this to say (not incidentally) on Iraq:

And this guy [Bremer] gave an interview in Government Exec Magazine, February 2004, he said

“we will be in Iraq, and the American people need to get with this program, we will be in Iraq like we were in the Philippines for anywhere from 20 to 30 more years ...

that is the life span of the bases that we’ve constructed there. Yeah, we are not leaving these bases, and a Democratic president, I don’t care who they are, will keep those bases there. They will justify them and they will use them and we love that. We love it. So it’s not about what the American people think is right or wrong, it’s not about if we got lied to, what matters is, they did what they wanted to do, and as Bush says, and as Cheney says, “it’s quite the success.” ... The facts are, we are in Iraq, we have the finest military installations in the world, the newest military installations in the world, and we’re not leaving them. We’re not turning them over to a Shiite government, we’re not turning them over to a Sunni government, we’re not turning them over to a Kurdish government. We’re not doing that.

Doesn't it sound all so very likely? Obvious really. And the insurgents and the religious and political factions are all making Iraq politically weak. And will that make things easier or harder for the US militarists? Winning? - I'd say they're just about at the finish line. Just the oil to sort out ...

full sorry story here

And on a different tack - I recently bought a book - The Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Science - for my 14 year old. It's pretty much what you'd expect from the title - perhaps a little dated in style, but the the content looked OK for what I wanted. But when I got it home and looked at it a bit more closely there seemed to be something missing. I checked the index - and started getting a faint whiff of something that caused me to mail the publishers - as in ...

In general I am satisfied with the book, but with one exception. The Biology section covers genetics in 5 pages; reproduction in 6 or 7; blood and circulation in 6; 3 pages on leaves ... Then it struck me there was something I hadn't seen. I looked for 'evolution' in the index - and it wasn't there! There was an entry on 'Evolutionary adaptation' though - and that said 'see Adaptive radiation'?!. So I did. 6 lines, 37 words.

... and got the reply ...

Thanks for your recent enquiry about evolution and the Science Dictionary. I understand that 20 years ago, when the original edition was published, the decision was taken not to include a major entry on evolution because it proved impossible to write anything on the subject that was acceptable to our publishing partners in America. This position had not changed when we came to revise the book in the late 90s, which is why we chose not to expand the section at that point.

Come again chief?!
So for the last 20 years, this science book has been published sans anything on evolution because it was deemed unacceptable by US publishing partners. Sheesh.

Look out for adaptive radiation - I think it's some kind of weasel terminology ...
Apparently the rewrite will have something more to say about the 'E' word though.

But yesterday (3rd March) up on the hills by Liddington, just a couple of miles south of Swindon, and a mile or so from junction 15 where the M4 joins the A419 - and the madding crowd and the weasel words a million miles away... (the M4 is on the far right, snaking off towards London)

Something rotten in the state of Pharma

2007-01-20T23:31:00.000Z

The New Scientist (and others) report on what sounds like an exciting new drug treatment against cancer. The drug is claimed to act biologically, switching back on mitochondria that are typically inactive, presumed damaged, in cancer cells. One of the things active mitochondria do is recognise abnormal cells - and pass them the molecular equivalent of a pearl handled revolver.

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

And guess what? The fact that the drug is out of patent threatens to stop it being made available for treatment. Before it can be used, clinical trials are necessary. Usually clinical trials are funded by drug companies. If they can't claim or buy a patent, they can't make money on it - so they won't fund the trials.

Here is a horrible disease. Here is someone who has what looks like a good treatment. What prevents the link being made? A lousy system is what.

Here's the story New Scientist

Meanwhile, some 15 miles from the A419, out in the sticks around Hungerford. Our team from Swindon were losing 16 - 1 against the locals. We thought this was the home team at first - but they turned out to be just spectators. Shot of the action below (could be a new David you-know-who in there somewhere.

Global warming - Swindon's part in it's downfall

2006-12-28T20:42:00.000Z

Swindon is home to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) who produce a regular magazine 'Planet Earth'. Typical articles are by researchers funded by NERC (on behalf of the taxpayer) and generally manage to get across the basics of detailed research without being patronising - the article on teaching amongst meerkats in the current edition being a good example.
Controversy rages around Earth Sciences at the moment and NERC has taken a bold initiative, to my mind anyway, by inviting those sceptical of climate change/Global warming to write in and put their case - with NERCs specialists responding. You can join in the debate - or just spectate. So far there are no flame wars and the debate is generally about the science rather than personalities or something else.

Not so the other big issues around Intelligent Design v (neo)Darwinism. A dishonest debate with hidden agendas all round. It might just possibly do the science community good, though, if they have to start being a little more careful in their language. Careless talk costs understanding and prepares the ground for confused arguments. In 'Ocean Odours' in this edition, for instance, we read:

Plankton produce DMS when stressed, for example in very hot weather or if ultra violet(UV) rays are particularly intense. We know DMS can seed clouds, so are plankton deliberately creating clouds to protect themselves? (my emphasis)

Plankton deliberately generate dimethyl sulphide in order to seed clouds?
The neo-Darwinist take is surely that a random, heritable mutation caused some plankton to start releasing DMS, this gave them an advantage in some important environments ... and so on. Deliberately is the language of purposeful action - design almost but in this case at the microscopic level. From the same article:

Could phytoplankton be using copepods to protect themselves from their own predators?

No, they couldn't. Phytoplankton are not far enough developed in the frontal-lobe department to work out how to use anything for anything. Lacking the intelligence for this design themselves, if there's any using going on, there must be an outside intelligence introducing it, must there not?

NICE is NASTY?

2006-11-17T00:18:00.000Z

The White House is lobying the government to allow 'unrestricted access' to the NHS to US drug companies. What is restricting them?

"The drug companies claim that they are being held back by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and have separately lobbied for it to be reformed."

US deputy health secretary also " ... wanted to share the US experience of offering private insurance packages to people on Medicare". original article here , reader-responses the following day Guardian Litters .
Meanwhile, far to the West, Yes magazine (USA) says "US drugs cost more. Why?"

NICE website

2006-11-08T23:22:00.000Z

2006-11-02T21:48:00.000Z

Back in January, Michael Matthews was jailed for a year for spraying racist grafiti on Swindon's Broad Street mosque and trying to set fire to it, see this report in theSwindon Advertiser under the rather idiosyncratic headline 'BNP Slams teen racist' which says 'But Mark Bullock, of the Swindon branch of the BNP, said: "We don't know anything about him. ... We just want to say that justice has been done and he deserves to be locked up for this attack on the Muslim community."
The same mosque was attacked in an almost identical way in August see this report. The culprit this time was "racist firebomber Mark Bulman [who] admitted attacking the Broad Street mosque in August ... throwing a petrol bomb through the window of the building and daubing swastikas and anti-Islamic abuse on its walls.
Little-known fact (to the Advertiser, at least): Marks Bullock and Bulman are one-and-the-same person.

2006-11-01T23:26:00.000Z

A clear majority of Scots want independence according to a report in
The Scotsman . There is also speculation that the SNP would be such a close second to Labour in the Scottish Executive that they could lead a governing coalition with the Lib Dems and possibly Greens.

This is a situation that, presumably, would be more common under Proportional Representation. Firstly, note, the party with most votes ends up having no part in government. The Scotsman also speculates:

Such a result would put the Liberal Democrats in an immensely strong bargaining position. They would be able to demand three or four senior Cabinet positions as well as the implementation of major chunks of Lib Dem policy - whoever they went into coalition with.

So secondly, the third placed party (Lib Dems) can now 'demand' implementation of some of their policies - whilst the party with most seats (and votes) get to implement none of theirs.

2006-10-26T00:07:00.000+01:00

Fairly coherent of Dawkins' latest rant in London Review of Books.

W3C HTML tutorial; java script and
XML Tutorial.

Drivers on the 419 ...

2006-10-11T22:22:00.000+01:00

Crash on the 419 yesterday involving a wagon and a tractor virtually closed the road over rush-hour.
And a biker who came off at somewhere between 85 and 100 was jailed yesterday. There's something about the driver of the Porsche he was racing braking with the biker maybe 3 feet behind him. No mention of the driver being criticised ...
Speed restrictions and cameras are still in place at the Swindon end of the A419 where a new flyover is being built. And look,
3,000 people caught speeding ...

Anniversary of The Battle of Cable St

2006-10-04T23:52:00.000+01:00

4 October - anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street 1936 when Mosley tried to lead his fascist Blackshirts into poor Jewish neighbourhoods of East London. Leaders told their people to stay indoors and keep out of the way. Instead, in conjunction with the Communist Party, they met the Blackshirts - or rather their police escort - head-on: 300,000 of them, according to reports with 'bearded Jews alongside Catholic dockers on the barricades".This article gives a fairly straight report. For a more 'partisan' take, the British Communist Party sees it as the country's biggest demonstration against fascism - some marvelous interviews with participants (who must now be in their 90s) describing working-class life as well as the 'battle' itself; this one with Solly Kaye , for example.

A good shot of the present-day mural on Cable Street remembering the event is here on the Port Cities site and, poignantly, Sir Oswald's son Nicholas (the author), himself in his 80s is to be the guest of honour at the Jewish celebration of the anniversary today see here. - Peace and Reconciliation in practice.

More mundanely, Freepint has reports on Semantic Web technologies and the problem that "A recent study reveals people spend more time looking for than applying information." - and what to do about it.

Road deaths ...

2006-10-03T22:38:00.000+01:00

Looked up some 'settle-an-argument' kinda figures on road speed and speed cameras:

From the current government road safety campaign:

... if you hit a pedestrian while driving at 20 mph, the pedestrian has a 95% chance of survival.

If you hit an adult pedestrian while driving at 30mph, the survival chance is 80%.

But if you hit a pedestrian while driving at 40mph, the pedestrian's chances of dying rises to 90%. (this lowers to 80% for a child).

A four year study by PA Consulting, UCL, University of Liverpool and Napier University found:

Overall 42% fewer people were killed or seriously injured. At camera sites, there was also a reduction of over 100 fatalities per annum (32% fewer). There were 1,745 fewer people killed or seriously injuredand 4,230 fewer personal injury collisions per annum in 2004.

In the fourth year, the benefits to society from the avoided injuries were in excess of £258million compared to enforcement costs of around £96million.- full (164 page) report here .

Seperately:

Exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions were reported as a contributory factor in 15 per cent of all accidents. However, the factor became more significant with the severity of the accident; it was reported as contributory factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents and these accidents accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities (793 deaths). Road Casualties Great Britain 2005 - which is more than the number of people murdered over the same period.

The USA - Swindon's role in its Downfall

2006-09-25T22:58:00.000+01:00

Now Golf is definitely not my sport. But you have to take a bit of an interest when a local lad David Howell is doing great things over in the Emerald Isle. He was pro at our local municipal golf course and still has a house in the town - impartial report of the Ryder Cup here - .

Coate Farmhouse

2006-09-21T22:57:00.000+01:00

Doing some clearing up at one of Swindon's hidden gems - opposite the filling station, right next to the Sun Inn behind a high stone wall is the old farmhouse which was home to Richard Jefferies - Edwardian nature writer and mystic. Check him out on Project Gutenberg (Seem to remeber he was voted 'Most Popular Author on the Web', or somesuch quite recently). The weather was foul, see Extreme Gardening but the place looked different after being exposed to Software Developers for two days (already it's 90% finished :) )

The house is a museum, interesting enough (and free) and the purpose of our exercise was to help a little in restoring the grounds to something like their original state.

During Jefferies youth the farm land was largely flooded to create a header reservoir for a canal. Now it's a geat nature reserve and somewhere to wander away from the madding crowd. Jefferies wrote a lot about the landscape around here and one of the places he mentions (in 'Beavis' IIRC) is still identifiable - the Conference Oak

Iraq disarmed (remember when?)

2006-09-07T22:34:00.000+01:00

This article from the US Council on Foreign Relations reminds us that one thing the US/UK occupation of Iraq proved beyond doubt was that UN sanctions had worked. Saddam's near-nuclear capability and his huge biological weapons resource had been rendered useless by the combination of sanctions and inspections.

What is planning for?

2006-09-06T23:52:00.000+01:00

More and more building in the Waterpark. How come it's started happening a) only over the last couple of years (so it seems) and b) at all. Finding it hard to track down the appropriate legislation. This is a FOE paper giving their take on changes in the planning rules: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/consultation_responses/barker_review_2_mar06.pdf

British Design Icons

2006-03-17T20:54:00.000Z

Concorde has been voted Britain's No 1 design icon http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4814088.stm like the E-type Jag, it still looks futuristic, despite it being over 30 years since the first flight from Filton in Bristol to RAF Fairford: Europe's longest runway, a reserve landing site for the Shuttle, home of the U2 spy-plane - and just a couple of miles East of the A419. See the take-off and landing here http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/concorde/timeline/1960s.shtml . Third place in the voting went to the Spitfire, later versions of which were built at the Supermarine factory at Swindon - now home to Honda Cars (and where all the World's Civics come from) - right next to the 419, with its own sliproad.

Cricklade, Coke and the Shoshone

2006-03-13T21:35:00.000Z

Serendipity lead me to download "Tracks of a Rolling Stone" by Henry J. Coke from Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/

Coke was briefly involved in local politics when 'In February of this year, 1852, Lord Palmerston, aided by an incongruous force of Peelites and Protectionists, turned Lord John Russell out of office on his Militia Bill. Lord Derby, with Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, came into power on a cry for Protection.

Not long after my return to England, I was packed off to canvas the
borough of Cricklade. It was then a very extensive borough, including a
large agricultural district, as well as Swindon, the headquarters of the Great
Western Railway. For many years it had returned two Conservative
members ...'

He describes himself as a 'radical' - a dangerous liberal, though
in those days a liberal could hold that:

'There is always a large number of people in the world who suffer from
emotional sensitiveness and susceptibility to nervous shocks of all kinds... With
some, they exhibit extreme repugnance to the infliction of physical pain for
whatever end; with others there seems to be a morbid dread of violated pudicity.
Strangely enough the two phases are frequently associated in the same
individual. Both tendencies are eminently feminine; the affinity lies in a
hysterical nature. Thus, excessive pietism is a frequent concomitant of
excessive sexual passion; this, though notably the case with women, is
common enough with men of unduly neurotic temperaments.

A world-view that would not go uncontested in modern liberal circles, one feels. In fact, I don't think I've seen three sentences hit quite so many politically incorrect hot-buttons in a long time. Wading in deeper he gives an example of the kind of "feminine histeria" of which we must beware:

'Only the other day some letters appeared in the ’Times’ about the flogging
of boys in the Navy. And, as a sentimental argument against it, we were
told by the Humanitarian Leaguers that it is ’obscene.’ This is just what
might be expected, and bears out the foregoing remarks. '

His attempt to pull the anti-Conservative vote in Swindon began with some
incident, the shaft of the wagon on which he was being carried broke, the
wagon almost overturning as the horses panicked. He finally began his first
speach:

'My agent had settled that I was to speak from a window of the hotel. The
only available one was an upper window, the lower sash of which could not
be persuaded to keep up without being held. The consequence was, just as
I was getting over the embarrassment of extemporary oration, down came
the sash and guillotined me. This put the crowd in the best of humours;
they roared with laughter, and after that we got on capitally together. '

Prior to this, though, he had made a name for himself as an explorer of the
Wild West (yes, that Wild West). He was not afraid of drawing conclusions
about the locals there either:

The Indians were mainly fishers of the Shoshone - or Great Snake
River - tribe, feeding mostly on salmon, which they speared with
marvellous dexterity; and Root-diggers, who live upon wild roots. When
hard put to it, however, in winter, the latter miserable creatures certainly, if
not the former, devoured their own children.

Coke didn't win his seat by the A419 - and the lack of understanding and respect of European incomers for the Shoshone appears to have continued for another 150 years: they have at last managed to get the wider world to listen - and judge. 10 March 2006, Geneva Switzerland: 'Today, in an historic and strongly worded decision by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) the United States was urged to "freeze", "desist" and "stop" actions being taken or threatened to be taken against the Western Shoshone Peoples of the Western Shoshone Nation'.

Which doesn't seem to have got much publicity: more here http://www.wsdp.org/

No flags please - we're British

2006-01-25T22:27:00.000Z

This letter to the local paper http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/swindonletters/display.var.677467.0.proud_people.php - the latest in a series from this particular geezer (or geezerette) stirred me into action for some reason - unfortunate combination of boredom and dispepsia I think.

He (must be a he) wrote:

Proud people
EVEN the shortest visit to Norway will ram home the pride the people have in their nation. The flag flies everywhere, every day, not just on commercial and government buildings but even private homes, be it in a major town or a hut on a mountainside. It demonstrates the kind of pride that Gordon Brown wants to rebuild.

But Norway is a non-EU country. Its people have not had this insidious organisation dismantle its structure piece by piece until almost nothing is left. They have not had the PC loonies screaming like banshees every time someone has said "I'm Norwegian" as we British (or worse, English) have. Much as I would love to see a revival of Britishness, I fear Mr Brown has the chance of a snowball in a furnace so long as we remain an EU puppet state.

G SCOTT Swindon

To which I replied:

No flags please - we're British

In a letter to today's (Wed) Adver, G Scott decries the unwillingness of the British to fly flags and seems to believe that this reflects a decline of patriotic feeling as a consequence of our membership of the EU.

I don't know how old your correspondent is, or how long they have lived in this country, but I can assure them that the absence of flags from front gardens here is not a recent phenomenon, having been a feature (or rather non-feature) of everyday life in Britain throughout my almost 60 years residence. Norway and the US are indeed enthusiastic flag-fliers, as was pre-war Germany, but reserve is part of the British character. We do not readily embrace our friends on meeting or expect our politicians to kiss each other - in public at least. G. Scott should not interpret our undemonstrativeness as an absence of emotion. I am sure that we feel much the same about our country, our friends and our politicians as do members of other nations.

I wish G. Scott well in his or her attempt to introduce European mores to this country. Siestas, taking August off and stopping to applaud cyclists as they go about their training would be high on my list of desirable innovations. But not flying flags, please - it's not British.

Peter Berry,
Swindon

Wonder if it'll get published?

2006-01-20T23:22:00.000Z

Called in to work in the wee small hours yesterday and had to slow down
while a badger shuffled across the road in front of me (actually they can 'shuffle' pretty fast when they want to). Not too surprising: even though we're only a mile from the centre of a town of 200,000 there are four very obvious setts on my half hour walk into work. Anyway, it brought a smile to my face. If the badger had been a rat, though, I wonder if I would have reacted the same way? Probably not. We learn about badgers from 'Rupert The Bear' and Beatrice Potter: rats are, well ... rats. Usually 'Dirty Rats'. Carriers of disease, unlike badgers which - which carry bovine TB as it happens and so are being lined up for a massive cull by DEFRA because of increaing incidence of TB in cattle. A badger-friendly explanation (see http://www.badger-killers.co.uk/science.html) links this growth in TB in cattle to the foot-and-mouth outbreak though.

Meanwhile the Main News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4633376.stm carries reports of a whale - bottle-nosed dolphin really but 'whale' sounds a lot more dramatic - heading up the Thames amidst fears that it may beach, or in some other way harm itself: an anxious nation waits. There'll be crowds on the A419 if it ever makes it up as far as Cricklade mind.

Dolphins are aaahh creatures as well, probably because they appear to smile.

Why do I empathise with ugly old creatures that nobody cares about?

Vote for Swindon! - Throw money at us!

2006-01-17T20:53:00.000Z

Vote for Swindon! - Throw money at us! We need educating!

The Science Museum is based in London (a port on the East Coast). Because of
extravagant property prices, they can only exhibit little things there -
about 10% of the total at any one time. For many years they have used a WWII aerodrome just outside Swindon. (Jct 15 on the M4, signs for the A419, then 'Swindon' - keep on til 'Pipers' roundabout, left filter for Wroughton, then a couple of miles to the village and head for Avebury) From time to time the hanger complex is opened to the public. Now there's a good chance that the hangers will be upgraded to proper Museum status so that the Big Stuff can be put on show.

Items include Christopher Cockerell's first hovercraft, the first MRI scanner,
the last Fleet Street printing press, Herschel's first telescopes, eight different supercomputers, and Sir Vivien Fuchs' Snowcat that travelled to the South Pole - and all for only GBP81m.

GBP48m is up for grabs on a TV series for viewers to vote on the allocation of lottery money so - look out for us, vote early and often. Full story here:
http://swindonadvertiser.co.uk/display.var.673563.0.tv_lottery_for_48m_jackpot.ph

Elsewhere on the science front, my alma mater - the Open University
http://www3.open.ac.uk/about/ is getting to analyse some of the 'stardust' (aka comet slush) from Comet Wild. Earth & Space science is one of the OUs strong suites - see their Centre for Planetary Space and Astronomy Research centre:
http://cepsar.open.ac.uk/index.htm

The stardust travelled 3 billion miles and dropped into Utah bang on time. Curiously, my course material for M255 (O-O Programming with Java) is not here yet
from 40 miles up the road in Milton Keynes.

There be dragons ...

2006-01-02T14:27:00.000Z

- Welsh ones. Swansea City came to Swindon 2nd in the division whilst Swindon Town were sturdily propping up everybody else. What I thought was a good game ended 0-0 with the result that Swansea went top and Town move above MK Dons. We sang "We're not bottom any more" and only made a couple of references to our visitors possible involvement of sheep in their recreational activities.

Our fascination with WWII continues unabated with the papers carrying New Year archive document releases including the fact that both Ireland's President and Prime Minister sent commiserations to Germany following Hitler's death http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1675738,00.html . Elsewhere, Churchill was adamant that Hitler should be shot on the spot, without trial if caught. Perhaps the most significant fact is that, as on other occasions, he did not get his way and accepted the majority vote of his cabinet. Presumably he accepted that, even in wartime, the Prime Minister is still only primus inter paribus . Also from the wartime archives the cabinet pondered the delicate question of how to accomodate the US laws on racial segregation in a country that had never accepted it. The upshot was that the races were segregated on US Army camps but mixed in with everybody else in the pubs clubs and everywhere else when off-camp.

Activity on the fields alongside the A419 turned the course of the war, of course (in the West, at least). But that's another story.

We're playing Hartlepool today at their place. Hartlepool is famous, for hanging a monkey as a French spy during the Napoleonic Wars (they weren't too sure what Frenchmen looked like ...): not sure what their football team's like. Must be a hell of a job trying to hang a monkey though ...

Meanwhile, out in the blogosphere ...

2005-12-31T00:45:00.000Z

End of year philosphising in the papers and on TV seems to agree that the web and blogs are truly significant if not world-changing. I'm sure they're right - but not sure in what way(s). In the words of the prophet " ... don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin ...".

As I write, the BBC is quoting the Foreign Office as saying there are indications that a UK Aid-worker and her parents, taken hostage in Rafah, may have been released. Al Jazeera says they definitely have been (I know who my money's on).
Why would anybody want to kidnap an Aid-worker?
A blogger in Rafah http://www.rafah.vze.com/ (click on 'Rafah Today' ) begins today's blog "Mohammed's five-year old brother, Abdullah, has been hit in the eye with a bullet. His eye has been destroyed and he has been transferred by the Ministry of Health to Egypt ..." I can't begin to imagine how I would feel or what I might do if I were Abdullah's dad.

Meanwhile, over in Iraq, the BBC tells me (with confidence-inspiring graphics covering the past 3 years) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4569360.stm that Iraq has consistently had a steady surplus of oil production over exports (so plenty for home consumption). Blogger Raed http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/ tells me a different story, however. The beeb also states in a matter-of-fact sort of way that one Ahmed Chalabi is to temporarily take over as minister in charge of one-third of the planet's oil reserves. Wikipedia fills in a few of the details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi ( US educated, PhD, 17 year sentence for fraud waiting for him if he ever goes back to Jordan - usual sort of stuff). He is replacing Mr Bahr al-Uloum, (US educated, PhD - usual sort of stuff) who got the push because he "had publicly objected to the Iraqi government's decision this month to raise petrol prices threefold". NewsFromRussia http://newsfromrussia.com/hotspots/2005/10/03/64291.html tells me that this guy has been in place for 2 or 3 years and has already survived an assination attempt (not clear if the accompanying picture was taken before, during, or after the assination attempt ..). But the new guy's only in place for 30 days anyway.

Well, my parents would've just read their favourite newspaper and got on with things. Me, I think it's been too long since I hit the A419 with the CD on extreme right ... "Come senators, congressmen please heed the call ...".

Anyroadup - football tomorrow. Swansea at our place. They're 2nd - we're bottom, but "... don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin; And there's no telling who that it's naming, for ..."

Merry Christmas

2005-12-24T23:14:00.000Z

Merry Christmas to anyone who may read this, wherever they may be.

Peace on Earth, Good Will to all men - and may you be at peace with yourself and your God.

Pete

2005-12-18T21:51:00.000Z

Hitlerisation

A report from the Dept for Education & Skills History advisory group headed by Labour MP Gordon Marsden claims that "History teaching in schools has become obsessed with the Second World War, at the expense of understanding other events that shaped Britain's national identity ...".

I'm sure this is true. Worse, partly as a result, many people grow up with dangerous delusions about war in general, our national identity and the parts played by other nations in 'our' wars. Against the background of the occupation of Iraq, the outrages committed by US troops and the trial (should there be quotes round that word?) of Saddam Hussein, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the British Tommy was just as likely to engage in illegal, irrational and sadistic behaviour. The report concerns the village of Bad Nenndorf; [which]' was a torture camp. Offences committed by British troops include: " ... prisoners [being] systematically beaten and exposed to extreme cold, some were starved to death and, allegedly, tortured with instruments .. recovered from a Gestapo prison in Hamburg" '

Moreover, again with echoes in Guantanamo and Abu Grahib, their victims seem to have been largely victims of circumstance: one 'An anti-Nazi, he had spent two years as a prisoner of the Gestapo. "I never in all those two years had undergone such treatments," he said.' another,; 'Hans Habermann, a 43-year-old disabled German Jew who had survived three years in Buchenwald concentration camp.'

The original report said 'most of the warders were soldiers barely out of their teens ...some had endured more than a year of combat ... had liberated Belsen ... [they]represented the more unruly elements of the British Army of the Rhine, sent to Bad Nenndorf after receiving suspended sentences for assault or desertion. ... the sort of individuals "likely to resort to violence on helpless men".' Full report http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1669544,00.html
So - vulnerable young men with minds damaged by war. ..

But the German leaders were tried and executed at the Nuremberg trials - Nuremberg.http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/nurembergACCOUNT.html Describes how: 'Sir Geoffrey Lawrence [Presiding Judge] rapped his gavel. "This trial, which is now to begin," said Lawrence, "is unique in the annals of jurisprudence.' There were four indictments: Count One, "conspiracy to wage aggressive war," Count Two, undertaking of war in violation of international treaties and assurances. Count Three, "war crimes," violations of the laws of war such as the killing or mistreatment of prisoners of war and the use of outlawed weapons. Count Four, "crimes against humanity," addressed crimes committed against Jews, ethnic minorities ... civilians in occupied countries, and other persons.

Some of these are perhaps a bit close to home for our present leaders ...

But there's not much happens that doesn't involve the A419. Sir Geoffrey Lawrence became Lord Oaksey, taking the name of the village he'd lived in since before WWI.To get to Oaksey village, go North on the A419, left at the Spine Road. Oaksey's about three miles straight ahead.

2005-12-16T22:44:00.000Z

Military connections ...

Wiltshire has strong military connections. A good way from the 419, but this top secret underground 'city' from the 1950s had 60 miles of underground roads (no, not a typo) and so could easily have reached it had the builders gone for a straight-line version. It was built in the expectation of a nuclear war and was to hold: no, not women and children but - and you'll never believe this - members of the government! 4,000 of 'em.

Great site at the BBC, complete with interactive video. Don't remember them mentioning it at the time though ...

2005-12-12T22:49:00.000Z

Sat 10th Dec: Up and down the A419 to Cirencester and back Christmas shopping and odd-jobbing. Stopped off at the Outdoor Pursuits lake (1/2 mile down the Spine Road from the A419, first right to South Cerney, parking area on the right almost immediately).

Beautiful winter's day, clear blue skies with just a hint of mist, air sharp but not cold.
This was the view across the lake looking back to the OPC clubhouse. In fact the lake was pretty crowded with a couple of hundred birds to the left of this shot - gulls, duck (ruddy, tufted, mallard of course) loadsa Canada Geese. This cormorant took my eye, perched on a buoy and flapping her wings non-stop for the whole of the ten minutes I was there. Like the coots in the foreground she's probably a winter visitor - though there are permanent residents of both on the lakes. Perhaps this is unusual for cormorants ... http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/c/cormorant/index.asp

2005-11-14T17:39:00.000Z

Great weekend for English sport - beating Argentina at footie, Australia at rugby and Denis Howell beating TigerWoods in a head-to-head final at Shanghai http://sport.independent.co.uk/golf/article326929.ece Howell, as everyone knows, began his golfing career just off the Swindon end of the A419 at the council-owned Broome Manor course http://www.bmgc.co.uk/ on Pipers Way (M4, A419, signs for Swindon, left at The Marriott (Pipers) roundabout).

2005-10-27T10:19:00.000+01:00

Apparently the parrot did have bird-flu and it was the strain that everbody's worried about. So lots of other quarantined birds killed off (thought quarantine was meant to isolate animals ... ) but a proposed re-introduction of beavers to the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/4380276.stm at Lower Mill estate 2 miles down the Spine Road off the A419. The Lower Mill estate has pricy executive holiday homes in an 'exclusive' (i.e. not for the likes of me ) development and one of the selling points is the proximity to lots of wild-life. These beavers will be exclusive to the estate, at least until they start to breed (or bust out). Genuine concern for wildlife? - or good publicity for the proposed up-to-5-million GBP holiday homes? Both probably. Hope beavers don't get flu.

2005-10-22T20:15:00.000+01:00

Saturday.
A dead parrot made the front pages of the national papers this morning http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1598102,00.html. It dropped off it's perch in a customs shed and looks to have bird-flu which, when it evolves to be able to use humans as a host is likely to kill 50,000 to 5 million UK citizens (depending on which paper you read).
Ran (OK, jogged) 26 mins round a couple of the lakes at South Cerney. First thing I saw after I crossed the footbridge over the stream was a gannet sitting on one of the sailing club's bouys in textbook gannet pose - wings half-spread and head down looking for breakfast.
Round a bit of a headland and a small bay there had over 50 coots in it bobbing up and down on the waves, it looked as though someone had tipped a box of black ping-pong balls into the lake. 2 other flocks at least as big were out in the main body - so something like 200 coots on on one lake. These lakes have permanent coot populations - but not in these numbers. Most of these are visitors from scandinavia, here for the winter because ice, frost and snow make it difficult for them to find food there.
Across the Spine Road which leads off the A419 and around a second lake where sand martins breed in springtime. They're gone now, of course, back to North Africa where the insects are better. There were Canada Geese (very common round here and, like all UK residents, non-migratory), mallard, gulls and other ducks I couldn't identify (pintails?).
So just in these 2 lakes, we have vectors for spreading bird flu from the equator to the arctic circle: sand martin - goose - coot. But no parrots. Wonder if was blue one?

2005-09-01T22:06:00.000+01:00

Homes fit for insects (and kids) (and coral)

A half-day away from developing software for the world's largest building society http://www.nationwide.co.uk and instead digging a bed for insect-friendly flowers at a primary school in Highworth (a couple of miles off the 419). A team-building exercise where we're supposed to get to know all those people who never say anything at meetings. It's an alternative to expensive, embarrassing away-days organised by consultant psychologists and the like. And it kinda works - also it leaves the world a marginally better place than it was at 9 a.m. Left me with blisters on me hands though. Guess I'm soft - unlike my eldest 2 sons who work on construction sites. One is currently in Thailand at Kho Phi Phi working with these good people http://www.hiphiphi.com/index.htm helping to rebuild after the tsunami. He went there for a diving holiday just after Christmas and stayed. Picture of him here - scroll down to the diver-with-anchor. He's helping to clear debris from the offshore reef and they're still finding bodies occasionally. The reefs are globally important environmentally and locally important as they help bring tourists in. On a more serious scale, he's changing the world a little bit as well (and having serious-scale fun, I guess). Good.
(They're still looking for volunteers.)

2005-08-29T23:14:00.000+01:00

Started out to collect some blackberries but ended up walking for over an hour over farmland towards Stanton Fitwarren and back. The start point was, somewhat inauspiciously, the road at the back of the Happy Eater on the A419 at Blunsdon. First right is a single track road called Kingsdown Lane. "Kings Down" is apparently pretty literal, the high hedge-and-bank that appears and disappears alongside the lane being the remnants of the boundary marker for the King's Land in mediaeval times.

According to a neat little write-up at http://www.forestweb.org.uk/gwf-spark.pdf at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, the ‘Manor of Stantone’ was held by one Grimbald Goldsmith - good old Saxon name "Grimbald". In less than a hundred years "Stanton Fitzwarren village [was] established when the manor was split between the Fitzwarren and Fitzherbert families .." - sort of foreign, "Norman-ish" names all these Fitz's. Wonder what happened to old Grimbald? One fears the worst.

What a perfect evening though. Deep blue sky with pale violet clouds on the horizon, the sun low but still warm enough to make me think of taking my tee-shirt off and still bright enough to light up a field of winter wheat already showing a couple of inches of bright green growth. And there, strutting their stuff in the middle, two groups of pheasants. The fields are on low, rolling hills hereabouts and the path I was on was in a slight depression, so the first group appeared at eye height less than 100 yards away. I'm not a shooting man myself, but I wasn't surprised to see pairs of shot-gun cartridge cases along the path. The next field was down to grass, drying out now and bright yellow in this sun with rabbits hopping in and out of the hedge by the path ahead of me. Into the Great Wood (ancient woodland, great oaks) along a broad ride with glimpses of farmland sloping up on either side of the wood and, just thinking this can't have changed much since the original Fitwarrens came (no doubt bringing the distant ancestors of the rabbits by the way) I saw what I first thought to be a large dog, but then my eyes re-adjusted their scale-factor and I realised it was a deer. Binoculars showed it was a male, good size, but I could only see 2 points on his antlers for sure, though he was in deep shade, so not too clear a view. Later though, back on farm land I saw two groups of three (mother and twins?) does and a wonderful view of a stag who eventually caught my scent and stomped the ground in a stiff-legged alarm that had the others running for cover. He seemed to wait till they were safely back into woodland - then showed me how real runners do it - just like this: http://www.deer-uk.com/roe_photo1.htm - and I kid you not, he really did do it 'just like that', with me about 50 yards away.

But then, up a farm lane, and back by the King's Down to the A419, heavy traffic, the filling station and the road by the Happy Eater, where I found my blackberries - straight opposite the car.

2003-07-22T00:06:00.000+01:00

God said to Abraham, 'Kill me some hedgehogs;
Otters, magpies, foxes and frogs.'
Abe say 'If these things are all kosher, then I guess that's fine.'
God say 'They are now - leave 'em on the A419'.

With apologies to Bob Dylan and, indeed, God: though if she hasn't got a sense of humour then I'm probably knackered anyway...