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Well, Who Is He?! ... And What Is He?

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Dear Reader, Well, there we have it.  The People have spoken and it's had the decided effect of taking us in a specific direction away from where, until now, there has been discord and much of it. Now, Boris Johnson has had the shackles removed and he has quite a measure of freedom in his parliamentary majority to do all the things that he wants to do. I have to say, that listening to his victory speech on Friday morning, he displayed a sense of responsibility and - indeed - some humility in acknowledging his debt to the voters who have put him in the position where he is.  Further, on the face of it he seems to recognise that vast amount of work that needs to be done - in schools, health, police, equal opportunities and even local communities, to repair the damage of his own party's failings these last near-10 years. Significantly, and welcomingly, he seems to want to champion green issues. Now the important thing is that hardly any of this was spoken of in the Tor

Which Devil Do You Want?

Dear Reader, I do not really like to be embroiled in the squabbling that takes place around election time. You see far too many rattling all kinds of rattles to gain attention. But the production this week by the Labour Party of hard proof of negotiations - and the flavour of them - with the US, does cause me to pause and want to take stock of just where Brexit might lead us. Nothing ever stays the same - and we should not expect it to - but though the EU has its own set of issues that need dealing with, at least those member countries are much closer to home and we know them well from old. It's the proverbial case, as I see it, of staying with the devil you know rather than move closer to the unquantifiable devil (the US) that has enormous clout and would certainly dominate so-called trade "negotiations". One problem is that they speak English - though people say that's an advantage. Unfortunately, American-speak is quite a different variety of language when

Words - And Their Effect

Dear Reader, Politicians - as always - cause a lot of eyebrows to be raised, especially at times of political contention, including election time. Assuming for a moment that 'Aliens' exist, and they were visiting the UK for the first time, they would surely be astonished at the way our politicians conduct their business. They vie against one another as though their party is 100% right about everything it was proposing when even 50% might be a debatable figure. And, of course, they make accusations against their opponents as though they are the only pure people to be considered. But what is worse is that many of us take them seriously, for as we get older we tend to be less principled - cynical, even - and vote for what we think makes the best sense for the moment. Oh dear, can't we see what that leads to?! How can Brexit be the major issue when major climate issues are staring at us in the face, with the floods in the north and east midlands as a major case in point. Th

Perhaps Prince Charles Should Read This?

Dear Reader, Well, nothing seems to be working, does it? Brexit, having failed to happen despite a "Do it or bust" bluster from the P.M., continues to hog the headlines while the huge matter of Climate Change is relegated almost to page 3 material. Worryingly also, is the increasing sense of aggression in the world, locally indicated by the large group of women MPs who now seem keen to stand down because of the violence thrown at them by extremist trolls and others.  Some are saying that since Brexit came to the fore in 2016 that society has become more polarised and is the main cause of the aggression just mentioned. But I put it more down to the time in the 1980s and after when the "me, me" society was encouraged - and by a woman MP, indeed: the famed Maggie Thatcher. That period under her stewardship is for me worthy of great study, for I feel that is the time when One Nation Politics seriously started to decline, though it was a partly understandable react

Abiding By Reality

Dear Reader, Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see— O Thou who changest not, abide with me. This is a week where anger seems to have been raising its ugly head more than ever in recent decades. My wife and I have directly experienced the sharp end of that unsavoury instrument this week from a neighbour, and in all the main topics that form the main news of the day, anger is often the underlying principle. Anger - by its very nature - is directed outwards, the person or persons venting their frustration against something they perceive to be the cause of their frustration. But the secret is that all too often what anger is expressed is against a reflection of their own choice or of their own belief system or of some aspect of

You Are Charged To Re-Charge!

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Dear Reader, Well, it seems that the sale of electric cars has gone up quite a bit over the last year or two, but still not (of course) in huge numbers. At a price of at least £35,000 (and usually a lot more), they are out of the reach of most ordinary drivers. But the cost will come down over time. Their introduction reminds me of a time -  when I was aged between 8 and 11    - when I accompanied my father  in school holidays  to his employers, a bakery company called Scribbans, for whom he was a roundsman. I'm sure that a child would these days not be allowed to do so - more the pity in my view. His delivery vehicle was usually an electric van (exactly like the Morrison vehicle depicted on the left (below)) and so part of his job was to plug in his vehicle at the end of the day, leaving it overnight to be re-charged.  So, I got to know about the re-charging of electric vehicles nearly 70 years ago. However, when Dad and I got to his employers' depot there were all

How Do We Gain True Democracy?

Dear Reader, Democracy is the worst system, except for all the other systems - Winston Churchill With my apologies for digressing before I have barely started this artice, have you ever experienced really big coincidences, or synchronicity? You must have, or perhaps you've not stopped to notice them. Particularly since I started writing regularly about 10 years ago, I've noticed great coincidences appearing on an increasingly regular basis. One of these coincidences concerned research and subsequent article I did 2 or 3 years back about a pioneering pre-WW1 aviator from Birmingham - an aviator that no-one else had heard of - or so I thought. I published my article in Carl Chinn's Brummagem magazine, only to find - only 2 months later - another, parallel, article about the very same person in another magazine published down south. The other writer (not even a Brummie!) knew a bit more than I in a certain area about that aviator, and, likewise, I knew a bit more t

Don't Panic Mr Mainwaring!

Dear Reader, Matters are moving-apace are they not? This past week has seen headlines on matters of concern, whether it's Greta Thunberg and the UN on Climate Change, or Trump being trumped or the face-up between Khan and Modi at the UN over Kashmir, or Boris Johnson and the Supreme Court on Boris's attempt at breaking Constitutional Law.  And in their return to Parliament on Wednesday, we witnessed the worst of what our Parliamentarians can produce while under the full spotlight of people around the world who were interested to tune in, probably in anticipation of a riveting debate at the highest level. All they saw and heard were the worst - almost marketplace - accusations and counter-accusations, with only the SNP (as always) providing a speech of any calm maturity. Macho has no charm. Britain has gone down another notch as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The "home of all parliaments" showed itself to be a wasteland of conceit and party warfare an

The Real Meaning Of Sand-wich?

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Dear Reader, To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  And Eternity in an hour. - William Blake. Well, it may depend on which kind of sand granule. This week we have had, of course, the world-wide demonstration by schoolchildren and others against the slow-shoe-shuffle performance of the Establishment in getting its act together about Climate Change. But the call to action by those who are to inherit the Earth has not come early enough; it should really have been voiced 10 or more years ago to trigger a strong change of thinking and action then , not now at the 11th hour. To those involved in the front-line, it was perfectly clear back then what was evolving, and also to those that had (even as onlookers) studied the situation over the preceding 50 years. But world governments had long mastered the art of keeping people away from the truth, and people don't like to change their habits, nor think