Author: Richard

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RANDOM NONSENSE

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr.Seuss was written as a bet to contain less that 50 different words.

The Doomsday Book was kept in Bodmin Jail during WWII.

Hot water freezes faster than cold water!

I am is the shortest sentence in the world.

The recipe for Irn Bru is known by only 3 people.

All smartie flavours are the same except for the orange ones.

Smarties were originally called rabbit droppings (in French).

Bacon frazzles are suitable for vegetarians.

Jelly Babies were first launched in the UK by Bassett’s as “Peace Babies” in 1918

Kia-Ora takes its name from “kia ora”, a Māori language greeting that means “be well/healthy”.

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BREXIT AND GEOGRAPHY

Someone should have bought the cabinet an atlas for Xmas! Shop local is a growing trend, and supported by brexiteers, so far so good; but then they tell us we can have great deals with the USA and Japan – please look at a map. Distance equals pollution – simple. We do not want deals with far away countries, just the closest.

Scotland wants to be able to determine its own future. How is that different to Brexit?

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PERSIMMON FRUIT

Is there a better value fruit to eat at this time of the year? I absolutely love them – sweet, great texture, not pips – just brilliant, and cheap too. I also just got a fantastic sour dough loaf. Toasted with a little butter and, well actually nothing or anything!

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SURPRISES?

So North Somerset and Bristol remain in Tier 3. A surprise I will admit. Numbers have risen around here. Cornwall into tier 3 not a surprise (although I wonder if they have worse figures than I have seen). Surprise there is not a tier 5! But the right wing tories would not like that! They state their concern for personal freedom and infringement of civil liberties – are these the same freedoms they use to infect other people with the virus?

Todays paper has a map of the change in the number of cases for the week to the 24th Dec 2020. Quite why North Somerset and Bristol were kept in 3 is even more of a mystery. Both areas have increasing numbers, albeit at a lower level than national average. It is still an increase. On a simplistic level if there is an increase it must mean the present restrictions are not working. Increases for a selected few are Cornwall +37%; North Somerset + 17%; Bristol +7%; Braintree +25%. I know these figures need to be in the context of total numbers, for instance nearly the whole of Wales has seen a drop, but infections are still high.

Just as it seems people went from this area to Axbridge and Cheddar when they were in a lower tier, I am sure the same will be true in reverse. And how many parties have been arranged tonight? I am certain that the teen – 30 age group will be out in force. Does it matter? Only if it gets passed on to older generations, unfortunately this seems inevitable.

I know people will harp on about civil liberties, but a 12 hour curfew across the country from 6pm to 6am would seem to be eminently sensible. And altho hot air from Westminster about tears mean nothing if not enforced. Can we have pictures on TV of people being fined, cars impounded, etc. The police do not have the numbers to impose full compliance, but visual evidence would be a deterance for many.

So Gavin Williamson has been woken up from his hibernation to deal with something he thought he had sorted a while ago. Schools will need to read the small print on their Happy New Year card to see exactly what they have to do in January. Although the ‘start of term ‘ is a while away, so we can expect at least half a dozen changes before then. However he has probably gone back to his spiders and continues to hope that wise owls will share their knowledge with him. I guess he will not share his Christmas with the Daily Mail, however boring!

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HIDE AND SEEK

Covid cases rising just about everywhere, New Years Eve is tomorrow – so at 6 a.m. the Health Secretary announced the new changes to tiers to ensure everyone had at least a little time to adapt. Except he didn’t. Brexit might be important to some, but life and death is considerably more important to most. So we might get an update on the tears (not a spelling mistake) later.

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COVID -2020 – Education

Understanding is difficult. The bozo’s have imposed Tier 4 on over half the country (so far), so you cannot be in a room with more than one family member, but a teacher can spend all day in rooms with tens or hundreds of children. Many teachers are older or with other medical problems which make them vulnerable. But Gove says they must go to work – who does he thing he is General Haig? And this new variant does not seem to be less dangerous given the increase in deaths.

Yes there are huge mental and educational issues – unfortunately The DofE have no ability whatsoever! They have had nearly a year to come up with new exams and qualifications, but have come up with nothing. I have ideas, but a full debate should have been started months ago. The present system has been rubbish for years. But I guess the privileged in their private schools are protecting the status quo.

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BREXIT – Labour policy

Labour should abstain from the vote. They did not make the deal, and were not included in any discussions. It is Johnsons deal, he wanted the glory for himself, let him deal with it. I can understand why some labour MP’s in remain areas might want to back it, it is probably better than no deal; and they do not wish to be seen as not backing Brexit.

But I say let the Nasty Party argue with itself. Personally I am a bit relieved that we have a deal, but its not in my name! The toffs from Eton et al have their prey, lets watch them squabble over the diminishing bones. I always thought that the Nasty Party was about dividing up a bigger cake so the working class would be relatively better off than a smaller cake divide on more socialist terms. How does this argument work with a cake that is diminishing, and the toffs are doing their upmost to avoid taxation!