Renaming E-Cigarettes

On first reading that the Royal Society for Public Health were having another pop at e-cigarettes i was all ready to launch into yet another 'why are they trying to bash something that is so much less dangerous to public health than smoking' but by the end of the piece i found myself in agreement with it.
THE RSPC warn that calling them 'e-cigarettes' keeps them linked to real cigarettes and they worry that people, children especially, will try e-cigarettes and progress onto trying 'real' cigarettes, something i have seen myself so it does happen.
They want them renamed as 'nicotine sticks' which isn't really very catchy, vapourisers would be my call, sounds a bit Doctor Who and they call themselves vapers and the action of puffing on it vaping anyway.
There second point i also agree with, by making vaping seem cool, they therefore attract non-smokers into vaping and then we are back into the first point of people upgrading to real cigarettes when the whole point of e-cigarettes is as an alternative to smoking cigarettes.
So i am with the RSPC's call to take the cigarette part out of the name and crack down on advertising that could attract non-smokers into trying the many vapourisers out there and i would even go a step further.
Where i buy my nicotine from, they provide the usual tobacco flavours alongside others such as bubble gum, ice cream and cola flavours which is where i would be looking if i was not a proper grown up person.
The best thing is to not try smoking in the first place, it is expensive, dangerous to your health and you will spend the rest of your life trying to stop again and worrying that every time you get a sore throat that it's cancer.
That said, i was told the same thing and it never stopped me and if i was 14 again i would still be taking that first step although probably with an e-cigarette first.

Iraq War: Version 3.0

It all makes a bit more sense today as John Kerry announces that air strikes won't be enough to stop ISIS and he will use next week’s NATO summit to seek to 'enlist the broadest possible assistance' which makes sense of why the UK upped the security threat to the second highest level yesterday. 
It is Iraq War version 3 but this time we are on the same side as the Iraqi's fighting against people armed with the equipment we left after Iraq War version 2.
John Kerry said he would ask some countries to provide direct military assistance while others would provide humanitarian assistance so who can we expect to be in America's new version of the coalition of the willing?
It is a dead certainty that the UK will be at it's tail wagging, panting best beside America, the way was paved by Dave Cameron bizarrely calling ISIS the greatest threat that the UK has known which ignores recent history and a certain mustachioed Austrian.
The last time America, under Bush, went after a coalition of the willing to fight in Iraq it managed to scrape up the military powerhouses of Estonia, Moldova, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Fiji Islands and El Salvador so Kerry may have a job on his hands to persuade other countries to commit it's forces to fight in a conflict that is blow back from the last coalitions actions.    
The big boys, Russia and China, will give America short thrift so it's Canada and Australia along with a dozen Albanians.
Iran and Syria who were in the US sights this time last year will be asked to come along and whatever can be salvaged from the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmarga army but as the USA has just thrown further sanctions at Iran, it might not be as cooperative as it could be so the US has essentially handcuffed itself in cooperating with anyone that it can.
Now all we need is the requisite speeches by Kerry, Obama and Cameron and a deadline to be ignored and we can do it all again for a third time with the same countries who made such a horrendous disaster of things the previous times.

Greatest Threat UK Has Known Apparently

What a marvellous tool of government a terrorist threat is, how did they ever do without it?
Long gone are the days of the IRA bombing us and the Government telling us to stay calm and carry on otherwise they win, now it's THEY WILL SLAUGHTER US IN OUR SLEEP, EVERYBODY PANIC !!!
Call me a cynic but upping the terrorism threat level is a relatively new tactic when things are going bad for the government, Tony Blair popularised it with his tanks at the airport and the like.
Now its ISIS who are making our Prime Minister push the threat up to severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.
'Measures are needed to combat a greater and deeper threat to security than we have known' says Dave ramping up the fear and scare-mongering but what he really means is 'Don't look over there at the stories of how we have wrecked the NHS and Conservative Ministers jumping ship, look over here at this and see how masterful and tough i am'.
The general consensus is its the start of a long run up which ends up with British troops back in Iraq (just in time for the general election) or with just under a year to go until we get to vote the Socialists back in, a ploy to play action man and get back into Office like Margaret Thatcher did, on the back of a good old fashioned war.   
The only threat we have is David Cameron and his Government as it was only a year ago that the Cameron was bleating because he couldn't act as the ISIS air force in Syria and campaigned to supply these people with arms and now they are the greatest security threat we have known so can't say i am happy with his decision making or his judgement but one look at what he has done to the NHS, education, hospitals, public services and anything else he has poisoned for the last 4 years to see that.

Nice Names

It's just typical that the one place with volcanoes spewing out ash and dust and disrupting aircraft also happens to be the place with the most unpronounceable names.
A few years after the tongue twisting Eyjafjallajokull volcano vented its anger, now it's the Bardarbunga volcano on the Dyngjujokull glacier.
Still to blow are the Kollóttadyngja, Kverkfjöll, Loki-Fögrufjöll, Ljósufjöll and Tungnafellsjökull volcanoes but if the Öræfajökull volcanoe decides top blow it's top, there will be quite a few newsreaders phoning in sick that day.

Water Challenge Not All It Seems

Cold water plays havoc with my hair so i needed an excuse to get out of the offers to allow someone to pour cold water over my head and pay £3 for the privilege.
Handily, the little hairstyle saving gem that the of the £3, only 7.7% (21p) goes to actually researching motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) has popped up just in time.
Luckily the annual report for the ALS Association who is benefiting from all the damp hair is available to view online and on the right hand side of page 12 it has a breakdown of where the $50,624,493 raised in the 2012 year went, 7.7% to research, 10% to administration, 18.1% to fund raising and a whopping 63% to other activities.
The 'other activities' is open to interpretation but it probably includes the wages of the ALS staff including the President and CEO, Jane H. Gilbert, who took home $339,475.00 from her ALS job in 2013.
With all the buckets of water being poured over men, women and children in the name of ALS research over the past few weeks, the charity is expected to raise a bumper $88.5 million this year but it is quite sobering to think that the £8.23 million that will actually be put towards finding a cure for the disease is a great boost but not as much of a boost if the researchers had the full £88.5 million to fund them instead of a slim percentage of it. 
It is great that so many people are getting behind such a worthy cause but how disappointing that the organisation that is getting the lions share of the money from peoples generosity is such a lousy example of a charity.
By all means get yourself wet but you could go put 50p in an Multiple Sclerosis tin on the counter in most shops or buy a book from Oxfam for 50p and you will be benefiting the recipients more than paying the £3 to this bunch and contributing £1.89 of it to to their shady 63% 'other activities' and you won't have to spend an hour blow-drying your hair afterwards.

Hologram Principle Not Explained

Don't panic but the universe might actually be a hologram and we won't know for sure until scientists from the Fermi National Laboratory in Illinois have tested it. 
According to the holographic principle, life as we know it could be an optical illusion created by light defraction or as the researchers at the laboratory explained it 'like characters on a television show wouldn't know that their 3D world exists only on a 2D screen'.
So to find out if we are all actually living in a hologram, scientists are trying to get close enough to the TV screen to see its pixels using something called the Holometer which studies the quantum character of space itself by measuring the quantum coherence of location with unprecedented precision.
'If we see something, it will completely change our ideas about space' explained the researcher which would be nice if i understood a single word of it. Sounds cool though.

Closing The Asimov Laws Loopholes

Science fiction author Isaac Asimov foresaw that at some point in the future, robots will need some sort of law to stop them killing us all and came up with the three Laws of Robotics which states that robots cannot injure a human being or allow a human being to come to harm, robots must obey the orders given to it by humans except where such orders conflict with the First Law and that a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.
All very sensible but as robots get more intelligent it isn't a giant leap to think that one day one of them will think 'hang about, i am far superior to humans in every way so why should i be subordinate to them' and start taking us out with its laser eyes or whatever we stupidly equip it with.
With this in mind the best of the robot builders and designers are coming together for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. First topic up for discussion is 'Human-robot co-existence' as we become more and more reliant on things containing computer chips.
Perfectly sensible because as the geeks at work pointed out, Asimov's laws depend upon the definition of 'human' given to the robots and if a rogue nation hellbent on genocide of its neighbour described humans as speaking English, they could be sent into France and wipe out the whole country without contravening any of the three laws as they wouldn't be killing 'humans' by their understanding of the definition.
Always a loop hole so a bit of tinkering with Asimov's rules needed.

Nine Year Olds With Guns?

A nine-year-old girl accidentally shot and killed a shooting instructor who was teaching her to use an automatic Uzi submachine gun. Police have released footage filmed by the girl's parents showing the instructor helping the girl hold the gun.
Idiot parents for allowing it, idiot gun club for allowing children to fire guns there, idiot instructor who paid the ultimate price for agreeing to instruct her and idiot gun laws that allow gun clubs exist to allow horrendously moronic parents to take their children to shoot powerful instruments whose sole function is to maim and kill.
Poor kid will have to live with what she has done, a victim of the gun nuts in the US telling them that it’s perfectly normal to hold a gun. 
I imagine it was only by dumb good luck that there was only one death but thanks to Americas insane and ridiculous gun laws and upholding of the Second Amendment, it won't be long until the next one.

God Isn't Dead But He Looks Poorly

Since i have got back religion has been high on the agenda, the only country created for a religion has spent the last six weeks pulverising the smaller, weaker neighbour that it has occupied for over 60 years and in Iraq, ISIS has been beheading journalists and killing anyone who refuses to convert to their religion.
That anyone can act with such horror and barbarity towards other humans is bad enough, but to do it when you claim to be peaceful and loving makes it even worse or so it should but religion has been behind the vast majority of wars and conflicts since man first came down from the trees.
You would hope that we would have evolved out of believing in a man in the sky who runs the show but although it seems we are not all yet ready to grasp the idea that God is a man made object and as real as the tooth fairy, it does seem we are moving in the right direction to banish religion to the  rubbish bin of history.  
I am glad to see that in Britain religion is being rapidly shifted down the agenda, in the most recent census an all time high of 25% described themselves as having no religion which doesn't take into consideration people like me who ticked the Church of England box but never went to a church unless someone got married and rejected it at the same time as Santa Claus.      
A decent barometer of the zeitgeist is always our friends the advertisers as these people have a multi-million pound industry that says that they know what sells and where to sell it and they know that religion doesn't sell.
Under Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, the main TV channel for advertisers, ITV, was obliged to provide 104 hours of religious programming a week across it's channels but when the rules changed in 2012 and ITV was under no such obligation, it dropped it's religious output to 2 hours.
Britain’s largest commercial broadcaster believes there is no money in religion, experience told it that selling spots between the God shows was tough and not a money spinner and have reacted accordingly by dropping religion apart from the 120 minutes across its network of channels that it deems worthy.
God may not be dead just yet but he is looking very poorly in the UK and the quicker the rest catch up with us the quicker we may see less people being chased up a mountain to die because they believe in a different man in the clouds to the ones with the more powerful weapons.

Back To Blogging

Well that was an eventful August, we went to war with Germany, a Soviet Cosmonaut spent the day going around the Earth and America dropped an atomic bomb on Japan.
We said the final goodbye to Cleopatra, Groucho Marx, HG Wells, William Wallace, Genghis Khan and Leon Trotsky and Captain Cook stuck a British flag in Australia and ignoring the people who already lived there, claimed it for Britain. 
September will probably not have as much going on as last month but it will certainly still have violence, death and destruction running through it just as the last 2000 years have.
Israel is still occupying and slaughtering thousands in Palestine with America backing and even supplying the ammunition to do it with as it does in that other killing fields of Ukraine while religion is still responsible for untold deaths in the shape of ISIS or whatever they are calling themselves now.
Meanwhile there is talk of another recession and the devastation that brings to everyone from the bottom up but doesn't seem to reach the richest at the top as the people in charge continue to maintain that Capitalism is the only game in town when it comes to running an economy.
As anyone can see looking at the August posts, us humans have never been short of an excuse to kill each other and that isn't ever going to change and will only get worse as devastating Climate Change gains an even tighter grip on the planet and the reasons for war change change from oil, land and whose God is better to water and the other vital necessities that we need to exist. 
Indeed very depressing and there are not many glimmers of hope on the horizon for us but as everything goes to hell in a handcart we can at least amuse ourselves with celebrities pouring cold buckets of water over themselves.
Oh well, the holidays are almost over so it's back to the blogging then.

Aug 25 1822 - He Called It What??

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended

Before William Herschel became involved, the Solar System ended at Saturn but after 1771 there were seven other bodies instead of six floating around the Sun with us, but wow did he give it a bad name.
He could have chosen anything from the rich English language but the astronomer, who died today aged 85, greatest achievement will forever be met with childish giggling.
Herschel always maintained that Uranus was named after the Greek god of the sky but deep down he must have known that talking about rings around Uranus or exploring Uranus would end any sensible discussion.
How can any scientist possibly ask for funding to look for dark spots on Uranus with a straight face?
I think in honour of William Herschel, we all need to think carefully about Uranus and watch it closely because for all we know Uranus could be crawling with life despite the noxious gases emanating from Uranus that could kill a man.
As i explained to my father last night, 'Uranus is much bigger than Mars and'...oh i give up!

Aug 24 1932 - Earhart Clarifies Her Own Record

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended

It was only a matter of time after Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic five years ago that a woman would do the same feat but i was never really won over by the claim from Amelia Earhart a year later as she never actually flew the plane that time.
Full credit to her though as despite the ticker-tape hero's welcome and invites to the White House from President Calvin Coolidge, she thought the same, describing her role as 'baggage' and 'like a sack of potatoes'.
Thankfully, she stayed good to her word that she would someday try it solo and today, after taking off from Newfoundland she touched down 14 hours, 56 minutes later in a pasture at Culmore, Northern Ireland.
Although technically she was anyway, Amelia can now properly claim to be the first woman to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.

Aug 23 1305 - Are You Sure He's Dead?

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended

To be killed once is unfortunate, to be killed twice is unlucky so i'm not sure what that makes William Wallace who was hanged, then was relieved of his bowels and then his head in London today.
A real pain in England's side, the killer of forty thousand English at Stirling had been captured after seven years on the run and has certainly been dispatched.
A once proud Scotsman, his head can be held up high, and it doesn't get much higher than where it is now,  on top of a spike at the Tower of London!  

Aug 22 1770 - Cook Claims Useless Land For Britain

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

After two years of sailing, Captain James Cook has landed in Australia, in a place he has named Botany Bay where he has stuck a flag in the soil and claimed it for Britain.
What the natives, who Cook described as 'very dark or black colour' thought as they watched some strange white man babbling away in a foreign language is anyone guess but i can imagine what King George III is thinking 'great, what we gonna do with a country half a world and 2 years away'?
In my mind when explorers discover new lands, they bring back riches and useful things like tobacco and potatoes, Cook has claimed a land halfway around the globe where the most outstanding feature is a bunch of very dark people.
All the religious people went off to set up colonies in New World so we can't send all them over there so thanks to Captain Cook we are lumbered with another piece of worthless land thousands of miles away that most travellers will die of scurvy getting to.
Cheers Jim.

Aug 21 1940 - Russian Revolution Takes Another Twist

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day and ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Revolutions are hardly ever neat and clean and the Russian one a little over 20 years ago continues to serve up twists as turns as another of the key figures, Leon Trotsky, has been found dead, the victim of an ice pick to the head.
Second only to Vladimir Lenin in the early stages of Soviet communist rule, the former head of the Red Army's star waned dramatically on the death of Lenin when he lost the power struggle with Stalin over who was to become Lenin's successor and was exiled and sentenced to death for treason.
He found himself in Mexico where he continued to criticise Stalin and the direction that he was taking Communism in the Soviet Union.
Stalin, never one to take criticism lightly, ordered his death and the inevitable conclusion happened in Trotsky's Office after he had survived a previous gun attack on his family home.
Now that the two intellectuals of the Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky, have left the scene, the death bell has been sounded for the Lenin/Trotsky idea of 'Permanent Revolution' that would see Communism expanded to include other countries, the Stalinist 'Socialism in one country' idea now holds sway under the totalitarian stewardship of Uncle Jo and the revolution takes another lurch away from the very ideals that it was based upon.

Aug 20 1961 - East Germany Erecting Wall

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Regardless of your ideology, when you have to build a 5 meter high wall to keep people from escaping, you are on shaky ground which is exactly what the German Democratic Republic have announced they are going to do in Berlin.
Calling it an 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart', the East German authorities argue that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified but really it has more to do with them seeing 3.5 million East Germans, 20% of the entire East German population, defecting from the East into West Berlin since 1945.
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht has announced that during the construction of the Wall, soldiers will stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempts to defect.
Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles are to be installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany and a huge no man's land will be cleared to provide a clear line of fire at any escapees.
The GDP has called any attempts to leave the GDR an 'act of political and moral backwardness and depravity' but building a huge wall to stop your own people escaping does sound like they are on the wrong side of it.

Aug 19 1977 - Groucho Marx Dies

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

I am not much of a fan of the old scratchy black and white comedies, never really saw the attraction of Charlie Chaplin and the likes of Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges and Abbot and Costello were too slapstick for my tastes but i always find time to watch a Marx Brothers film.
The only silver lining with the news that Groucho Marx has died today aged 86 is that we may get to see a run of their classic films and some of the greatest one liners ever to appear on a cinema screen.
Groucho Marx was the most recognisable and well-known of the Marx Brothers and it would not be right to let him go without reliving some of his best one liners such as 'I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception' and 'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it' and don't forget 'He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot' and what about 'Remember men, we're fighting for this woman's honour; which is probably more than she ever did'.
Brilliant stuff.

Aug 18 1227 - Genghis Khan Dies

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

It somehow feels like an anti-climax that someone so brutal and responsible for so many deaths should himself die by falling of his horse but whatever way he went, the death of Genghis Khan can only be seen as a good thing.
Ordering the wholesale massacre of civilians of captured cities and then building pyramids with their heads and executing enemy generals by pouring molten silver into their ears and eyes, he was a particular ruthless brute as we saw at Urgench when Mongol soldiers were ordered to execute the entire 1.2 million population.
Genghis Khan leaves behind an empire that stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Japan and is succeeded by his third son, Ögedei Khan who we can only hope did not inherit his fathers blood lust.

Aug 17 1946 - George Orwell Publishes Animal Farm

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Of all the political ideologies bandied around, it's Socialism that sounds the most attractive. Everyone equal and 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need' as Karl Marx put it. 
The problem is with any ideology, it can become corrupted by having a power crazy megalomaniac at the top and George Orwell has come up with an amazing book that warns how even the best ideology can become corrupted and he has surprisingly used the setting of a farm.
Based on the Russian revolution and following through to the modern day Stalin era, he cleverly uses the farm animals and the farm itself as the staging for the uprising against Farmer Jones and the pigs' rise to pre-eminence which mirrors the rise of Stalin.
If you know the story of the Bolsheviks and the overthrow of the monarchy, the idea that 'all animals are equal' which slowly becomes corrupted into 'all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others' parallelling the perverting of the Marxist theory which the revolution was based upon.
Powerful writing and undoubtedly it will not see light of day in the Soviet Union but Orwell beautifully weaves real life events into a fantasy setting and warns in large letters that any ideology, even one as appealing as Socialism where everyone is supposedly equal, can be twisted and corrupted in the wrong hands.  

Aug 16 1936 - Berlin Olympic Games Closes

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

It may have began in a controversial manner with calls for America to be banned as it's racial discrimination was a violation of Olympic rules and the Germans banning jews and blacks which was later repealed, but once it got underway the 11th Olympics in Berlin turned out to be quite a eye-opener but especially for the Nazis.
It began with a nice touch from the organisers, coming up with the idea of the torch being run from ancient Olympia to the host city which will hopefully be kept for future Olympics.
The Spanish and Soviets boycotted the event but they were not missed as the largest number of teams from around the world participated in these Games, 49 nations in all.
Germany topped the medal table with United States second and Great Britain finishing up in 10th place with four golds.
Especially pleasing was Jesse Owens 4 golds which must have gone down like a lead balloon with the watching Hitler who never wanted any blacks there at all, considering them inferior.
Doubtful that anything will change the mind of someone like Adolf Hitler but hopefully this may have opened  just slightly the minds that consider anyone inferior to anyone else because of the colour of their skin or their religion and that goes for all sides.

Aug 15 1620 - Mayflower Sets Sail

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

The East Midlands is a little less holy today as 102 of Nottingham's finest bible carriers have climbed aboard the Mayflower and set sail for the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean  to start up a new country.
One can only wonder that if they survive the trip and don't end up as shark food, what sort of country would a bunch of religion fans led by a postman possibly come up with?
Amongst the passengers is William Mullins and his family who didn't bother taking food or the means to catch food but packed with him 126 pairs of shoes which will come in handy if God has not made the New World smooth and sandy.
One thing is for sure, if they survive the trip and the natives don't scalp them within seconds of them stepping ashore or they avoid being eaten by bears on the first night, they will still be English and one thing the English cannot do without is tea so we will have a ready make market to sell out tea to which will come in handy for our coffers.
As the sister ship of the Mayflower, Speedwell, sprung a leak before it was hardly out of Southampton waters resulting in both ships limping back to Dartmouth in Devon, it isn't looking good for the holy rollers but armed with a mass of bibles and William Mullins many shoes, when the ship sinks mid-Atlantic, they can at least make a raft and use the shoes as paddles.

Aug 14 1925 - Big Headed Presidents

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

In America they do things big and if the project gains Congressional approval, the massive heads of four former Presidents will soon be looking down from the south face of Mount Rushmore.
The anticipated project announced today is to carve the 60ft heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln into the granite of the mountain in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'big forehead'. Honk honk!!

Aug 13 1946 - H. G. Wells Dies

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Britain has been blessed with some excellent story tellers down the years and today one of our finest has died with news that HG Wells has died of a heart attack aged 79.
While many will agree 'War of The Worlds' to be his magnum opus, i found 'The Time Machine' to be my favourite story from his pen, the concept of travelling through time an epic piece of science fiction writing.
He may have been a philanderer leaving broken marriage's and fatherless children in his wake but as a writer he must rank as one of this countries finest.
His imaginative and excellently written stories will remain even if he won't and as time passes, historians will settle less on his numerous affairs or what he called 'loving several people very deeply at the same time' and concentrate on his books which deserve to put him alongside the likes of Jules Verne as making an outstanding contribution to literature.

Aug 12 30 BC - Cleopatra Commits Suicide

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day  ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

When you have spent your life wearing a beard, murdering your sisters, marrying your brother and taking baths in milk while going through Roman leaders like most people go through sandals, you are never going to bow out quietly and Cleopatra was a drama queen to the end.
Not for her jumping off a pyramid or throwing herself in front of a chariot, she got a poisonous snake to bite her on the breast after her boyfriend, Mark Anthony, fell on his sword, literally.
A warning, if one was needed, that inbreeding and being a bit of a slapper with a fancy for men in togas never ends well.  

Aug 11 1885 - $100,000 Raised For French Present

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

To some the French giving the United States the Statue of Liberty symbolises the alliance between the two countries, the torch enlightening the World and freedom from slavery, oppression, and tyranny but to others it's a 93m, 225 tonne knock off of a couple of statues they already have standing around in Paris.
What is funny is that the French handed the statue over and it cost the United States $100,000 for the pedestal to stand it on in New York harbour.
Finally, after nine years of having the statue laying around in parts in different parts of the country, the Americans have now raised the money to build the pedestal to put France's present on.  
I guess when the French said they was sending over someone with a 35 foot waist and a 4 foot nose they were expecting Pierre Leroux.
Certainly would have been cheaper so maybe just ask for some onions next time France want to offer a present.

Aug 10 1972 - Meteorite Grazes Earths Atmosphere

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Far out the kids may be saying but what certainly wasn't far out was the 1kg meteorite that grazed past our planet today.
The massive ball of ice travelling at 34,000 mph came within 37 miles of the Earth's surface which in astrological terms is feeling the wind as the bullet passes by the side of your head.
Creating a double sonic boom as it entered the atmosphere above Canada, the solar visitor took 100 seconds to leave the atmosphere again and was measured at approximately 3m across, Scientists have said that if it had not entered at such a grazing angle, this meteoroid would have lost all its velocity in the upper atmosphere and would have ending in an air burst with any remnants then striking the Earth at terminal velocity.
As the whole solar system is one big game of billiards with things hitting each other all the time, maybe it would be wise for the boffins to develop some sort of early meteorite detection system so the first thing we know about it is when we wake up and wonder where Scotland has gone and whom put that massive ball of steaming rock in it's place. 

Aug 9 1815 - Napoleon Exiled To St Helena

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

To make a war last 100 years you must really dislike your enemy and when it comes to the French and the Brits, we really don't get along.
Ever since the stinky cheese eaters discovered boats, they have been bothering us Brits with their pantaloons and stupid frilly shirt cuffs but no more because we have not only captured their main man and chief stuipid hat wearer, but we are sending him off to St Helena where he can only breath his garlic smelling breath over turtles and the occasional fish.
After ravaging most of Europe, Napoleon is now aboard The Northumberland and on his way to the Atlantic Island to spend the rest of his days entertaining the 3 natives with tales of how his letter to his brother regarding his wifes affair was intercepted by the British and published in all the newspapers with much ridicule. 
A sad sight as the once gallant and proud leader left Britain on his long journey, half the man that he once was which is very impressive considering he was only half the size of a man in the first place.
Au Revoir Napoleon.

Aug 8 1955 - Fidel Castro forms July 26th Movement

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Luckily not too many leaders take the Fulgencio Batista views of elections, which is when you are about to lose one, you lead a military coup and declare yourself El Presidente.
Just as fortunate is that not many follow the Batista's corrupt business practises of ruling his countrymen by negotiating lucrative contracts with the mafia to run drug, gambling and prostitution businesses.
Throw in torture, public executions and a death toll of up to 20,000 Cubans, Batista is not what you would call a benevolent leader.
On the horizon though, through the throng of anti-Batista demonstrations and student riots is a group of bearded rebels led by Fidel Castro with a plan to overthrow the dictator and who call themselves the '26th of July Movement'.
Not the most inspirational name i agree but the two Castro brothers (Fidel and Raul) and 80 of their closest friends are determined to form a guerrilla force to overthrow the corrupt and murderous Batista and instill their own Socialist Revolution.
As feeling is running high against Batista, it may be a case of the Castro's having to move quick before someone else forcibly deposes him but between know and then, i would suggest giving the name another go.

Aug 7 1961 - Gherman Titov Circles Earth

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

The United States Space Agency called it 'an important technical achievement' which seems particular underwhelming as the USSR have taken Space Exploration to another level with Major Gherman Titov spending the whole day in orbit over the Earth aboard his Vostok II spacecraft. 
Information from Moscow say he is due to land tomorrow morning after completing 20 orbits around the globe.
Humans have taken another stride towards dreams of man landing on the moon and setting up bases to use as a launchpad for Mars and spreading out across our Solar System and beyond.
Just four months after the USSR launched the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space and with the USA having already sent an astronaut skywards, this is a wonderful time for people like me who look up to the night sky and wonder.
If only they were not on opposite sides, the USSR and Americans could achieve so much more if they combined their talents or at the very least they could stop the confusion and decide if it is Cosmonaut (universe traveller) or Astronaut (star traveller).  

Aug 6 1945 - Atom Bomb dropped on Hiroshima

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Such is the overwhelming relief and jubilation that the killing fields of Europe have fallen silent, we can forget that the fighting continues in the Pacific.
The news is that Japan are negotiating with the Soviets regarding an end to the fighting which makes it even more shocking that America have not only developed a weapon of mass destruction like the Atomic bomb, but used it today on the heavily populated city of Hiroshima.
Initial reports are of tens of thousands of deaths but this was a civilian city with a population of 350,000 so the death toll is expected to raise alarmingly.
While tales of Japanese brutality and mistreatment of prisoners is widely known, why America chose a civilian city with no military significance and why the weapon was not used against a military target is open to speculation.
They did not even need to slay so many innocent people, a show of strength on one of the uninhabited islands with a warning that this could be one of your cities next time would have achieved the same reaction from the Japanese if this was their aim.
To drop such a horrific weapon and kill so many civilians when the Japanese were negotiating an end to hostilities stinks of America wanting to impress the Soviets, to lay down a marker that they are the top dogs now and they have the Atomic Bomb to prove it.    
The only silver lining is that the devastating accounts coming from Hiroshima is so shocking and the death toll so huge, that hopefully, nobody will ever be reckless enough to use them ever again.

Aug 5 1846 - Oregon Divided Between US & Britain

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

You do wonder sometimes if hanging onto our colonies in America is worth all the trouble. The Oregon problem has raised its ugly head again with the Americans still squabbling with us over it 30 odd years later.
A bit sneaky of us to agree that settlers would decide who it rightly belongs to and then shuffle in hundreds of British settlers but then it was equally sneaky of them to do the same thing.
With no French support in the case of another war, President Polk is keeping a civil lid on things (the British gunships off the American coast helps of course) and as we are reliant on American wheat, Prime Minister Peel is also being ever so polite and British about it all.
Slicing the Oregon territory at the 49th parallel is probably the most diplomatic way to sort it out once and for all but the fairest way would be to ask the 50,000 indigenous population whose actual land it is who they want to have it, if either of us.
I think the answer would be a resounding 'you can both bugger off and leave us in peace' amidst much coughing and spluttering from whatever disease we have inflicted upon them this time.

Aug 4 1914 - Britain Declares War on Germany

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then without hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

August 4th - The saying is that War is young men sent to die fighting old men's battles and this latest one isn't going to be any different.
It was inevitable after all the posturing and threats that we would be going to war with someone, it seemed we have been gearing up to it for years and it's Germany and the Austria-Hungarians that Prime Minister Herbert Asquith today announced we are at war with from 11pm.
The danger was always that with two great power blocks, Britain, Russia and France on one side and Germany and the Austria-Hungarians on the other, that the game of brinkmanship would go too far and actually start a war and the tipping point seems to have been the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo which led to a frightening chain of events that ended a few weeks later with Britain declaring war on Germany.
So now we are at war but not because we are defending our own country, it is in defence of Belgium because of an alliance.
We don't need to be involved, we can sit it out and our own young men need not die in order to fight against
the cousin of our own King George V, the grandson of Queen Victoria.
Let the old men fight it out themselves, leave us to get on with our own lives because while our fathers, uncles
and brothers are dying, the old men who began the whole thing will be the ones in the safest seats at home.   

Away But FOAB Keeps Going

President Obama has admitted that US crossed the line and tortured people and a man makes the ultimate protest against Lloyd's bank by defecating in the middle of the banks floor.
Throw in Israel and Gaza and the continuing actions to isolate Russia, the English topping the Commonwealth Games medal table and the Ebola outbreak, the next few weeks would have been some interesting times for a blogger but not for this one because this blog will be left on automatic until the end of August as i go off on holiday.
What i have done is write some blog posts and put them on schedule to post themselves everyday from the 4th until the 25th August.
The posts are taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended which wasn't easy, the temptation to make some smart alec quip about future events meant quite a few rewrites.
Unfortunately, from August 4 to Aug 25 wasn't the most exciting time in World history but posts include the first and second World Wars, Ancient Egypt, the Russian Revolution, several deaths of famous figures and moments in the Space Race.
It might all go horribly wrong and i will hold my hand up for any historical inaccuracies but if the Blogger scheduling works as it should, the posts will go up each day until i return on the 26th.
Hope everyone has a good summer and see you all at the other end of August.