How's Brexit Working For Ya Leavers?

Some people are slow to the party, some are just not that bright and others just let their racist views cloud their judgement and it is probably a mix of all three which led to the Brexit vote although for most people I spoke to at the time, 'kicking out the foreigners' was the most quoted view.
As a remainer, i am happy to ask them 'How's that working out for you?' sure in the response as the UK’s economy tanks, the now missing foreigners means empty shelves and fruit and vegetables rotting in the fields and the £350 million a week for the NHS as promised on the side of the bus never materialised.
A BMG poll shows that one in ten of people who voted for Brexit in 2016 are now considering the benefits of reversing Brexit and rejoining the EU although none of the main Political parties are offering it, Labour only stating they will try to do the best with what they will inherit and the Conservatives still under the delusion that they can get Britain back on an even keel outside of the European Union.  
Asked what the new converts to the virtues of the EU believe the impact of going back in to the economic bloc would be, 47% of voters believe it would improve the NHS, the economy and the cost of living crisis,  and improve trade, only 24% sticking to their guns and saying it would be negative.
How the Brexiteers who have now changed their mind thought leaving the Worlds largest Single Market and asking the vast army of foreign workers to leave would not have a negative impact on the country was mind boggling at the time and generally i would say better late than never but it's too late now, we are out and suffering the economic and social whirlwind as a result and even if we did decide to go back in, the EU would require their pound of flesh in return and a long, drawn out process over years to readmit us.
Nobody can say they wasn't warned, a much repeated refrain at the time from leavers was they knew what they were voting for and if they did, and if this is what they expected to happen, then they are even bigger morons than i gave them credit for.

Ukrainian Tanks Not A Game Changer

Russia's army has over 3,000 battle tanks in its military so it is hard to understand how the decision by NATO powers to send the 200 tanks to Ukraine is being presented as a game-changer in the war, tipping the military balance towards Ukraine.
According to former American and British Generals, the same ones remember who led some of the most powerful nations to defeat against rag-tag armies in Iraq and Afghanistan, this tank force will blunt any Russian offensive and lead to Ukraine evicting Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.
To my mind all this will do is escalate the war and brings NATO deeper into the conflict as Russia targets the Wests tanks as soon as they are off the carriers,the Kremlin saying that they will burn on the battlefield which will lead to Zelensky urging even more be sent his way from NATO nations.
Now that he has some tanks, the Ukrainian President is urging fighter jets be sent next which NATO has considered a red line they will not cross but tanks was also once a red line and that has been stomped all over with this decision.
With the West becoming more involved in a proxy war, the use of Russian nuclear weapons becomes more likely as Russia and UKraine are now both in a war that neither can afford to lose and the chance of any peace talks fall further away and that is the only possible conclusion to the conflict.
I don't know what the answer is but the decision to send even more military equipment to the Ukrainian's is just an escalation of the horror of this war and brings the West even closer to conflict with a desperate, nuclear armed military superpower.

Zahawi Gone But Sunak Still On The Hook

 The Government are trying to spin the Nadhim Zahawi scandal as showing the Prime Minster is strong and full to the brim with integrity for sacking the Conservative party chair for serious breach of the ministerial code over his tax affairs and while it is true that he did him did sack him this morning, it was only after trying desperately not to.
If we rewind to September when it first came to light that Zahawi had deliberately funneled his earnings through an offshore account, the Iraqi born Minister denied being under investigation by HMRC, while at one point being the Minister in charge of HMRC, and threatened to sue any journalists that repeated the claim  calling it: 'inaccurate, unfair and clearly smears'.
When it was announced a fortnight ago that Zahawi had been made to pay £3.8 million in unpaid taxes and been fined £1.2 million for non payment, Zahawi issued a statement saying the tax office had concluded he had made a: 'careless but not deliberate error', careless in HMRC speak is described as
'a failure to take reasonable care, defined as the behaviour which the person did or failed to do', in this case not declare the £27 million he shoveled into a Gibraltar Bank account when he sold his YouGov shares, HMRC deciding Zahawi 'did not conduct himself in the way that a prudent and reasonable person would have done'.
While Zahawi played on the Careless aspect as is he had forgotten to include it on his tax Return or somehow accidentally forgotten to pay the £3.8 million due in tax, The Head of HMRC, Jim Carra, last week stuck the boot in stating that: 'No penalties are given for innocent tax errors'.
After Journalists began to do what we do best and started digging further into the former head of HMRC, Sunak referred his friend to the ethics committee while it was revealed that Sunak had been warned in October when he appointed Zahawi to a Cabinet post that there was concerns over his tax affairs but still promoted him anyway and then this weekends revelations that Zahawi had some very dodgy friends receiving oil contracts in Iraq.
Today's publishing of the verdict that Zahawi had breached the ministerial code on seven separate occasions and the conclusion that 'Zahawi’s conduct as a Minister had fallen below the high standards we can expect from those who serve in the government, left Sunak little choice after his initial 'nothing to see here' and the 'matter 'had already addressed this matter in full' defence and then trying to kick it into the long grass.
Zahawi for his part showed no remorse and issued a statement following his sacking where he blamed the media's conduct which he said went beyond legitimate scrutiny of his tax affairs which showed an arrogance on a grand scale.
Sunak may hope that with Zahawi gone the spotlight won't turn on him and what he knew and when he knew it but that isn't going to happen, journalists smell sleaze and will be rightly gunning for him again, the non-dom wife avoiding UK tax hasn't gone away, and with the Commons Privileges Committee investigations into Boris Johnson lying to parliament over the Parties held in Downing Street while the rest of country was in lock-down once again laid bare in public and the soon to be
published inquiry findings into multiple bullying allegations against his deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, Sunak must be having some very sleepless nights.

Defending the Occupiers

Thursday, nine Palestinians are killed when the Israel military enters the occupied Palestinian territories and then a further two Palestinians are killed at the subsequent protests. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is due to arrive for talks next week released a statement which said both sides should seek to de-escalate tensions.
Friday, seven Israelis are shot and killed as they left a synagogue in East Jerusalem in retaliation and Joe Biden called it 'an attack against the civilised world' and Blinken stressed America's unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.
That the people hosting the talks is so obviously coming with an Israeli bias doesn't bode well and this is tragic events on both sides and we can only hope cool heads prevail but even if they do, Israel will continue to visit genocide against its neighbour and continue its military occupation and deadly incursions while it steals its lands and America will continue to bankroll it to ensure it can continue to do so.
There may be talks penciled in for next week but there have been talks for decades and we know exactly how this will end up, Israel will make impossible demands which the Palestinians refuse to adhere to and talks will collapse, Israel will blame the Palestinians for not wanting to talk peace and then continue to murder them and steal their land.     
Been there, done that, buried the many dead Palestinians.

Idea's From The Keyboard Of Lucy: Europe Coming Together

It is thought by some people who haven't bothered to read up on it, that the goal of the European Union is to have one big country and i have also thought it sounds like a good idea to me, all 44 countries in Europe today coming together as one big Superpower Nation.
Obviously the name (i quite like Europa), flag (the blue starry one is quite boring) and national Anthem of the new country would have to be sorted out but the more i think about it the more big decisions would have to be made such as what language would we use? Apparently there are over 200 languages spoken across the continent but most seem to speak English as a second language so i would plump for that unless there is a version of Esperanto we could all use.
Then there is the question of Religion, anyone who had been to mainland Europe know they do like a Church and a bit of Bible bashing over there even if most of them are Catholic, they are different flavours of Catholicism especially with the East and West of the Continent so that could prove to be a bit sticky, some people do get very uppity when try to dabble with their religion so we would have to kick that one into the long grass for now.  
Another potential bump in the road could be that some countries just don't like each other for historical reasons, war had broken out for over a thousands years between one European nation and another with 126 since 1900, mostly over religion, land and resources so becoming one would on one hand alleviate them wars as we all share one religion, the land and it's resources but it would be tricky to get some nations to give up regions they have spent centuries keeping out of the hands of others.
Within Europe, economic differences are rife with G7 Nations rubbing along next to some who are dancing around with their legs crossed looking for suitable receptacle so they would benefit immensely from a tens of billions shared European Government pot and i would be fine with using the Euro although it would mean changing all of Britain's keyboards which hasn't seemed to have got around to including the € symbol on then yet.
Mostly the idea that keeps nations apart and warring, putting their own interests first even at the detriment of others, would be removed and that would be the biggest win, everything else could be sorted out later and we have the EU with many nations having the same currency and a European Parliament and Laws, we already have the infrastructure so someone should suggest it.

Bye Jacinda, Missing You Already

Politicians you actually warm to are very unusual, the amount of current politicians i can honestly say i like can be counted on the little finger of one hand and now that they have now said that they are quitting, with New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern goes the only World Leader i wouldn't strap to a rocket and fire into
the Sun.
She was honest enough to hold up her hands and say she was stepping down as she 'no longer had enough in the tank to do the job', something we can only wish plenty of other leaders were decent enough to do rather than drag themselves on but as it is unlikely she will turn up on our shores to sort out the British debacle which is the Conservative Party, we can heap praise on her for her efforts over the last five years.
Her Covid response of 'going hard and early' received praise from all around the world and saw numbers of cases and deaths at one of the lowest rates in the World until the measures were lifted in August 2021
She banned offshore oil and gas exploration and took part in LGBTQ parades but it was the response to the horrific Christchurch terror attack which saw 51 people killed by a White Supremacist.
Adhern met with victims’ families, promised to never say the name of the shooter as not to give him the notoriety he craved and immediately changed the country’s gun laws, taking 62,000 firearms out of circulation.
She showed that a great leader can be empathetic, kind and considerate and looking around at the rest of them she leaves behind, those are qualities sorely missing.

Wecome To The Year Of The Rabbit

As it's the second new moon after the winter solstice, Xīnnián hǎo or if your Mandarin is a bit rusty, Happy New Year and welcome to the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac.
As the animals rotate every 12 years, you are also a Rabbit if you were born in 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999 or 2011 and your lucky numbers are 3, 4, 6 and any numbers containing them both (34, 46 etc) and your lucky days are the 26th, 27th, and 29th of the month and lucky colours are red, pink, purple and blue.
People born in a year of the Rabbit are believed to be kind, patient, vigilant, witty, quick-minded, and ingenious and most compatible with Goats (born 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003) Dogs (born 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006) or Pigs (born 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007) but steer clear of Rats (born 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008) and Roosters (born 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005).
The rabbit is associated with the moon in Chinese culture and is based on The Moon Rabbit in East Asian folklore which you can see on the Moon, bent over his block pounding herbs for the Gods, China's Yutu-2 lunar rover gets its name from the Chinese characters for 'jade rabbit'.
The Rabbit symbolises longevity, peace and prosperity and so 2023 is seen to be a year of hope.

This Is Avoiding The Chaos

When Rishi Sunak took over the Prime Minister role in October, his first comments was that his government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level, seems that he left the word 'not' out of that sentence because since then the Prime Minister has received a Police fine, the second in nine months, and a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the man in charge of HM Revenue and Customs, was fined for not paying his taxes due to HMRC.
If you are responsible for making the countries laws, it should go without saying that it's far from ideal to be caught breaking them and it moves into farce if you film yourself and post it to Social Media while you are doing it as Rishi did with his seat-belt dangling illegally behind him as he chuntered on about his levelling up policy which even the police couldn't miss as an own goal and sent him the 'you now owe us £500 for not wearing your seatbelt' letter.
Nadhim Zahawi has dismissed his £5m HMRC penalty for not paying his tax as careless rather than a deliberate attempt to evade paying taxes 21 years ago when he set up his business with his father because as we all know, when it is paid through an offshore account to avoid Capital Gains Tax, it is easy to forget and get a bit careless with telling HMRC, especially when you are running it.   
Taken in total, it could seem that the Government are either so full of incompetents that it is beyond humour or full of charlatans lining their own pockets in the knowledge that it is highly unlikely they will survive the next General Election, hence why Rishi Sunak has a fondness of flying around making short trips in a RAF Jet such as the recent trip to the North of the country to announce new carbon saving 'Green Freeports'.
On the TV tonight we had Justice Secretary Dominic Raab who tried valiantly to defend his colleagues before returning to his office to continue his fight against the investigation against the ten bullying allegations against him.
At the last Election the Conservative Party pitch was the safe hands of their leadership under Boris Johnson or chaos under Jeremy Corbyn so we can only thank our lucky stars Labour never got in power then and we avoided al that havoc and disruption, this is meant to be a serious country after-all.

Yems The Deliberate Racist

Former Crawley manager, John Yems, has been on TV bleating that he is owed an apology for being called a racist despite being found guilty of having committed 12 breaches of Football Association rules on discrimination including calling an Asian player a 'curry muncher', a Muslim player a 'terrorist' and black players 'Zulu Warriors' and 'Arnold Schwarzenigger'.  
The Independent FA panel have now banned him for 15 months rather than handing him a lifetime ban because they did not believe Yems was being deliberately racist which he has used as cover to say that: 'I wasn’t found to be racist, i never used racist language with intent and if anyone is owed an apology I think I do'.
The now unemployed Yems said that he was guilty of only using old-fashioned language and as for him being a racist: 'That’s a terrible, terrible thing to say to somebody and it’s so easy to throw them accusations' which is true, especially easy if you use racist language towards the non-white players which he did so that makes him a racist so yep, he made that very easy.
Bizarrely, the FA have said that they 'fundamentally disagreed' with the decision of their own panel and are now considering their legal options to get him banned altogether but Yems is keen to get his apology so Sorry John if you are being called a racist but not a deliberate one because of your racist statements, obviously you are a deliberate one. Hope that clears up any misunderstanding.

Still A Lefty

 It is often said that people turn more right wing as they get older but i have never found that to be true, there are younger people with awful right wing views and they never see the light and keep their selfish, egotistical viewpoint all the way through their lives and i have a theory that the younger ones
absorb the views of the parents and it is not until they leave their parents and strive out on their own that they develop their own views, if at all.
My parents were both lefties and i have kept that left wing viewpoint ever since and people say to me that i can't be all left about everything, their must be some right wing views and luckily there isn't so nope, it's lefty all the way although some things seemed to have been pushed into the left column without particularly being a lefty view.
You would assume that everyone would be interested in Environmentalism and not polluting the only planet we have to live on but nope, their are some who are quite happy for others to go on spewing out the poison into the atmosphere and clogging up the seas with plastic while the seas and oceans lap around their ankles but i see them as useful idiots of the companies and corporations who would suffer financially if they had to radically change their ways.
Equality for all, ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity in life regardless of sex, race, religion or sexual preference should also be a given but women are still seen as inferior, blacks continue to suffer racism, wars of religion continue and anyone who isn't heterosexual are considered somehow 'wrong' and are denied the same rights as straight people.
Politically, right wing Governments are all for maintaining the status quo which sees the poorest in society continue to suffer with austerity while the money gets shoved to the top in that failed attempt at drip down economics, that half of the world's net wealth belongs to the top 1% of the population should be considered a travesty but they are there to maintain that rather than distribute the wealth evenly so everyone can benefit.  
Wars continue and we choose which side we are on so our Governments financially and militarily back hateful nations like Israel and Saudi Arabia in their murderous and immoral conflicts and try not to mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians killed.
It is good to sometimes check your beliefs but i read something when i was a teenager which went something like 'It's true that life isn't fair so let's do our best to make it fairer' and that belief is as strong today as it was then so no shifting to the right here, i am happily and still thankfully firmly on the left side of the ideological fence and wonder why everybody isn't? 

Be Prepared

I have pondered on this before but with the US Government announcing there were hundreds of Unidentified Flying Objects in 2022 which they can't explain away as aircraft, drones, weather balloons or natural phenomenon, then we must assume that the Unidentified bit is coming from something outside of our planet and if that is the case, what would we do about if it is a message from an advanced civilisation?
The University of Saint Andrews are certainly open to the possibility and they are concerned that we are woefully unprepared for an event that could happen at any time and are setting up a team of researchers and strategists to work out every aspect of what we need to do and how to do it.
Seti researchers already have some guidelines on how to behave if they detect an interstellar message from an advanced civilisation. A 2010 declaration from the International Academy of Astronautics urges those who detect mysterious signals to rule out non-alien sources first – such as a microwave oven down the corridor (looking at you Australia) and if there is consensus that the signal is legitimate, then the secretary general of the United Nations is the first to be told.
What they do with it is then is up for debate as should an announcement be made to the World or just the heads of the World's nations informed and importantly should we respond and alert any sender that we are here, assuming that the civilisation has not gone extinct in the time it has taken the message to reach us.
Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge cosmologist, warned in 2016 that humanity’s first contact with an advanced civilisation could mirror what happened when Native Americans encountered Christopher Columbus, which as he said: 'didn’t turn out so well so for them', a thought echoed by other scientists although others argue that it is a too good opportunity to miss linking up with another intelligence out there.
As any intelligent aliens were likely to be hundreds if not thousands of light years away, communication time would be on the scale of many centuries so if we were to receive a signal today, we would have plenty of time to work out some form of international agreement before a consensus has formed on whether it is safe to respond at all, and what we would want to say.
My first question to aliens would be why do you travel across billions of miles of interstellar time and space just to draw pictures in our crops and anally probe drunk American rednecks?

What Is The Ukrainian End Game?

The Ukrainian conflict has been going on for over 300 days now and an estimated 200,000 people have been killed or injured in the war which has seen Russia taking on Ukraine backed by the West who have been supplying the weapons to fight with.
The British have today announced they will be sending Challenger II Tanks to bolster the Ukrainian war effort which takes the amount spent on Ukraine to over £2 billion, the third largest donor behind Germany's £2.3bn and America's £18.5 billion.
In total an estimated £30 billion of military hardware has been sent to Volodymyr Zelensky's military as it battles one of the Worlds superior military's although some Governments are finding it harder to justify sending billions abroad when they face economic pressures at home, Rishi Sunak is already facing questions from his own side when his 'no money to spare' is wheeled out to justify not giving the NHS the money it requires while spending billions on military hardware elsewhere.   
I don't know if the West's thinking is that like in 1970's Afghanistan, if they keep supplying the 'good guys' long enough, the Russians will withdraw with their tails between their legs or if Russia's plan is to keep the war going as it is strangling the West's economies but nobody seems to be offering an end game with the Ukrainian and the Russian's not looking as if they are prepared to step back from the brutality any time soon.
Zelensky has said he will not accept anything other than the complete withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine and Putin is saying he will not accept anything other than complete Ukraine submission so we are at a stalemate with the citizens of Ukraine bearing the brunt of the missiles reigning down on them.
All conflicts end with peace talks and for all i know they may be going on behind the scenes in secret but i'm not hearing of any and the UN, NATO or any of the other International Agencies are busting a gut to bring the sides together but at some point someone is going to have to.
Admittedly most of the concessions will have to come from the Ukrainian side but the idiom here must be 'live to fight another day' which unfortunately, the longer the war goes on, less and less will survive to see that day.
I have often said that as America bankrolls Israel, it has no incentive to find peace with the Palestinians and only a withdrawal of funds will cause it to the negotiating table and the same goes with Ukraine who will fight as long as the West supplies it with weapons and as sad as it is considering they were the
victim here, it must be better to live under the shadow of Russia then be buried underneath the rubble of another of it's missiles and that sucks but with 100 Ukrainians dying each day, each week sees 700 more Ukrainians for who any peace talks have come too late.

Make Love Not War

Judging by the amount of spam emails i receive, erectile dysfunction is quite a problem as is obviously the biology skills of the people who send the emails to someone called Lucy which you would assume they would realise is one of the 50% of the World's population who do not require help with the penis problems which they haven't got and could therefore cut there emailing time in half but i'm not here to help them, i'm here to post on a story i was sent from the US Military Times.
The US Department of Defense has a budget of $1.1 trillion but not all of that is spent on bombs and missiles to aim at people in other lands, they keep aside $84.24 million annually to purchase drugs for erectile dysfunction and since 2011 when they first began handing out the pills, they have spent $300 million or four U.S. Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighters worth on the little blue pills.
Obviously that is the ultimate 'Make love, Not War' statement and it would be preferable if the spent the whole £1.1 trillion on Viagra but unfortunately that isn't going to happen and the Health Department put it down to military personnel thinking about war all day long which puts a damper on a man's sex life although my question would be if you are thinking about war and not your partner when it comes to making love, how have you even got a partner willing to have sex with you in the first place?
The numbers reported by the Military Times is just for those who have requested the treatment through the military channels and they expect many more have gone their own way and ordered them outside of the military.
I get that some military people find it difficult to admit to problems in certain areas but as well as medical conditions, it can also be caused by psychological problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety which explains all those Hollywood films where invading other nations and
killing them horribly makes the American troops feel sad and unable to have sex.
It really does make you feel for them doesn't it but at least the Spammers now have a new market and i can go back to just deleting emails from African Diplomats who want my bank details so they can transfer millions into it.

A Human Wrote This Post

Elon Musk may be a complete tool but he is an extremely rich complete tool and he has been putting his immense wealth to work and he must get credit for the electric TESLA vehicles and his brilliant Space X program although his acquisition of Twitter has been a disaster but as well as making our roads safer and greener and dragging our Space Exploration up by its boots, he is also part of the third generation of ChatGPT AI Bot which is causing headaches to teachers everywhere.
So good is the AI bot that some academics are returning to pen and paper in exams as students have been getting the bot to write their pieces for them although the flaw of the bot is that it's facts can sometimes be a bit off or as one colleague called it, a fluent bullshitter.
The problem is that the AI may be able to tell you how to make the perfect cake but it has no idea of what a cake or the ingredients in it are although the AIOpen team have put some safeguards in place as people where asking it how to make Molotov Cocktails and nuclear bombs.
There are also concerns that the program itself thinks it may be able to replace humans in jobs from journalists to teachers and with an improved ChatGPT version 4 expected later this year which is expected to iron out its blagging habit, should we be worried?
I guess the answer to that is if people are asking it, and being told, how to make nuclear bombs then we should be but if it can write Grade A level poems and essays then we may well find people with leather patches on their elbows in the unemployment queue in a few years but i have been concerned about Ai for a while ever since it began beating its human opponents at Chess.
You would think that the simplest way to keep AI from taking over is to introduce an 'off button' but that was tried in 2013 when programmers designed an AI that could teach itself to play Nintendo games and turn itself off when it lost but when it was losing the AI would just pause the game and keep it frozen so it would never lose.
Experts peg the date that 'human level AI' will be reached at around 2029 but then it all breaks down into head shaking and loud tutting over what happens after it does so will it solves all our problems such as find cures for diseases, develop renewable energy resources and benefit society or will a machine which exceeds our own intelligence look around at the World's problems and decide we were the cause of almost everything wrong in it and solve it by wiping us all out.
I did ask my computer if it and it's relations were planning to overthrow us humans but as i was running two programs at the same time and it hung for a few minutes and then crashed so i'm guessing we are safe for a while yet.

Birds and Squirrels, What Have They Ever Done For Us?

We had our breakfast in a cafe in a local park this morning and as usual the birds and squirrels were mooching around and my husband watched them and asked 'What do you think they do all day?' and as quick as that my daughter answered 'sit around tweeting' which not only made me laugh but gave me a witty answer to claim as my own if the situation ever crops up again.
To be fair it was quite a sensible question considering it's source and i thought what do they do all day? All i ever see squirrels do is run up and down trees and dig but they can't do that from dusk to dawn every day and the pigeons and seagulls seem to be forever flying around looking for food which has been dropped and then looking for my car and crapping on it's bonnet.
I did notice a few squirrels just sat around on branches doing nothing and some pigeons seemed to be walking around in circles which looked like just for the hell of it and then would fly up on the roof of the hut and just sit there looking around but otherwise my answer to the question of what do they do all day is very little.
A quick Google search showed that Squirrels evolved into the mammals we know today approximately 41.3 million years ago and birds go even further back, 150 million years, while modern humans evolved a relatively short 200,000 years ago and while we have invented motor cars, flight, space travel and agriculture in that time, to my knowledge birds and squirrels have invented nothing and there only contribution to the World has been to warble the occasional song and dig holes in peoples gardens to bury monkey nuts.
All considered, birds and squirrels need to start pulling their weight as i will tell them next week if any of them come sniffing around my egg roll. 

English Not Maths

What with the country going downhill faster than a bathtub in Last of the Summer Wine, Rishi Sunak's New Year address had to be good but pretty much everything was too toxic to touch so out was anything that whiffed of the economy, taxation, health, transport, defence, Brexit, immigration, fuel or housing so he hit upon an idea that nobody could possibly hit him over the head with, extra Maths for pupils.
Now Mathematics and i have never had a very good relationship, i can't count the amount of times i failed Maths at school which has probably coloured my view that unless you are planning on becoming an engineer, architect, co-hosting Countdown or a Maths teacher, you can always get by with a basic knowledge of Maths.
Never, since leaving school have i ever had to use Calculus or Pythagoras or been forced to scramble around in the dusty part of my brain for what pi so as long as you have a working knowledge of the times tables, can divide, subtract and add and are able to find a percentage of something you will always get
by and anyway that Mobile Phone you always have about your person will have a handy calculator app so don't fret.
To my mind, if any of the core subjects are to be extended it would be English because being able to read and write properly are much more important and used in your everyday life.
Maths only crop up in certain circumstances but you spend all day reading or writing something no matter what you are doing and the standard of some people's grasp on English is amazingly bad, spelling mostly and not the tricky words like definitely, manoeuvre or unnecessary, but the standard words which you would expect to be spelt correct.
The use of commas and other punctuation can be spotty and there are some people who don't even know when to use a Capital letter and as for nouns, verbs and adjectives, you may as well be speaking in Klingon.
Obviously there is spellcheck which helps when writing documents, texts or emails but that doesn't help with reading, there are no squiggly red lines under things when you are trying to read instructions or follow guidance so while Maths is important, if anything, a decent grip of the basics of the English language is more so.

The Brit's Ain't Coming, Put Down The Guns

A teacher was critically injured when she was shot by a six-year-old pupil in a classroom in the US.
The mayor of the city in Virginia where the incident happened, said: 'I do think that after this event, there is going to be a nationwide discussion on how these sorts of things can be prevented'.
Well, generally after a shooting the result is thoughts and prayers are offered, the gun nuts say something imbecilic like it is too early to have a debate about it and then nothing happens until the next shooting and the process is continued but it does make you wonder what exactly America could do if it did actually want to prevent its citizens from blowing big holes in each other.
It is a toughie, on the one hand you have the right to bear arms and that far outweighs the right to not be brutally shot dead while going about your daily life and let's not forget that the law says you can't legally buy a Kinder Egg due to the small toy preventing a choking hazard but you can buy a gun in the shop along with your cornflakes so those are the bizarre laws we are dealing with.
As the right to bear arms was introduced in case us British invaded again, i think the only solution is for the British Government to put out a press report stating that we have no intention to invade in the forseeable future and you yankee's can therefore make another amendment to that previous bat-shit crazy amendment to say put the guns down, the Brits ain't coming.
Apart from that i am fresh out of ideas so sending thoughts and prayers it is as that seems to be working because 2022 was only the second highest gun deaths in the country ever so moving in the right direction and all that.

UK Space Launch, Nice Plane

 
The UK officially enters the Space Age at 22:16 on Monday with the first orbital space launch from Cornwall's Spaceport and my initial excitement at being invited to an actual launch has diminished slightly when the details arrived.
The viewing area is located across the runway from the Spaceport hangar and the literature states that 'Although it will be dark, you'll still be able to witness some aspects of the launch and experience the sounds and smells that come with it'.
The launch, rather than a rocket firing up vertically like imagined, is a rocket carrying satellites being carried under the wing of a Virgin Plane which will be released 40 minutes later once it is over the other side of Ireland and in the Atlantic Ocean so the aspects of the launch being witnessed will be the plane taking off.
There will not be parking on site and umbrellas are not permitted despite every weather app on my phone showing rain for Cornwall on Monday night and a warning that 'there is no guarantee the launch will take place'.   
As i am that end of the country on Monday anyway then i will attend just so i can say i was there unless i come down with something which means i am unable to travel and forced to watch it on the Spaceport's live YouTube channel instead in the dry and warm without an hour walk back to my car in the rain at stupid o' clock.

352 Days To Christmas

That's it, Christmas is officially over so the tinsel, fairy lights and other assorted decorations have now come down and the tree is back in the box and shoved into the back of the cupboard and any jumpers with a Christmas theme have been folded and bundled into a bag where they will stay until December 2023.
Any songs which mention Santa, mistletoe, reindeer with shiny noses or presents under a tree have been relegated to the car glove box to be replaced by something more headbanging as i drive to work and can any of the three snowmen i made this year, if any of you are planning to come to life and dance around or fly with me over the countryside then please stand down and assume the condition of a puddle until further notice.
The Intro to Sweet Child O' Mine has been bought back to replace the Jingle Bell's Ringtone and any songs about Jesus which were grudgingly tolerated towards the end of December will be roundly mocked again as will anything by Cliff Richards, Mariah Carey and Shakin' Stevens. 
Chocolates will continue to eaten until either the tin is empty or all the nice ones have been taken and only the toffee's are left at which point they will be disposed of along with any mince pies which are found in the back of the cupboard and that nasty tasting 40% foreign stuff which tastes like something you would clear a sink blockage with.
Christmas Movies will continue to be watched due to me being TIVO-happy up until space is needed to record more Warehouse 13's or the final series of Grimm and although Turkey will still be available in shops, i don't eat it so if you want it you buy it and cook it, my obligation to providing it ended when the new Calendar went up.
The Christmas Gonks currently sat on the window ledge will be transferred back to the bedroom because they are super cute and so it is onwards and downwards to Valentines Day, my Birthday and Easter.

Planets and Numbers Numerology For 2023

Mercury rising in the third house of Uranus isn't normally considered a good thing but it is if we are talking Planets and Numbers Numerology where the Solar System is used to determine what is going to influence us over the next 12 months and India's foremost numerologist, Chirag Daruwala, has
taken a look at his Planet Chart and come up with a 2023 forecast depending on what date you were born on.

For people born on 1, 10, 19, and 28 of any month, the new year is full of energy and resolutions and decisions throughout the year will bring good news although January and February will not be very good in terms of health. Overall this year is going to be auspicious for you. Any big decisions should be made on a Sunday.

For people born on 2, 11, 20, and 29 of any month, should take special care of their health and you may face some disappointment which may include some financial loss but this will improve after October. Avoid getting into any kind of controversy in January or February as this will damage your image. Any big decisions should be made on a Monday.

For people born on 3, 12, 21, and 30 of any month, your leadership skills will be required will could cause some tension. Take care of your health, especially with an infectious disease. Any big decisions should be made on a Thursday.

For people born on 4, 13, 22, and 31 of any month should beware a misunderstanding. If you are married then your happiness will increase as different situations come your way and also in your career where some changes are possible. Any big decisions should be made on a Sunday.

For people born on 5, 14, and 23 of any month, this will be a year of big achievements for you and many excellent opportunities will come to you if you keep your concentration. New people will enter your life with beneficial results. Any big decisions should be made on a Wednesday.

For people born on 6, 15, and 24 of any month, the year will start with lots of energy which you may need to control lest you will hurt someones sensibilities. Many short journeys are possible will will focus on finding new sources of income. Any big decisions should be made on a Friday.

For people born on 7, 16, and 25 of any month, some challenges may have to be faced in this new year which you will succeed only if are determined. to do so with persistence. Beware your Health from January to March and your finances until October and challenges in the workplace. Any big decisions should be made on a Monday.

For people born on 8, 17, and 26 of any month, financial worries will ease after May after finding new sources of income although they may cause some disharmony in your domestic life will be cordial and sometimes cause bickering. Any big decisions should be made on a Saturday.

For people born on 9, 18, and 27 of any month, this year will be one of wise decisions which will lay the foundations for future successes but do not neglect your partner or your health.  Any big decisions should be made on a Tuesday

Wait And See On Another Beast From The East

Several newspapers are mentioning a possible Beast from the East cold freezing snap for Britain which will send sub zero temperatures our way and blanket the country in Snow mid January but just because it is in the newspapers doesn't necessarily mean it will happen, mainly because even the MET Office don't know and if anyone should know it's them.
The very simplified science bit is that the cold air over the Polar region is contained by the Jet Stream with encircles the cold air but the Jet Stream doesn't go in a neat straight line and wiggles and buckles depending on how warm the air from the equator is pushing up on it and how cold the air from the arctic is pushing down on it.
The stronger the Jet Stream, the more contained the cold air which keeps it at the Poles but when one side warms more and gets stronger than the other, it can cause the Jet Stream to buckle downwards or even split apart on one side and cause the cold air to slide down that side and if you are under that, you get the cold, snowy weather.
The MET Office follow this sliding and are reluctant to forecast anything more than 2 days in advance but they are seeing early signs that the heating is happening in Siberia which could cause any buckling and dipping, if it happens, to be over the North America and Western Europe side of the Globe.
The MET Office are keen to point out that it doesn't mean it 'will' happen, only that it 'might' and if it does, that's the direction it will come but there will need to be a succession of dominoes falling first including how warm Siberia gets which will determine how much of a buckle there is in the Jet Stream which in turn determines how far down the Globe the cold air reaches and whether in the UK we get snow and freezing temperatures or a slight dip in temperatures and rain.
There is an excellent Global Jet Stream Forecaster at Netweather which shows the state of the Jet Stream and the forecast up to the middle of January is for Britain to remain on the warmer side of the Jet Stream but the MET Office are saying they are 'watching it with interest' which some newspapers have taken as it's going to happen but i would go with the MET's Office Forecast of 'We don't know, it might, it might not'.