As revolutions go, the French one is second only to the Russian one for world wide consequences and it all began 100 years ago today when the Russians marched in protest in Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) demanding the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II over the Russian involvement in WW1, the monarchy's crackdown on demonstrations and bread shortages.
The protests would lead to the rise of the Communists and the eventual overthrow of the Government by the Bolshevik Party comprising of leaders Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky who would form the Soviet Union and spread Communism throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.
Trotsky wanted to spread Communism around the World but on the death of the brains behind the revolution, Vlaidimir Lenin, the erratic Stalin took over the reigns, had Trotsky assasinated and began his reign of authoritarian rule which ended with the death toll attributed to Stalin at 50 million excluding wartime casualties.
Communism and the fight by the West against its growth became the defining feature of the middle and late 20th Century and continues today with the rise of China to Superpower status and it all began by protests a century ago.
Tuesday, 7 March 2017
Why Less Young People Are Smoking
With the Government budget tomorrow expected to pile as much as 50p onto a packet of cigarettes, figures released today from the Office for National Statistics show that less young people are lighting up with 20% of 18-24 year olds smoking compared to 25% five years ago.
Even among the age group most likely to smoke, 24- to 35-year-olds, about 40% smoke compared to 65% previously.
Of course its a good thing but i don't buy the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Charity who say the results are due to a combination of effective legislation, policy and support for quitting.
In my dealings with teenagers, the most effective combination in the decline in smoking has been the exorbitant price of cigarettes and the rise of electronic cigarettes.
Where before the clouds of smoke above the smoking areas would cigarette smoke, now it is plumes of sweet smelling vapour and i have not seen a decline in the numbers huddled under the smoking area in recent years, just a change in what they are puffing on.
In 2015, three out of every 100 16- to 24-year-olds used electronic cigarettes, up from one in every 100 in 2014and in total 2.3 million people in the UK are using them.
The concern quite rightly is that Vaping could prove a gateway to smoking for teenagers and the fruit flavours of some e-cigarette liquid could make them more appealing to children.
The NHS recently agreed that while Vaping is certainly the more healthy option when compared to smoking, it still comes with it's own dangers so the best option is not to start but i say if you are going to start, go with the e-cigarettes because not only are they not as bad as cigarettes, they taste better and £10 a day for a packet of cigarettes compared to the £10 a month you spend on the nicotine liquid for the e-cigarettes will mean less strain on your finances.
Even among the age group most likely to smoke, 24- to 35-year-olds, about 40% smoke compared to 65% previously.
Of course its a good thing but i don't buy the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Charity who say the results are due to a combination of effective legislation, policy and support for quitting.
In my dealings with teenagers, the most effective combination in the decline in smoking has been the exorbitant price of cigarettes and the rise of electronic cigarettes.
Where before the clouds of smoke above the smoking areas would cigarette smoke, now it is plumes of sweet smelling vapour and i have not seen a decline in the numbers huddled under the smoking area in recent years, just a change in what they are puffing on.
In 2015, three out of every 100 16- to 24-year-olds used electronic cigarettes, up from one in every 100 in 2014and in total 2.3 million people in the UK are using them.
The concern quite rightly is that Vaping could prove a gateway to smoking for teenagers and the fruit flavours of some e-cigarette liquid could make them more appealing to children.
The NHS recently agreed that while Vaping is certainly the more healthy option when compared to smoking, it still comes with it's own dangers so the best option is not to start but i say if you are going to start, go with the e-cigarettes because not only are they not as bad as cigarettes, they taste better and £10 a day for a packet of cigarettes compared to the £10 a month you spend on the nicotine liquid for the e-cigarettes will mean less strain on your finances.
Who Wants A St Patty's Day Hat?
The Irish symbol of a Shamrock is World Famous so you would have thought nobody would be dim enough to get it wrong...and then along comes Donald Trump who is plenty dim enough and gets it all hilariously wrong by using a four leaf clover instead.
With St Patrick's Day fast approaching, the small handed one stopped signing racist executive orders long enough to try and reach out to the large contingent of Irish folk in America by flogging them a green baseball cap with an 'embroidered four-leaf clover" on the back.
In a move that pretty much sums up everything about the hapless Trump, his party then put out a tweet advertising the hat with the words 'Need a hat for St Patty's Day?
Many Irish voices were quick to point out that what is on the hat isn't an Irish shamrock and it's called St Paddy's or St Patrick's but certainly, never, ever, St Patty's.
It could be that Trump and his gang of numbnuts are celebrating someone called St. Patty who has the four leaf clover as his symbol or he has once again shown his staggering ignorance and got it disastrously wrong again and made himself look an even bigger idiot and to be fair, that is far more likely.
With St Patrick's Day fast approaching, the small handed one stopped signing racist executive orders long enough to try and reach out to the large contingent of Irish folk in America by flogging them a green baseball cap with an 'embroidered four-leaf clover" on the back.
In a move that pretty much sums up everything about the hapless Trump, his party then put out a tweet advertising the hat with the words 'Need a hat for St Patty's Day?
Many Irish voices were quick to point out that what is on the hat isn't an Irish shamrock and it's called St Paddy's or St Patrick's but certainly, never, ever, St Patty's.
It could be that Trump and his gang of numbnuts are celebrating someone called St. Patty who has the four leaf clover as his symbol or he has once again shown his staggering ignorance and got it disastrously wrong again and made himself look an even bigger idiot and to be fair, that is far more likely.
Sunday, 5 March 2017
Meaning Of Life & Other Unanswerable Questions Answered
Maths has always been my strong point, 75% of the time i can deal with most things mathematical but the other third i have to throw my hands up and just admit that i don't know the answer. There is no disgrace in saying that you don't know the answer to a question but even the Internet sometimes comes up empty handed which is why Ask Jeeves has a list of questions that it deems 'unanswerable'.
The list includes the most unanswerable questions amongst the 16 million a month it gets asked with the top enquiry being 'What is the meaning of life?' followed by 'is there a God?'
I think i can say to Jeeves, 'Leave this to me, i'll take this one' and have a go at answering them so first up is the elusive 'What is the meaning of life?'.
Hmmm..lets see now, the meaning of life is to go from the cradle to the grave being the best possible person that you can be, to do the best you can for yourself and others and when your life ends, knowing that during your allotted time on the Earth you made at least one persons life better for you being here.
Next up is 'Is there a God?. Simple answer is no, the 'God' as we know him today was created from a mix of other religious stories around at the time and they were all based on a mix of other stories at their creation so if there is a real God, then he would be the one of the earliest civilisation, the Sumerians, and their God was called An who would sit in judgement on humans and from who all the other religions branched out from, taking bits of pieces of each previous 'God' story that went before them as they began their own.
What is the best way to lose weight? is the next unanswerable question but simply put if you take in more calories then you expend, then the excess is stored as fat and fat makes you heavier. The best way to lose weight then is to use up more calories each day then you take in so the body uses it's fat stores and you lose weight.
Is there anybody out there? Consider how our own Solar system has eight planets and our solar system is just one of tens of billions in our own Milky Way galaxy and there are tens of billions of other galaxies each containing billions of stars each.
That's an extraordinary amount of planets orbiting those billions and billions of stars and potential homes of other forms of life so the odds of there not being other life out there on any of those other planets must be minuscule and it happened here so why not on any of those billions multiplied by billions of other solar systems?
Working through, the next unanswerable question is 'Who is the most famous person in the world?' This is tricky but using the dictionary definition of the word 'famous' which is: 'know by many people', it would be hard to find someone who doesn't know the name Adolf Hitler. Jesus would be another choice but that potentially opens the doors for fictional characters so i'm going to plump for Adolf.
What is the secret to happiness? Another tough one but being with others who make you smile and make you feel good, accept that the bad things are there to make the good things feel even better, do things that make you and other people happy and never give yourself an opportunity to say 'I wish i had done that', just do it.
Finally, how long will I live? is the last unanswerable question and this one really is unanswerable, you could be the healthiest person on the planet but that won't matter a jot if a bolt of lightning strikes you on the way to the shops this afternoon so the best answer is potentially tomorrow so don't waste today.
There you go Jeeves, all the unanswerable questions now answered.
Saturday, 4 March 2017
All The Small (Green) Things
The demise of guitar bands from today's music is a sad state of affairs with the late 90's the last time we had a decent run of pop punk groups like Blink 182 but even they faded away as the Pop Idol and X Factor acts began their deathly dull grip on music.
Tom DeLonge was the guitarist and co-vocalist of the 182 trio but by 2011 he had thrown his guitar back into it's case and set off to look for new things to discover, one of which is aliens.
DeLonge has been busy scribbling a book about UFO's and has been named UFO researcher of the year by top UFO Hunting Organisation, Open Minds.
DeLonge says his contacts includes sources within the aerospace industry, NASA and the Department of Defence and in his acceptance speech stated that he has 'an announcement within the next 60-ish days' which is expected to be an anti-gravity craft that he claims he has seen in action.
If there wasn't something out there would be shocking but if Mr DeLonge does ever set up a meeting with them i hope we finally get an answer to why they come all this way just to mutilate our livestock and anally probe drunk American rednecks?
Tom DeLonge was the guitarist and co-vocalist of the 182 trio but by 2011 he had thrown his guitar back into it's case and set off to look for new things to discover, one of which is aliens.
DeLonge has been busy scribbling a book about UFO's and has been named UFO researcher of the year by top UFO Hunting Organisation, Open Minds.
DeLonge says his contacts includes sources within the aerospace industry, NASA and the Department of Defence and in his acceptance speech stated that he has 'an announcement within the next 60-ish days' which is expected to be an anti-gravity craft that he claims he has seen in action.
If there wasn't something out there would be shocking but if Mr DeLonge does ever set up a meeting with them i hope we finally get an answer to why they come all this way just to mutilate our livestock and anally probe drunk American rednecks?
Thursday, 2 March 2017
I WIll Stick With My Lumia Phone Thanks
Along with the new Millennium came the Nokia 3310 and i was a proud owner of the small, grey block that allowed me to text and make phone calls but more importantly play Snake.
As time went on and phones moved on it went into the back of peoples drawers, replaced by more up to date phones with internet access and more bells and whistles but now it's back with a facelift to include a larger screen.
There does seem to be some interest in the phone from almost two decades ago and at £41 a pop, it is affordable to own as a back up to your main phone but what do you get for your four tenners and a pound coin?
The internet is 2G so it will be as slow as an asthmatic elephant going uphill on a bicycle and there are no apps but you do get an MP3 player and a battery that will last a week without a charge so it is just a phone being a normal phone but with that famous Snake game.
It is hard to see where smartphones can go now, they are all pretty much the same and apart from adjusting the screen size, they can all do whatever the others do now so without a forward direction to go, maybe the direction of travel is now backwards with
a nostalgic nod toward retro phones.
Nostalgia sells well, you only have to listen to people who wax lyrical about vinyl records to see that those particular rose tinted glasses need a good wipe.
At £41 i'm sure they will sell by the lorry-load and they will be good back up phones but i can't see many giving up 4G internet access, a mega pixel screen and camera and apps for a phone that harks back to the days of T9 texting with a physical keyboard but can see how it would be popular with campers and festival goers as you don't need to charge it every 2 hours.
What it did do though was make me look up a Snakes game for Lumia phone and spend an hour reliving the joys of chasing dots around a screen with a meandering line of pixels.
As time went on and phones moved on it went into the back of peoples drawers, replaced by more up to date phones with internet access and more bells and whistles but now it's back with a facelift to include a larger screen.
There does seem to be some interest in the phone from almost two decades ago and at £41 a pop, it is affordable to own as a back up to your main phone but what do you get for your four tenners and a pound coin?
The internet is 2G so it will be as slow as an asthmatic elephant going uphill on a bicycle and there are no apps but you do get an MP3 player and a battery that will last a week without a charge so it is just a phone being a normal phone but with that famous Snake game.
It is hard to see where smartphones can go now, they are all pretty much the same and apart from adjusting the screen size, they can all do whatever the others do now so without a forward direction to go, maybe the direction of travel is now backwards with
a nostalgic nod toward retro phones.
Nostalgia sells well, you only have to listen to people who wax lyrical about vinyl records to see that those particular rose tinted glasses need a good wipe.
At £41 i'm sure they will sell by the lorry-load and they will be good back up phones but i can't see many giving up 4G internet access, a mega pixel screen and camera and apps for a phone that harks back to the days of T9 texting with a physical keyboard but can see how it would be popular with campers and festival goers as you don't need to charge it every 2 hours.
What it did do though was make me look up a Snakes game for Lumia phone and spend an hour reliving the joys of chasing dots around a screen with a meandering line of pixels.
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
What Americans Hate About Britain
Americans living in Britain have ganged up to make a list of things that they dislike most about living in the UK and i think in the scheme of things we don't come out of too bad.
The top gripe was the weather which even we Brits moan about but rather than embrace our '4 seasons in one day', they hate the feeling that it was always either going to or had just rained and and have an entire summer when the sun never really comes out.
Second was our food, especially bacon (too lean), baked beans (bland), Marmite (tastes vile)
Public transport came next with signal failures on the trains and rude people rushing through the doors before exiters had time to get off which to be fair drives me mad also.
The it was the Royals but also on the list was our taps and the way the hot and cold taps are separate which leads to the question have they not mastered the art of filling the basin and not just shoving their hands under the taps yet?
The last on the list is the wonderful British custom of hating anyone who shows off or 'gets above their station' and bitching about them to 'bring them down a peg or two'.
As Americans are renown for telling everyone their accomplishments and achievements within 15 seconds of meeting them, that one must grate a bit as the usual retort to anyone boasting about their income or their qualifications is inevitably greeted with a sarcastic 'Oooh, get her' quip and a shoulder as cold as the blue tap which they have just washed under.
The top gripe was the weather which even we Brits moan about but rather than embrace our '4 seasons in one day', they hate the feeling that it was always either going to or had just rained and and have an entire summer when the sun never really comes out.
Second was our food, especially bacon (too lean), baked beans (bland), Marmite (tastes vile)
Public transport came next with signal failures on the trains and rude people rushing through the doors before exiters had time to get off which to be fair drives me mad also.
The it was the Royals but also on the list was our taps and the way the hot and cold taps are separate which leads to the question have they not mastered the art of filling the basin and not just shoving their hands under the taps yet?
The last on the list is the wonderful British custom of hating anyone who shows off or 'gets above their station' and bitching about them to 'bring them down a peg or two'.
As Americans are renown for telling everyone their accomplishments and achievements within 15 seconds of meeting them, that one must grate a bit as the usual retort to anyone boasting about their income or their qualifications is inevitably greeted with a sarcastic 'Oooh, get her' quip and a shoulder as cold as the blue tap which they have just washed under.
George W Bush Rehabilitation Obscene
There is a new King Kong film out this year but it was another big chimp everyone was looking at today as George W. Bush stuck his head above the parapet to stick it to Donald Trump over his self destructive behaviour over the American media.
The previous holder of the most vilified American President has said that the America media was 'indispensable to democracy' and that 'independent media was needed to hold people like him to account'.
Maybe his memory is not so good these days because it was exactly because the American media didn't hold him to account that he was able to get away with his outrageous claims that led directly to the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to today.
Maybe the man who launched a blatantly illegal war based on lies Donald Trump himself would appreciate, thinks that enough time has passed and is set to try and rehabilitate his reputation which saw his dismissed as both a simpleton and a warmonger.
It was the lack of media scrutiny that helped Bush sell the news of Iraqi WMDs in 2002 so no surprise that he is defending them, if they had properly challenged the Bush administration on his WMD claims, then the Middle East would be less of the murderous basket case case that it is today.
George W Bush, along with his equally void of truth junior partner, Tony Blair, should be left to fester somewhere far away from the public because there is nothing that he can do or say which will wipe away the million dead Iraq men, women and children.
Someone should point out to him that up to now, he has got off scot-free for the war crimes they he committed and the lies he told to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 or had Weapons of Mass Destruction so he should shut his lying mouth and sit down because any attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the former warmongering President, as Blair if discovering, is obscene and his return to our TV screens and newspaper pages is far from welcome no matter what message he tries to relay.
The previous holder of the most vilified American President has said that the America media was 'indispensable to democracy' and that 'independent media was needed to hold people like him to account'.
Maybe his memory is not so good these days because it was exactly because the American media didn't hold him to account that he was able to get away with his outrageous claims that led directly to the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to today.
Maybe the man who launched a blatantly illegal war based on lies Donald Trump himself would appreciate, thinks that enough time has passed and is set to try and rehabilitate his reputation which saw his dismissed as both a simpleton and a warmonger.
It was the lack of media scrutiny that helped Bush sell the news of Iraqi WMDs in 2002 so no surprise that he is defending them, if they had properly challenged the Bush administration on his WMD claims, then the Middle East would be less of the murderous basket case case that it is today.
George W Bush, along with his equally void of truth junior partner, Tony Blair, should be left to fester somewhere far away from the public because there is nothing that he can do or say which will wipe away the million dead Iraq men, women and children.
Someone should point out to him that up to now, he has got off scot-free for the war crimes they he committed and the lies he told to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 or had Weapons of Mass Destruction so he should shut his lying mouth and sit down because any attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the former warmongering President, as Blair if discovering, is obscene and his return to our TV screens and newspaper pages is far from welcome no matter what message he tries to relay.
Comparing IRA To ISIS Is Lazy And Wrong
The new reviewer of terror legislation has landed in his big comfy chair with a bang and his first announcement in his new job was to declare that the UK faces terror threat from Isis not seen since the IRA were blowing things up in the UK.
I'm sure that he has his own reasons for making a comparison to ISIS who have launched no terror attacks here the IRA who planted bombs regularly and murdered scores over decades but it does give us a chance to show how times have changed when it comes to dealing with terrorism.
These days we are raining down bombs on countries that host terrorists but back in the day bombing Ireland was never mentioned.
Today Muslims are treated to extra security measures and surveillance but i don't remember seeing a Catholic having extra checks done on them.
The regular mantra is that we won't deal with terrorists but not only did we meet with the IRA but we made them part of the Government.
Finally the 'threat' has seen draconian security measures spring up everywhere to limit our freedom in the name of security but it was very much different during the IRA bombing campaign where it was very much 'stay calm and carry on, don't let them disrupt our lives'.
A cynical person would say that the Government hype up the threat to justify increasing surveillance, war and the inhibitive cost of the military, including nuclear weapons, while the countries economy gurgles down the plughole but those of us who lived through the troubles and came within a whisker of being an IRA victim, know that the threat from ISIS today and the IRA back then is not only frivolous and lazy but just plain scare mongering.
I'm sure that he has his own reasons for making a comparison to ISIS who have launched no terror attacks here the IRA who planted bombs regularly and murdered scores over decades but it does give us a chance to show how times have changed when it comes to dealing with terrorism.
These days we are raining down bombs on countries that host terrorists but back in the day bombing Ireland was never mentioned.
Today Muslims are treated to extra security measures and surveillance but i don't remember seeing a Catholic having extra checks done on them.
The regular mantra is that we won't deal with terrorists but not only did we meet with the IRA but we made them part of the Government.
Finally the 'threat' has seen draconian security measures spring up everywhere to limit our freedom in the name of security but it was very much different during the IRA bombing campaign where it was very much 'stay calm and carry on, don't let them disrupt our lives'.
A cynical person would say that the Government hype up the threat to justify increasing surveillance, war and the inhibitive cost of the military, including nuclear weapons, while the countries economy gurgles down the plughole but those of us who lived through the troubles and came within a whisker of being an IRA victim, know that the threat from ISIS today and the IRA back then is not only frivolous and lazy but just plain scare mongering.
Trump Postpones State Visit
It was fortunate that the visit of US President Donald Trump as only pencilled in for July because he has decided that he wants to come once 'things have calmed down' and the Queens diary now has 'Sex fiend coming to visit' written in it for October.
Downing Street has insisted it has not set a date but the US President and new best friend of Russia had been expected to travel to the UK for his controversial visit in however, he has been scared off by the widespread protests and has reportedly asked for a rain check.
The plan was to shuffle him up to the North to Scotland to avoid the inevitable protesters and an awkward non-appearance at the House of Commons after MP's savaged the new President.
Seems that we will have to wait until Autumn to say a big friendly British 'Howdy' to the man with the little but grabby hands, if he is still President then of course.
Downing Street has insisted it has not set a date but the US President and new best friend of Russia had been expected to travel to the UK for his controversial visit in however, he has been scared off by the widespread protests and has reportedly asked for a rain check.
The plan was to shuffle him up to the North to Scotland to avoid the inevitable protesters and an awkward non-appearance at the House of Commons after MP's savaged the new President.
Seems that we will have to wait until Autumn to say a big friendly British 'Howdy' to the man with the little but grabby hands, if he is still President then of course.
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