Showing posts with label Savid Javid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Savid Javid. Show all posts

Tuesday 5 July 2022

Attention All Shipping, Connelly.

 
This is a delightful, short, easy to read book.
Charlie Connelly is not the first to scribble a book based on the Shipping Forecast, he is not the first to travel to all the areas mentioned either.  His version is however, worth a look. 
The Late night Shipping Forecast, broadcast by the BBC since the 1920s, however, it began way back in the 1860s.  Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy began broadcasting known weather patterns via Telegraph in an effort to save lives and avoid the many shipwrecks around the coast.  Island life cannot avoid the combination of bad weather and outcrops of rock!  His basic service saved many lives.  The service developed through the use of radio after the Great War, the areas becoming well known to seamen.  The areas themselves developed as time passed, and the forecast service also continued being broadcast four times a day, these days on Radio 4.     
The author begins with a chapter on himself and his limited nautical family history, then a chapter on the Forecast itself and how it originated.  He is allowed to sit by as a BBC reader  gives the lunchtime forecast, and is impressed by the timing and skill on show, no wonder.
From there he attempts to visit all the sea areas mentioned during the forecast, of course having to fly or take a ferry across one or two unreachable otherwise, such as Dogger.  He gets drunk at a party in Utsire, having enjoyed a rough ferry crossing,  tastes Arbroath 'smokies,' and in Cromer (Humber region) learned the remarkable story of Lifeboat man Henry Blogg who's crews, in over 55 years service, saved some 873 persons from the waters around him.   Remember, when Henry began in the lifeboat it was all manhandled, no engines, just strong, determined men rowing into a gale.  The attitude he displayed has not changed, if you want real heroes read about Henry Blogg and the men of the RNLI.
Visiting the Isle of Wight, (sea area Wight) Charlie finds the people of the island like to make money out of one and all.  In his desire to see the far distant Tennyson Monument he gets caught in a heavy rainstorm, not for the last time.  So he continues his way around, from Portland to the Basque country, Ireland to Iceland, the Faroes to Shetland.  Each time he finds stories, often concerning his failure, seasickness, small aircraft or accommodation as well as the people living around him, almost all of whom carry on as if  people like him were common visitors.  The tales are easy to read, the humour help to carry the tale, and the book very readable indeed.  I often could imagine myself in the places mentioned, the circumstances retold, and often the suffering involved.  It was interesting how open people were, especially on the islands.  The difference between his London home and a small cottage on a sun filled or storm tossed island was interesting.  
The book is not new, published in 2004, and reprinted several times until 2009.  Some items are therefor dated somewhat, the easy travel across the EU for one, but this does not detract from the tale.
I recommend this book.


So, the first one has gone!  Javid has resigned from the incompetents government, soon followed by Chancellor Sunak.  Bothe men will now begin to openly seek election as PM.  Nadine Dorries may well resign by accident.  Two senior men gone, all because of a groper getting caught, not because of Boris Johnson's many other failures!  The end is nigh it appears.

    

Wednesday 27 February 2019

Yellow Flowers


They say the weather will begin to deteriorate tomorrow so when I saw the bright yellow Daffodils beckoning me out I sauntered across the park and snapped a few.  The sun was as warm as a decent summers day and it crossed my mind that April will bring snow as it usually does.  
Kids were cycling small pink bikes, mums pushing pushchairs, some sitting on benches wrapped in coats just in case, and high above a thin white streak in the bright blue sky carried 200 or so people towards Europe.


'Europe,' that is what we now call the EU and many round here are desperate to abandon to its fate. Sadly these 'Daily Express' readers have yet to understand that they are the ones being abandoned. If this Brexit goes ahead there will be no 'sovereignty' just Donald Trump and chlorinated chicken!  The idea that anyone has sovereignty in this world is plain daft, everybody is tied to everybody else one way or another and this is how it has always been.  It is difficult to keep up with the constant niggles in the House but I had to laugh when Savid Javid was in front of a Commons committee.

Stuart MacDonald SNP, to Sajid Javid: What’s wrong with the amendment?
SJ: Nothing. 
SM: So now the Gov't’s supporting it? 
SJ: Yes. What do you mean, “now”? When was the gov’t not supporting it? When did you hear that? SM: Yesterday. 
SJ: From who? 
SM: The Prime Minister. 
SJ: Did you?!

Here we have the Conservative Home Secretary, one of the Four most important jobs in the cabinet being informed of the Prime Ministers thoughts from a member of a committee as he had not been informed of her opinion from the day before.
I suppose too many in the cabinet were shouting others down and she forgot to indicate what the policy of certain matters actually was.  I wonder if she has changed her mind to agree with Savid or whether she is travelling somewhere and canny mind who he is?


India and Pakistan are flexing muscles (I wish I could) and threatening one another in Kashmir again. This is not new, this has been going on since 1947 and was badly handled then and is being badly handled now.  Much loud talk of both sides having nuclear arms but the option of using them is unlikely.  Many more aircraft shot down, bombs dropped, the wrong people killed as usual but I doubt nuclear war is near.  Pakistan is a confused nation, led by the elite who fight among themselves, leaders chances of being killed by those around them a real possibility.  India facing elections and will seek to 'be strong' and killing a few Muslims goes down well with the Hindi nationalists, especially these days.  Many more to die, many more shouting matches and then peace, it is too easy for India to win - again!