Life Observed

Stuck indoors forever. Scared stupid about going out.  This is the new normal they tell us. I decide to re-arrange the garden.

Forget the toilet roll. I just used my last set of strings!

Here we have a Greek/Roman amphitheatre. (The Romans added the top bit later). Someone is attempting to show the acoustics by dropping a coin at the centre. Alas I couldn't hear the coin due to the fake shutter click of smartphone cameras. PS, there's a cat down there somewhere.

Finally and at last* they have done something useful with the Greenham Common ex-airfield. It's great if you want to walk a dog. It is great if you like cow-spotting or have a leaning towards rabbits.  It isn't great for bikes and it will be decades before trees grow there properly. There's plenty of gravel. However, and after an eternal delay, they have converted the control tower to a tea shop. That is such a  good idea on a cold and windy day. May it last forever. *Yes it really is five months since I posted anything. 

Stair Hole near Lulworth Cove. We visited Lulworth Cove and discovered the minimum parking charge is £4 for 2 hours. Four pounds! The tide was in, it was blowing a gale, most of the indoor coffee shops were shut or unstaffed. I have a rule with expensive car parks. I deduct the car park cost from the money I was planning to spend in the town. In this case I took this expensive photo and we had lunch somewhere else. Money for nothing, Lulworth...

It's no good. I have scanned and scanned these special treats displays.  I have yet to find one named "Avoid Christmas"

Yesterday, here is your shiny new computer. Tomorrow, it is in the skip, covered in leaves. Strange how your new computer is no faster than any of the others you have owned and thrown away.

Have a look inside the Bank of England. There's no gold. Where has all the gold gone? We sold it all and we can't afford to buy gold any more. There is only piles of paper (and we can print as much of that as we need). Does a bank need gold anyway? Does it even need paper? Maybe the Bank of England could just contain a computer with a number inside it. Then we could make the number anything we want.

Once upon a time politicians were pillars of the establishment. We held them in high esteem and accepted their leadership. Times have changed.

Well, here's an honest statement from the world's first trillion dollar company.  I wonder how much tax they pay?

Come, let us sit and talk together. Nation to nation.

What were they thinking?  This can't be right. I bet if we went to France and tried to sell English champagne they would be all over us like a cheap suit.

Alas, progress has brought us the modern coffee shop and every  high street is full of them.  We gladly join the back of the inevitable queue to be served slowly and overcharged for strangely named coffee and a foreign biscuit by an intense young man with a Captain Haddock beard.  I fear this same progress will ruin the lovely British tea shop soon. Pictured: A Butter Betty with Grimshaws .  That will be eight pounds seventy five pence please.

So. We had a general election. Again. And by all indications we will need another one quite soon, Democracy. This is what keep Britain strong and stable.

In the 1940s and 1950s Britain led the world in scientific research. We gave America the secrets of Radar and supersonic flight. We received a sizeable bill for World War Two in return. In fact Britain had advanced plans to set up a colony on Mars and had produced its first rocket by 1958. We could have been the first country in space but we bowed to political pressure from the other side of the Atlantic, and the project was scrapped. (This pattern would repeat itself a dozen years later with TSR2, the supersonic fighter). Against this background it is heartening to discover a small reminder of our glory days.  Here is all that remains of launch tower Delta 3 at a secret location in the West Midlands. The whole area is derelict and flooded now, but imagine the activity in those heady post war years as we laboured to make Dan dare a reality.

Back in the days when pubs were full of cigarette smoke (remember that?) you could get pictures with "atmosphere" like this from around 1990. These days they seem to think that a stage performance needs "atmosphere" adding from hidden smoke machines. I hate to think what is in the atmosphere.

Now we are on the way to a Post Europe Britain, a brave new world awaits us. We can forge ahead leaving the jolly old foreigners on the continent in our wake as we thrust towards the bright new tomorrow.  If we ask them nicely, America may lend us some paraffin.

"Hey guys. I've got a great idea for a reality TV show. We put a buffoon in charge of a superpower and then video the hilarious consequences.  By the way, we can get funding from Moscow."

I am always pleased when I see the noble art of electronics put to good use. Observe how realistic this plastic LED indoor cherry blossom tree thing is.  I was so impressed I nearly bought two them.

Welcome to 2017. (Expect delays)