Flights of the butterfly

  • THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS AND CONES

    A year ago, more or less, our local authority re-laid the main street through the centre of town. It needed it. Potholes and time had taken their toll. It was inconvenient, the street was closed off for a couple of weeks with a diversion. But, it had to be done. Suddenly, a couple of weeks…

  • MERCENARY RIVER

    Just finished  a book, “The Mercenary River” by Nick Higham. It’s a hard read, but worth the effort. Hard, because It has to be. It covers four hundred years of history and does it in detail. Necessary detail to understand what happened and its implications. I am not going to precis, summarise or extract from…

  • LITERALLY ANYBODY ELSE

    I am so happy to see that somebody in the United Sates is hoping to run in the presidential elections under the above name. I wish him luck and hope he wins. It would be a wonderful comment on the state of politics, throughout the world, not just in one country. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t make…

  • The Speaker Apologizes

    The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has apologised to parliament over his handling of an amendment procedure. There are two people who need never apologise to parliament: the King, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. The King agrees not to comment on or interfere in the affairs of Parliament, the body professing to run…

  • SPEND, SPEND, SPEND

    Got an email from my local authority. They do that from time to time to justify their worthless existence and make excuses for wasting my money. Among other things it  says: “Over the next four years we’re proposing spending: Let’s have a little look at that: £105 million on the highways network £25 million on…

  • ‘ALLO, ‘ALLO, ‘ALLO

    I saw three police officers the other day. OK, so they were on their coffee break, but nonetheless, I have seen better turned-out garage mechanics. And that means no disrespect to mechanics everywhere, they are wearing clothing suitable for a greasy, messy occupation. Given that it is nearly winter and they were wearing weatherproof gear,…

  • Inward Investment Outward Cash

    Richie Rich has just come bouncing up to the podium, babbling prettily about Billions of Pounds of Inward Investment into the UK. Must be the oldest scam in the book. “Inward Investment” has been around since the dawn of mankind in various guises. (not sure the “Dawn “ is appropriate for the beginning of one…

  • HS2, The Wonderful Railway to Nowhere

    There is a lot of kerfuffle going on as TDATS finally realise what a mess this is. To fully understand what is happening, I am afraid we need to be serious and even do a little history. So, if you want fluffy kittens, look elsewhere. Steam engines started being used in 1712. They were static…

  • HS2 – Full Project Specification

    I came across this above-top-secret document in my researches. (actually, I didn’t, but either it does or it should exist somewhere) HS2 The Hideously Superfluous railway. Synopsis: The purpose of this project is to develop a modern, high-speed system for transporting large amounts of cash from the public purse into the already bulging wallets of:…

  • Democracy

    Democracy. Don’tcha just love it? “Government of the people by the people for the people” What a succinct statement of what Democracy is not. The trick is to use the word “people” with two distinct meanings. This is an understandable error. It arises from the fact that in a Democracy, all democracies, there are two…