Flights of the butterfly

  • 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:…

  • In a French village

    Four plaques on a wall in the sun Four brothers who died in a war. In the lane by the church, in the square with the flowers, It’s the price that one village has paid. There’s a list on the cross and a list by the flags, carved in the hard black stone. It seems…

  • Misogynists

    I’m sick of hearing the word “misogynist”. Currently, it is being widely misused. The word derives from the Greek “misos”, meaning hatred and “gune”, meaning woman. The current crop of “Misogynists” don’t hate women. They’re terrified of them. These are undeveloped little boys who cannot deal with the opposite sex and resort to a prolonged…

  • 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…

  • Politicians

    There are six requirements to be a successful politician: There may be others, but these are the core values for any successful political career. VANITY             You need to be sufficiently vain and arrogant to believe that somehow you have the right to tell millions of people how to live their lives. Often this is the…

  • Dangerous people

    If you ever encounter any of the following people,  RUN, do not look back. Run. AN HONEST MAN We’re all liars. And that includes women. Anyone presenting themselves as totally honest is telling the biggest lie of all. A REASONABLE PERSON        We aren’t reasonable. We’re weird and passionate and bigoted, loyal and treacherous, straight as…

  • The hagiography of the Sacred Cow

    In the fourteenth century, the Black Death swept through Europe, wiping out a significant proportion of the population. Entire villages disappeared, their history and their future stopped dead, literally, by the plague. As a result of this drastic loss of population, there was an obvious loss of the workforce. Serfs who had been tied to…

  • Government

    The duty of a government is to lead the nation, follow the wishes of the people and serve the interests of the country. In fact, a government follows the wishes of its leader, serves the interests of its members and leads the people into the next ambush of history.