Time flies like an arrow?

So, the Red Arrows aerobatic team flew over my home town today at exactly 11:11am (precisely at the time their flight-plan said they would) - they even had a little smoke display going on. The flight was on a practice run apparently; hopefully optimistic that some open-air events will be happening this year where they can show off their stuff! In any case, they looked and sounded magnificent and were in perfect formation as they went overhead, roll on Summer!

 

Midweek Mirth

Is it only Wednesday?

 

Climate of fear

Loving the weather for a change! Blue skies and 24 degrees here in the South East of the UK today, although climate change means that it's totally unseasonal and we'll undoubtedly be back to 10 degrees (where it should be this time of year) by the weekend. It's scary to ponder on how a sustained adjustment to average seasonal temperatures will affect crops and farming here and elsewhere around the world, I can imagine that some places will simply cease to be fertile and other places will suddenly become viable, tough for subsistence farmers in those former places though. In a few decades I can imagine us growing red wine grapes like cabernet and Syrah in the South of England and places like Bordeaux and Burgundy becoming too hot to sustain the prolonged ripening of those same grapes (a delicate balance which makes their wines so good currently). Still, I think a few relocations of terroir will be the least of our problems as the people of the hot zones are forced to migrate North and South to more temperate (richer) climes, it's going to get kind of cozy.

Here's a random snap that I took with my phone on my walk today, it got clearer and warmer the more the day has gone on, it's not supposed to be this warm here in March, tee-shirt weather, feels more like June!

Job seekers

Decided to hire a couple more people at work recently. Luckily the pandemic so far hasn't really affected our little corner of the software industry and we've continued to grow healthily this past year. Unfortunately though, due to Brexit, my talent pool is much smaller than it used to be, what's given with one hand is taken away with the other I suppose. Anyway, from the CV's I've seen so far it looks like there's a lot of people looking to move at the moment although I can't say that I've come across any stand-out candidates yet, hopefully that's not a statement about the state of the market and we'll find some soon! Need to get interviewing, the whole process usually takes a month or two, then there's a big learning curve for new employees as they learn our processes, products and code-base, it's quite an investment to hire someone these days!

 

Birthday blues

Celebrating my Daughters 17th birthday this weekend, her second birthday in lockdown (poor girl!) We tried our best to entertain and spoil her but family is no substitute for her mates, we had a good laugh though and her Brother came home from university for the week just to see her, which I think made it bearable. If the Reading festival is cancelled again this year I think she might just lose it, I feel for her.

 

Softly softly

Had a new beer while making dinner last night and it was a revelation; from up and coming Beak Brewery down in Lewes. Called "Lulla" it's a hazy East Coast style IPA/Pale, not particularly unusual these days (you can easily find this style in most supermarkets) but the thing that made it revelatory was that it's only 3.5% ABV! Usually East Coasters start around 6% and many go much higher, it's partly how they get their hallmark thick, gloopy mouth-feel and weightiness. This beer had all the density you could ask for and a wonderful hop flavour (Citra and Simcoe) but at only 3% you could drink it all day, fantastic effort from the team in Sussex, perfect Summer/BBQ season chugger!

 

World to rights..

Our roving reporter Barry Brexit has been out and about again this week, looking at the key questions...

• Dom Cummings: "2020 proves that if you don’t heed people with scientific backgrounds, then you will have disastrous outcomes.", says History grad who oversaw the most disastrous outcome in all British history.
• Which is true, there are no atheists in a falling plane, or, there are no prayers that will save it?
• If time flies like an arrow, why do fruit flies like a banana?
• Can souls be made from things that don't have souls? (neurons make souls)
• Is it right for us to implement Islamic blasphemy laws in a Yorkshire school?
• Smoking isn't allowed in pubs because it harms others and smoking is a choice, Covid harms others and vaccination is a choice. Same thing?

Friday Smirk

Funny J&M (as usual) - indisputably incontrovertible.

 

Pious-Pic of the Week..

No, not a device for preventing you biting your nails! In medieval times, religious punishments for writing things about Yahweh deemed blasphemous included a run out with evil machines like this! Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "having your knuckles rapped"..

 

Walking the walk

Been upping my daily walking tally in recent weeks surpassing 50 km per week for the last 3 weeks in a row, the pace is still improving as well hitting below 9 minutes per km at times. Hopefully I can keep it going through the next few months, should be easier once the warmer weather gets here! At the moment we're in that "in-between" stage, i.e. you start off with a coat on because it's still chilly most days, but by half way round the sweat is pouring out and the coat becomes a pain in the butt to carry, roll on Summer!

 

Bananas and Custard

It's always amusing to me when you hear people banging on about the "chemical" ingredients of things as if the word implies that there's a lack of purity or safety simply because there's a word or two on a label that looks scary. EVERYTHING is made of chemicals! For purposes of illustration the above picture neatly points out the various chemicals you can find in a normal banana, wow! Bet you didn't realise you were chowing down on a pile of acids, ethers, amino acids, sugars and inorganics, never mind what's in the custard that went with it!

 

Invert that curve!

A chart that should be burnt onto the foreheads of all those spammers spreading false claims on social media about lockdowns and vaccines being ineffective, then again, I suppose you need an IQ of greater than 50 in order to understand how to read and interpret a graph..

 

Middling

Another new West Coast IPA from Siren at the weekend, called "The Wedge" I reckon it's more of a "Mid Western" pale ale, being neither really bitter and dank (West) nor ultra-hazy and fruity (East), perhaps somewhere in the middle. Hops used were El Dorado, Cascade and Mosaic with a nice spiky carbonation and light haze. Not the best West Coaster I've had from the team in Finchy this last 12 months, but certainly not the worst either, you could say it was "middle of the road"!

 

Tree therapy

Just an old tree with lots of twisted branches, but the tallest one around..

 

World to rights..

Our roving reporter Barry Brexit has been out and about this week again, looking at the key questions...

• Humans kill millions of sentient mammals every day, why's it so catastrophic to sit on a dead horse?
• When Jesus feeds the poor it's Christian and moral, but when politicians do it, it's Socialism?
• Do all photons travel light?
• If African Presidents claim prayer cures coronavirus, why don't educated Christians call it delusion?
• Is it a coincidence that the definition of God as spaceless, timeless, immaterial and unfalsifiable is exactly the same as the definition of nothing?
• Indoor flags don't make sense, or do they?

Friday Smirk

Amusing J&M this week, rational (civil) discourse is something that's sorely lacking these days..

 

Just a little prick

 

Had my Covid vaccination today! 

Luckily, although we're different ages, my wife and I managed to bag one locally on the same day and at the same time which enabled us to walk into town get jabbed and pick up some groceries and walk home for a cup of tea and a slice of lemon drizzle cake, purely medicinal of course. Actually, I think all the practice the vaccine givers are getting at the moment is making them truly expert at their craft, it was the best injection I think I've ever had, it honestly felt like someone stroking a feather across my arm and bingo it was done! We had the AZ version of the jab and will get the second dose in early June, we honestly can't wait, normality seems tantalizingly close today.

Ignorance kills..

People often claim that religions are harmless, I suppose for the most part in every-day life they are, but in the hands of the wrong people they can be lethal tools of misinformation and harm. Take the (late) President of Tanzania, John Magufuli, he appeared to be a deeply deluded man and his position as the leader of a country made him and his religion deeply dangerous. At the outset of the pandemic he advised his fellow countrymen to go to churches to pray (a stupid thing to do in the middle of a respiratory virus pandemic!) he made claims like, "Coronavirus is the devil and cannot survive in the body of Christ" (WTF?) and that the virus had been eradicated from Tanzania because of "three days of prayer"! Guess what, it hadn't, and reports from the opposition party in that country are suggesting that he died of Covid 19 this week. Of course, any death from this disease is a tragedy, but, in this case you can't help thinking that this man's legacy will be his delusional and dangerous attitude toward a simple virus! All we're left wondering is how many people he killed, or will kill with his religiously inspired ignorance.

 

Pious-Pic of the Week

 Apparently angels only work for tips..

Pivots

Lot of chat in the media at the moment about using the pandemic as a pivot point, or opportunity to change things for many of our established institutions, education is a prime example. Questions about examinations as a measure of achievement, full-time attendance, remote learning, equipment etc. are all being shaken up as a result of schools trying to cope with pupils not being able to attend school or take exams in the time honored tradition. I'm not entirely sure what pivots we could practically make but in terms of turning out people who are "match fit" for the workplace of the future (if we could agree that's our main goal) then a few ideas would include..

- "Work from home" days every week for A-Level+ students (because that's how work is going to be)

- Teach the organisation and structural skills needed to manage workloads unsupervised

- Teach critical thinking skills to protect kids from "fake news" and scams, particularly on social-media

- Layer in some psychology, like how to debate in a civil fashion (sans "cancel culture"), motivation etc.

- More short work-placements pre-University, preferably paid, ideally sign firms up to schemes w/tech

- More practical project work that include (serious) technology components (i.e. not just writing an essay)

- At least one compulsory STEM subject up to end of A-Level

 

Completely Puzzling

Finished my 1000 piece puzzle the other day, it was getting urgent as we needed to wash the table cloth!

 

Lifestyle

I've come to believe that science denial is a "lifestyle choice" for some Humans..

Hard Data

Covid vaccine is in the news a lot this last couple of days, the AZ version at least. The big question is does it or does it not cause blood clots in some people? Seems highly unlikely based on the current known data; rates (40 cases from >17M recipients) are even less than you'd expect normally in the population vaccinated so far (being older and many having medical factors associated with increased risk to Covid-19 etc.) In my experience, people have a big problem with the whole correlation - causation thing, we often prefer to see patterns rather than interpret the data correctly. With the numbers being currently presented you could also (validly) argue that the vaccine causes less blood clots in the population. When thinking about this post I looked for some data on the vaccine to show in a chart, the only relevant thing I found was the efficacy chart above. My smutty schoolboy brain thought it summed up how some people reason about data, i.e. complete cock.

 

Monday morality

I'm a big fan of free speech, and as the Hitch says in the quote above, that includes the ability to mock and ridicule ideas that come from authority, particularly religious ones that wish to control and constrain non-religious people. The new bill coming up for its first reading in Parliament, although nothing to do with religion, is relevant to the free speech arena. It aims to limit the "nuisance and noise" thresholds for protests, this is a worrying development in my view; the wording does seem very much open to interpretation and there's no doubt that the number of scenarios to which it could be applied is very large. I see that Labour are going to vote against it, it'll be interesting to see how it progresses as it strikes me as totally unnecessary. Hopefully the upper house will water it down sensibly.

 

Distant Mums

Hope all the mums out there are having a nice Sunday and being spoilt from a distance!

West Coaster

As is tradition in our house at the weekends I make dinner for everyone, last night we had veggie pizza's and while I was making them I treated myself to a new beer from Cornish wizards Verdant. Called "We are the People" it was a hazy West Coast double IPA and it was banging! Soaring grapefruit and citrus on the nose and then a sweet fruity attack on the pallet first of all, followed by a wave of bitterness that culminates in a dry finish, making your mouth water for another sip. Just how a good West Coaster should be, perfect!

 

World to rights..

 

In a round up of this week's news our correspondent, Barry Brexit, poses some important questions, 

• How come Rupert Murdoch gets vaccinated for COVID but lets Fox News run antivaxxer crap every night?
• Farage says, "Royal Family has done more for people of colour than anyone"; Royal Africa Company?
• Why are all of my "square meals" round?
• Since when did it become racist or bigoted to say you don't believe a hearsay claim without evidence?
• Unless being attacked by one, doesn't every (real) man act in a non-threatening way towards Women? (apparently not..)
• Why do people that carry guns to church say, if you wear a paper mask you're "living in fear"?

Believe it or not..

 

Scotland is going to repeal it's Blasphemy laws, finally, in 2021! Only NI to go now..

Friday Smirk

Another excellent J&M this week. I often find it interesting to play back these simplified distillations of well known mythologies to our religious brothers and sisters when in conversation on the subject. It's usually responded to with a lot of huffing and puffing but little actual refutation or counter argument. Most of the time you get a look that says "you don't understand", which is quite possibly true, but the crux of the matter is that the believer can't explain it either! A position I hold, and would defend, would be that "Theology" (in all it's forms) is in fact the study of the unknowable, a archaic sub-set of anthropology and the interpretation of historical literary fiction. 

Pious-Pic of the Week..

And here we have Jesus and the Devil arguing about a line-call at the bowling alley..

 

Woke

There's a lot of noise in the media (particularly social-media) about being "woke", not so long ago it used to be a positive thing, i.e. being "woke" meant that you were interested in, informed about and perhaps even campaigned for justice for minority groups that were being unfairly treated or having their rights denied by a majority or authoritarian regime, this all sounds well and good! These days though, it would seem that being "woke" is a bad, if not dangerous thing, how can this be? It sounds so unfair to oppose such a state of mind, how could anyone be anti-justice? 

I think the problem was best captured many years ago by that cultural and political soothsayer George Orwell, if you read this summary of Orwell's position on Nationalism vs. Patriotism (above) by Ian Dunt, and think about how the word "newspaper" can be substituted for "social media" today, you can start to see how "woke" easily and naturally morphs into "identity politics" which then morphs into "authoritarianism" and finally you end up with the gulag. It's a slippery slope argument for sure, but there's lot's of evidence that many groups riding on the woke band-wagon today have and are developing authoritarian characteristics over time (BLM, Corbynista's, Antifa, Academia etc.) The term "cancel culture" is shorthand (and a right-wing dog-whistle) for how this ideological trajectory is playing out in society, i.e. the silencing of opposition or dissenting views, and the labelling of everything as "racist" or "fascist" that doesn't meet some undefined, unfalsifiable benchmark of "wokeness" but which is really only dissent from the orthodoxy.

Like all Human affairs, the problem isn't black or white, this argument isn't just about dictionary definitions, it's much more complex than that, with many shades of grey and many perspectives. Not everyone that is "woke" has an authoritarian streak, and not everyone that is "anti-woke" is a rabid "Francoist" in the making! There's plenty of room in the middle for societal improvement and a raising of the justice bar without compromising important principals like freedom of speech and conscience. In my view, we just need the actors in this debate, and it's subsequent fall-out, to listen to the other side (without shutting them down) long enough to see it.

The Judgment of Paris

If rumor's are true then Stephen Spurrier, one of the UK's most well known wine experts has died (aged 80). Spurrier was famous around the world for a tasting he held in Paris in 1976 (pictured above) in it, and for the first time ever, he pitted (blind) the best of California against the best of France. To the astonishment of the French judges the Californian wines excelled, outperforming the Bordeaux reds and Burgundian whites taking top slots in both categories, it was a tipping point in the world of wine. It was so pivotal they even made a movie about it. The whole experiment showed the then wine establishment (mainly French) that it's not wise to rest on your laurels, there's always someone out there looking for an opportunity to disrupt things and take a slice of your cake. In this case the prices and standing of Californian wines, and the slice of the market they occupy at the top end, has never looked back! But, it also prompted a revival of effort and passion in the French scene, bolstering quality there too, a win-win you could perhaps conclude? (Maybe the British Royal family could learn a thing or two about the long term survival benefits of open and honest enquiry, rather than clinging onto arguments from authority, who knows..)

The French establishment was shocked at these results, so much so that they scrambled around to try to find excuses, the main one was that the French wines would last longer, and improve. So it was tested, the tasting was reproduced in 1978 in San Francisco, the American wines performed even better. The whole thing was re-done (with the same wines) in 1986, the USA took the top 5 spots. It was even redone for the 30th anniversary in 2006, in London, again the American wines were preferred by the judges. At some point, just like the French wine makers of that time eventually had to admit; it's always a good idea, from time to time, to reexamine deeply held convictions against reality as they just may turn out to be little more than myths, taken on trust from authority figures! A good life lesson I reckon, whatever your chosen field of engagement may be.

 

Viva la Republic!

Well, the Royal gravy train keeps on rolling this week. The rather diminished descendants of the families of the most ruthless and successful medieval war-lords seemingly continue to milk time, energy and money from a hopelessly addicted general public. No doubt big chief Lizzy will now have to have a tall pink hat made specially to parade around some inner-city mental health crisis centre in order to garner forgiveness from her "public", and no doubt it will be given and the cash registers can continue to ring. I'm slightly bemused that the "family" is so keen to investigate bullying but apparently less so on investigating child abuse, bit strange that? Anyway, I won't be watching the "interview" tonight, I have zero interest; but of course millions find it irresistible and that in itself is interesting. Feels like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome to me but I guess the whole sordid circus puts food on many tables, even if it is a tiny bit racist. All I can say is, Viva la Republic!

 

Enough!

Enough serious stuff! Its time for fruit that looks like body parts (decorated according to current fashion)... 

 

Beer of the year?

Had a new beer while making dinner for the Fam last night, one from up and coming brewery "Beak" down in deepest Sussex. Goodness, gracious me, it was a real banger, knocking on the door (albeit early) of beer of the year territory. Made with oodles of NZ Nelson Sauvin and US benchmark Citra hops it smelt like pure lemon, grapefruit and lime juice (if there is such a thing!) background white wine vibe, spiky carbonation, perfect balance and an underlying bitterness that keeps you coming back sip after sip. One of those beers that you hope never to reach the bottom of. Luckily I have three cans so I shall be revisiting this later this evening on a zoom call with some mates. A real testament to the rude health of the UK brewing scene, onwards and upwards!

 

World to rights..

In a round up of this week's news our correspondent, Barry Brexit, poses a few questions, 

• How come the Royals investigate "bullying" but ignore sex with children? 
• Why can't we just give NHS nurses the £350 million-a-week Brexit bonus?
• Should people who believe the Covid vaccine alters their DNA see that as an opportunity?
• Will Prince Philip appear in the next Die Hard movie?
• If I cost my organisation £340k because I bullied someone, would I be fired?
• Does constant media focus on mental health drive you insane?

Friday Smirk

Amusing J&M this week pointing out what a nonsensical narrative the Christian one is. We may well ask many questions about it on many levels, but one of the most important ones is, who actually died and what the actual sacrifice was? But whatever the answers to those theological teasers may be, the most our religious brothers and sisters can claim is that Jesus (aka God) was inconvenienced in a cave for a long weekend before continuing on his merry omnipotent way.

 

Thought for Thursday

Labels are important..

 

A year on..

Exactly one year ago today this country (UK) lost any chance of avoiding the first wave of this pandemic, the moment was palpable as our leaders prevaricated and ignored scientific advice, rejecting a lockdown until the intensive care units were stuffed and transmission rates out of control. This same error was to be repeated in the late Autumn the same year. 

It's sobering to think that many tens of thousands of people would still be alive today if our Government had acted more decisively, instructively and quickly. The blasé attitude of our Prime Minister, on show in this news clip, says everything you need to know about why we have the worst death rate of any European country and the worst affected economy. I would love to say the lessons have been learned but I hesitate to do so until I see some real evidence that is true, sure our vaccine program is doing OK but we're not out of the woods yet, and 10 million kids go back to school on Monday. Our only consolation is that we can say the Americans have handled things worse (only just), not exactly something to be celebrated.

Psychopathic Capitalism

 

I see that the Governor of Texas announced (with great glee) yesterday that all Covid restrictions were to be lifted (including mask wearing) and that businesses could "return to normal", meaning nightclubs, sports venues, restaurants and bars could resume trading as if things were "normal". It's baffling to me that such stupidity is celebrated? I sincerely hope that Texas will "get away with it", but, nature being what nature is, i.e. ruthlessly efficient, I fully expect this psychopathic decision to cost thousands more (if not tens of thousands more) Texan lives before that desired state of normality is reached. Texas is not alone, Michigan, Louisiana and Mississippi also lifted restrictions.

In cold hard numbers Texas has had 45,000 deaths against a population of 29 million and an estimated total infection number of 2.7 million, this represents a death-rate of 1.7% of people infected. So far it has vaccinated (1st dose only) around 6 million people leaving an unprotected population of around 20 million people. These aren't good numbers, Texas ranks 48th (out of 50) in terms of vaccination rates in the USA. It will be sobering to see what unfettered transmission potential does for a disease like this. If the virus were sentient, I'm sure it would be thrilled at the opportunity to exponentially reproduce, and since it isn't sentient, it won't care a jot about the 250,000 or so people (statistically), i.e. 1-2% of 20M, that will suffer long term effects or potentially die if they contract it.

It's fairly plain to see from the inevitable statistical outcomes and clear financial motivations of this move, it represents a resumption of income for the rich and a potential death sentence for the poor. I think there should be a basic universal law regarding fitness to govern, if you can't read a fucking graph then you can't be anybody's leader, end of argument. 

Our species really doesn't stand a chance does it.

Grave chuckling

Saw this the other day, really made me chuckle, I wished I'd known this person!

 

Power politics

Saw this little meme on the interwebs, it made me smile, I quite like the idea of taking a nap on a boat, preferably in the sunshine. It also made me think about the strange way we (i.e. Humans) commonly attribute properties to people that are exactly the opposite of reality and we often value compliance over competence. You see this a lot in business, I reckon it stems from the insecurities and inadequacies of poor managers and their paranoia about being usurped by smarter underlings or exposed as incompetents.

My experience of this kind of thing, over the years, is that it's a fairly safe bet that the people who value compliance over competence the most are usually the worst managers of all. They tend to prefer "happy talk" over reality (i.e. no bad news, awkward questions or criticism), they often value communication over innovation, they take credit for other people's good news and blame everyone but themselves for bad, and they obsess about how things look vs. how well they work. I've seen it most of all in larger organizations where people who aren't massively valuable in position because of mediocre competence (but not disastrously so) are quite often shuffled sideways into managerial/administrative positions where they can focus 100% on politics rather than production, and the greasy pole is ascended. But, because such people are not usually inclined to invest in understanding or mastering a competency (politics is time consuming after all!) they always feel somewhat insecure, this leads to them surrounding themselves with "yes-men" who aren't a threat, and, they hold at arms length competent people for fear of being exposed. Thus we end up with people with power but no depth of understanding with which to formulate good decisions, and, people with deep understanding but no power to implement it, it's a funny old game.

 

Breakout Art?

Something interesting has popped up on the side of Reading Gaol overnight, the big question is, is it or isn't it? (a Banksy) I do wonder if creating a public tourist attraction in the middle of a pandemic isn't exactly the most socially responsible of acts, but then again, I guess when you have to spray, you have to spray?

 

Crisp and sunny

So nice to see a bit of this over the weekend just passed, Saturday in particular was a classic crisp yet sunny day, perfect for long walks and working on those ever present little jobs in the garden. Cutting back excessive tree growth from last year and chopping wood certainly kept the body temperature up sufficiently to not need a overcoat for most of the day! Hopefully we'll see a few more days like this in March before the Spring gets going proper and our gloves and scarfs can go back into the bottom drawer for the Summer.