The Lodge, Sandy May 2013.

Ooopps. Just found this entry which I uploaded photos for, but did not enter any explanation or captions.

Oh well, the photos are pretty!

It is a visit I made to the RSPB's reserve and headquarters at The Lodge, Sandy back in May.

I am not sure if this post will appear in the right place, or whether it will pop up at the top of the timeline. Only one way to find out.....

What I am doing today.

It's my day off.

I'm having a bit of a tidy up. Mrs HB is out for most of the day.

First I am re-arranging kitchen cupboards to try to fit in all the jam and pickle we have made recently.

I have thrown away some old food  (I really hate doing that, I detest waste)  including a packet of poppadoms we should have used over six years ago. How does this happen? The cupboard itself is only four years old!

Cleaned out shed.

Cleaned out rabbits.

Fettled bicycle.

And time for tea. Soya milk as a protest against the culling of badgers. 

I am not sure that boycotting british (deliberate small 'b') dairy farmers is really targetting the true offenders. I believe the cull is more about promoting the interests of shooters and the semi-domesticated Indian chickens they like to blast away at.

Wow, done all that stuff and its not even lunchtime!

In which bus, train, bicycle and walking are clearly inferior to the Great God Motor-Car.

Yesterday at work my boss asked if I would be willing to work for three months at another unit within my NHS Trust. The unit, in a neighbouring town, is having some staffing difficulties.
It is some ten miles away and is served by frequent buses. It is just two stops on the railway, and I can walk or cycle at the other end.

If it were summer I would cycle all the way.
So that's easy then. 

Er, actually no. The modern matron did not want me because I do not own a car.

Lucky she does not know who always arrives first at my regular place of work or she would look stupid.


*  Update.  A few days later one of our qualified nurses was an hour late for work as she could not remember where she had left her car keys.

Can't believe it is three months since I wrote something here.      But it is.

Whitwell For Lunch.

As it says on the tin. I had a day off. It was lunchtime. I had nothing in particular to do.

So, I got on my bike and rode a few km to a local village to eat a picnic lunch.

Here are some photographs.

Bicycle in his natural habitat.

St Pauls Walden church.

St Pauls Walden churchyard. Careful scrutiny will reveal a little owl perched top left of the classical column.

St Pauls Walden churchyard.

St Pauls Walden churchyard.

St Pauls Walden churchyard.

We are just on the edge of the Chilterns.

Too steep for me to cycle either up or down.

Better than the BBC.

Two views of Norton Green Common. The sign, recently erected by Stevenage BC is a summary of the byelaws.
Among those activities forbidden in this jungle of bramble and blackthorn are breaking in or racing of horses, setting up shows and quarrying. So I just took photos.

More Training 1st - 5th July.

A weeks training in the south-west of the county. On Monday I felt under the weather so I decided to go as far as I could by bus. The closest point one can reach without getting up at silly o'clock is about 3km. The Arriva 797 coach was efficient as always, but I was let down by the non-running of the Uni Bus so I arrived forty minutes late. Not a good start!

On days 2, 4 and 5 I cycled and had a mostly pleasant time. On day three (Wednesday) I again caught the 797 but then walked the 16km round trip from Hatfield.

It sounds a long way, and I have done it in the dark through lying and falling snow, but today it was a really pleasant summertime ramble. At London Colney I saw my first ever hawfinch. Two were present, but I only managed to see one of them. No tree sparrows at Tyttenhanger, but one can't have everything.

Anyway, I took various photos along the way.

London Colney.

Tyttenhanger house.

Mineral conveyer at Tyttenhanger.

Tyttenhanger.

Cereal field at Napsbury/Old Parkbury.

Where I spent the week. Note the 'bike boxes' - sadly underused.
The training site is along a scary main road.

Ayot Green. I bet generations of local children have stories about this tree.

Historic sign at Welwyn.

Neglect at my training site. Good for insects though!

Orchid at Broad Colney.

Former Great North Road at Ayot Green.

River Mimram at Welwyn.

George Osborne - A Hopeless Chancellor?

George Osborne - A Hopeless Chancellor? *


Been thinking this out over the past few weeks. It is quite possibly rubbish, but bear with me.

First a bit of background. We have the phenomenon of global warming. Fresh water shortages are beginning to occur around the world. More violent storm events. Cheap energy is coming to an end. Pollution. Soil erosion. Salinification caused by over irrigating. Population growth. New competition for commodities caused by the rise in affluence in India, China etc. Will that do to be going on with?
Those in power have been nay-saying all this stuff for years.


Story One.
So George Osborne is incompetent as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Look at the mess he is making of the economy. All the cuts and nothing has really improved. A simple view, but attractive. Is the the kind of thing The Scum, sorry Sun prints in order to stay in touch with the ordinary 'hard-working family'? I don't know, I don't read it. It would not surprise me.


Story Two.
Maybe George Osborne is not quite that incompetent. He is is doing crap things to the economy, but he is directing a lot of cash to his rich mates and the Conservative Party's already rich backers. Typical Tory. 
Yes, that sounds very plausible. But the cuts are so deep. And aren't they rather vindictive?


Story Three.
Hey! Here's a scenario for you. After all the cuts the Tories are not likely to get back into power. So maybe George Osborne's actions reflect this. Perhaps he is enacting a combination of grabbing what he can for reasons of pure greed, and also selling off everything in sight so a future, non-neoliberal administration could not possibly be able to afford to rebuild a civil, democratic society. Yes, it fits!

And the above has been my personal opinion for months. In discussions at work etc I have tried to get my point of view across to purveyors of views one and two. I have really been convinced that this was the nearest to the truth.


Then I began thinking about all the world's problems, some of which are listed above. I thought about the powerful people in the world. They don't get to be, and remain, rich and powerful by being stupid.
So do they really believe that all the doomsday warnings are nonsense? They can afford all the best advice and intelligence. They must know that the wheels are going to come off very soon. Sure it is their short term interest to repudiate warnings. But are they just public refutations that conceal private concerns; private actions intended to gain time for self-protective actions?


Story Four.
So what is George Osborne doing? I think he realises that civilised society, within which all people are able to take an active and useful part, is incompatible with the coming shortages. There is no longer enough to support the kind of consumer culture that has developed since the early 20th century. We have run out of cheap ways to keep the populace satisfied. Commodoties and energy are increasing expensive. We can not dig our way out using ever more expensive technology. All the economic tricks involving credit, deregulation etc have been tried and served their useful lives. 
Ordinary people can no longer be bribed to be good citizens with mortgages, Electrolux and the church. Rule Britannia, gassy beer and page three have served their purpose.

Capitalism no longer has Communism to fight. Therefore it no longer has to pretend to be the virtuous option. It can show its claws to all and sundry and is powerful enough to not care.
There are no more solutions left except the old one of the powerful stealing from the weak. The rich will increasingly be retreating to their gated settlements and their country estates. They will still have the oil, the gas, the wholesome food. the good education. The rest, the majority, will not be able to afford these things and will be too busy scrabbling for the meagre crumbs that favoured members of the lower classes may be allowed.

So. you need to be rich to be powerful. You need the weak to remain that way. Keep them ignorant. Keep them afraid of terrorism. Keep them fighting each other. Set them against strangers. Keep them one pay-day away from starvation. Demonise them.

I used to think that the neo-liberals (yes, I'm looking at you too New Labour) had US society in mind as a model. Then I thought 'oh Shit! Its the Russian model'. Now I am convinced that it is the King William I model that we have to look forward to in fifty years.

Unless there is a revolution.



* George Osborne is used here as to represent all arrogant, greedy, sociopathic scum who, by whatever means, have found themselves at the top of the heap.